Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
★★★★ — Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Hal Needham had spent two decades as one of Hollywood's most respected stunt coordinators before Universal gave him the director's chair for this, his feature debut. Made on a modest $4.3 million budget, it earned somewhere north of $126 million at the box office, making it the second highest-grossing film of 1977 (behind only Star Wars, which is not bad company). The film arrived at the tail end of a brief but enthusiastic cycle of Southern-fried car chase pictures, a genre that CB radio culture and the countercultural hangover of the early 1970s had made briefly fashionable. Burt Reynolds was already a star, but this cemented him as a full-blown phenomenon, and it reunited him with Sally Field, the two having previously worked together on the 1977 television film Stay Hungry (the real-life romance that followed didn't hurt the chemistry on screen, either).
"Boy when I get home I'm gonna punch your mother in the mouth" Smokey and the Bandit is possibly the greatest movie ever made. This is my absolute guilty pleasure of a film. The Pontiac Transam, the Moustache, the soundtrack... and of course the cast. Jackie Gleason, Burt Reynolds, Butch Reed, Sally Fields... it's perfect. The stunts are great. The plot is corny as hell. The script is classic 70s. Honestly this is one of those rare films that will never get old.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1977 | Watched: 2025-04-08
Where to watch (UK)
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Hal Needham: The Cannonball Run (1981)
More with Burt Reynolds: White Lightning (1973) · The Cannonball Run (1981)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
