This movie won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1971. It won it against "A Clockwork Orange", a landmark Stanley Kubrick film. To me it always seemed that the decision to give the Oscar to "The French Connection" was one of the biggest mistakes in Academy award history. Well, I saw it today again and well, I am not so sure whether I can still think that way.
This is one great movie. I know realize how it combined an European style of filmmaking with an American film noir sensibility. Gene Hackman is absolutely stunning as cop Popeye Doyle, a racist, hateful man that became one of the great antiheroes of the 1970's. The movie has a gritty realism that all action movies lack today. And, it has the best car chase in movies. No CGI. Just amazing stuntwork.
And the movie keeps you glued to your seat. It works as an action film, it works as a character study. It is an amazing movie.
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