Academy Award for Best Picture

1971

The French Connection

Release dates

October 9, 1971 (USA)

Starring

Gene Hackman

Fernando Rey

Roy Scheider

Tony Lo Bianco

Marcel Bozzuffi

The French Connection is a 1971 American dramatic thriller film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Philip D'Antoni. It starred Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey and Roy Scheider. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore. It tells the story of New York Police Department detectives named "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, whose real-life counterparts were Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. Egan and Grosso also appear in the film, as characters other than themselves. The music score was by Don Ellis.

It was the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since the introduction of the MPAA film rating system (Midnight Cowboy had won with an X). It also won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Hackman), Best Director (Friedkin), Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Tidyman). It was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Scheider), Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing. Tidyman also received a Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild of America Award and an Edgar Award for his screenplay. It has since been labeled as one of the greatest American films by the American Film Institute.

In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."