The French Connection (1971)

That car chase. You know the one. A Pontiac LeMans tearing through Brooklyn at speeds that make your palms sweat just watching, weaving past traffic, clipping kerbs, nearly mowing down pedestrians while a train thunders overhead. I've seen it more times than I can count and it still puts my stomach in my throat. But here's the thing about The French Connection that doesn't get said enough: the chase isn't even the best part. It's the hour-plus of grimy, patient, sweat-soaked detective work that makes the chase matter.

William Friedkin dragged this film out of the gutter of 1970s New York and refused to clean it up for anyone. There's no glamour here, no Hollywood sheen. What you get instead is cigarette smoke, paranoia, surveillance from freezing doorways, and Gene Hackman as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, one of the most morally complicated protagonists American cinema has ever produced. Doyle is driven, abrasive, occasionally brutal, and absolutely magnetic. You follow him not because he's likeable but because Hackman makes him so completely, uncomfortably real. It's an Oscar-winning turn that deserved every bit of the recognition.

The filmmaking itself feels almost reckless in the best way. Handheld cameras, natural lighting, improvised dialogue, actors eating and drinking and arguing like the crew just happened to be there with a lens. It's the kind of authenticity that most crime films reach for and never quite find. I think about To Live and Die in L.A. fairly often when watching this, a film that clearly studied Friedkin's methods here and ran with them into its own blistering car chase and morally grey police procedural. The lineage is obvious and thrilling.

Roy Scheider brings real warmth and credibility as Doyle's partner, and Fernando Rey is quietly menacing as the European smuggler at the centre of it all. The story unfolds through surveillance, hunches, dead ends, and street-level instinct rather than exposition dumps or tidy plotting. You feel like you're earning every development alongside Doyle. The tension builds not through set pieces but through the mounting pressure of a case that keeps slipping just out of reach.

Which makes the finale all the more jarring. After such meticulous, disciplined build-up, the climax arrives with an abruptness that genuinely startles. The final confrontation lacks the weight you've been waiting for, and the ending, thematically fitting as it is, lands so suddenly you half-wonder if a reel went missing. You're left stunned and slightly wrong-footed rather than satisfied. It's a real creative choice, and I respect what it's going for, but I won't pretend I didn't want just a little more.

Still, mixed feelings about the last five minutes don't come close to undoing what surrounds them. This is raw, brilliant filmmaking from a director at the absolute top of his powers. Friedkin would go on to make The Exorcist (1973) just two years later, another film that gets under your skin through atmosphere and dread rather than cheap tricks, and you can feel the same restless, uncompromising sensibility at work in both. The man had something rare going on in that period.

The French Connection took home Best Picture and it deserved it. Not a perfect film, no, but damn close, and the kind of close that matters. Brutal, immersive, and genuinely breathless in a way that most thrillers only pretend to be. Four stars, and I'd recommend it to anyone who thinks modern crime cinema has the genre figured out. Watch this first.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 1971  | Watched: 2025-11-12

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · fuboTV · YouTube TV · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Fandango At Home
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from William Friedkin: Cruising (1980) · To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) · Killer Joe (2011) · The Exorcist (1973)
More with Gene Hackman: Scarecrow (1973) · Unforgiven (1992)
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 crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)