Event Details
Director William Friedkin helped usher in a new era of gritty police dramas with this fact-based thriller about an unscrupulous New York cop (Gene Hackman, in a star-making, Best Actor-winning performance) and his sidekick (Roy Scheider) who face an international drug ring. A winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture and Directing, The French Connection set a high bar for documentary-inspired realism in commercial cinema while featuring one of the most exciting car-chase scenes of all time.
Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.
1971 | 104 min. | USA | Color | English | Rated R | 35mm
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
WRITTEN BY: Ernest Tidyman
WITH: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.