Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 46 | Rotten: 1
Realistic, fast-paced and uncommonly smart, The French Connection is bolstered by stellar performances by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, not to mention William Friedkin's thrilling production.
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
Realistic, fast-paced and uncommonly smart, The French Connection is bolstered by stellar performances by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, not to mention William Friedkin's thrilling production.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 38,633
This gritty, fast-paced, and innovative police drama earned five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (written by Ernest Tidyman), and Best Actor (Gene Hackman). Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman) and his partner, Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider), are New York City police detectives on narcotics detail, trying to track down the source of heroin from Europe into the United States. Suave Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) is the French drug kingpin who provides a large percentage of
Oct 9, 1971 Wide
Sep 25, 2001
20th Century Fox
All Critics (48) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (55) | Rotten (1) | DVD (38)
A knockout police thriller with so much jarring excitement that it almost calls for comic-book expletives. POW! ZOWIE!
Producer Philip D'Antoni and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman have added enough fictional flesh to provide director William Friedkin and his overall topnotch cast with plenty of material, and they make the most of it.
Popeye also earned counterculture points by mistakenly shooting a federal agent and exhibiting a conspicuous lack of remorse.
This 1971 thriller about a heroin bust is solid, slick filmmaking, full of dirty cops, shrewd operators, and slam-bang action.
The French Connection is as amoral as its hero, as violent, as obsessed and as frightening.
It moves at magnificent speed, and exhausts itself in movement.
Four decades after its initial release, William Friedkin's Oscar-sweeper The French Connection remains an electrifying achievement.
Exciting cinema that's not to be missed by those in search of a fast-paced, well-crafted thriller.
well-acted, well-written and brilliantly directed film that could be recommended even to those viewers with little interest in history of cinema
Though it seems slower now, there's still steady movement. Doyle is like a nervous tiger on the prowl, one big itch looking for something to scratch, and Hackman delivers one of the best performances of his career.
Grounded in a gritty reality - and shot as such - it's still an action classic today that offers adrenaline-fueled pacing without insulting one's intelligence.
The movie itself is unassailably great, featuring Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman in two of their most famous roles.
With its deathless car chase, Friedkin's film became an instant American classic... [Blu-ray]
As you would expect when a Blu-ray release can't fit all the extras on a single disc, there are lots of special features here.
Fascinates us in an almost perverse way, gripping us with its tension, thrilling us with its action, and troubling us with its dystopic view of American society circa 1971.
When people talk about the Golden Age of movies in the 1970s, this is one of the ones that they're talking about.
Packed with memorable set pieces, tense action and a great script, this remains a classic cop thriller, and boasts one of Hackman's best performances.
William Friedkin's symphony of long, sharp shocks is memorable for any number of sequences.
Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle. What more can I say? No wonder its one of AFI's top 100 movies of all time and the result was five Oscars including Best Picture,Best Adapted Screenplay,and Best Actor of 1971. This was the movie that cemented Gene Hackman's career as one of the great action stars of the 1970's. This
August 4, 2006
Super Reviewer
If The French Connection isn't the coolest film ever made, then it's definitely in the top 5.
October 2, 2011Super Reviewer
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