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The French Connection

Oscar™ Best Picture - Winning Movies

1971

William Friedkin

Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco ...

7.3

25,580

Thriller Two tough New York City cops, Jimmy Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Rosso (Roy Scheider), try to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming in from France.

	Media	Author	Review
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Routinely included (...) on the short list of movies with the greatest chase scenes of all time. What is not always remembered is what a good movie it is apart from the chase scene (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		Dave Kehr Chicago Reader	"Solid, slick filmmaking, full of dirty cops, shrewd operators, and slam-bang action."
		Budd Wilkins Slant	"An electrifying achievement (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"To watch 'The French Connection' now is to experience the shock of the old: a lost world of the city, and a lost style of film-making."
		Andrew Collins Empire	"Hard as nail crime saga with a blistering central performance (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Geoff Andrew Time Out	"The performances are strong (...) The real problems, however, are that Friedkin's nervy, noisy, undisciplined pseudo-realism sits uneasily with his suspense-motivated shock editing"
		Vikram Murthi IndieWire	"It features some of the finest Hollywood filmmaking of its time and a great, committed performance from Gene Hackman (...) There are sequences in 'The French Connection' that inspire utter awe"
		Keith Phipps AV Club	"Friedkin never tries to shake off the grit of the real, using New York locations brilliantly, and finding moments of cinéma vérité poetry in seemingly casual moments"
		Gene Siskel Chicago Tribune	"Good films about modern American crimes have been few and far between in the last half-dozen years, and 'The French Connection' beautifully fills the void (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		Robert B. Frederick Variety	"Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider are very believable (...) A good fast film"
		Jay Cocks Time	"'The French Connection' is a knockout police thriller with so much jarring excitement that it almost calls for comic-book expletives. POW!, ZOWIE!"
		R.L. Shaffer IGN	"A reflection of and a comment on what was happening in the country. At the same time, it is a damn good detective movie."

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