The French Connection: Critic Reviews

It moves at magnificent speed, and exhausts itself in movement.

Popeye also earned counterculture points by mistakenly shooting a federal agent and exhibiting a conspicuous lack of remorse.

The French Connection is as amoral as its hero, as violent, as obsessed and as frightening.

This 1971 thriller about a heroin bust is solid, slick filmmaking, full of dirty cops, shrewd operators, and slam-bang action.

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.

A knockout police thriller with so much jarring excitement that it almost calls for comic-book expletives. POW! ZOWIE!

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

Grounded in a gritty reality - and shot as such - it's still an action classic today that offers adreniline-fueled pacing without insulting one's intelligence.

With its deathless car chase, Friedkin's film became an instant American classic... [Blu-ray]

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.

This is your typical cop movie with good performances from Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider.

An excellent thriller, with one of the best chase scenes in American film, that also revolves around a fascinating character, a tough, vulgar, bigoted cop, obsessed with his job, splendidly played by Gene Hackman in an Oscar-winning turn.

An urban crime thriller which won undeserved acclaim for its efficient but unremarkable elevated-railway chase and its clumsy, showy emphasis on grainy, sordid realism.

A good film, but not as great as some remember it to be.

Cop drama with heft

The movie is one of the undisputed must-sees of guydom.

Intense.

Fast-paced urban crime thriller that catches the authentic flavor of the NYC locations.