Gritty, downbeat and, in Hackman’s “Popeye” Doyle, fronted by one of the most unlikely heroes that cinema had seen, this was one of the great films of Hollywood’s most creatively uncompromising period.

| Jan 27, 2024

[The film] is neither a documentary nor a grim slice of life but simply entertainment -- violent and bloody, yes, but still the kind of action and suspense stuff that kept the pulp fiction magazine alive for years and still intrigues most of us.

| May 16, 2023

It's not what I want not because it fails but because of what it is. It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks.

| Jul 29, 2022

If you want a dog-eared guide book, stuffed with authentic detail, to the work of the New York narcotics squad, this is your film. It certainly is mine. Every element coalesces into a hard bunch of excitement you can't imagine belter done.

| Feb 10, 2022

No matter how hard I try to control my enthusiasm, I cannot help thinking that The French Connection is the most exciting, most stylish -- in fact, the best piece of cops-and-robbers cinema since the silents.

| Apr 15, 2021

Apart from telling a pretty exciting story with great mechanical skill, Friedkin examines the cop and his prey with a sceptic's eye.

| Apr 15, 2021

Quite efficient but pretty unremarkable.

| Apr 15, 2021

One of the most exciting and breathtaking chase films ever made.

| Apr 15, 2021

Connection tells a straight story, has some respect for its viewer's intelligence, and maintains dramatic situations that build with increasing tension from one scene to another.

| Apr 15, 2021

In spots, French Connection literally is breath-taking, far above the average cop film. And Hackman, for what he plays, is right on the money: He looks soiled, bitter, and quite hard, just like the movie around him.

| Apr 15, 2021

Gene Hackman's performance as Jimmy Doyle, a tough cop with a mean streak and an unbending determination, is the best thing this always good actor has ever done.

| Apr 15, 2021

The French Connection has the gritty authenticity of a first-rate documentary. When it looks cold outside, baby, you know it was.

| Apr 15, 2021

There are times in The French Connection when you feel you'll be lucky to get home alive.

| Apr 15, 2021

Its trigger-fast, explosive scenes and high-tension chase sequences (the one in "Bullitt"

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 22, 2015

To watch The French Connection now is to experience the shock of the old: a lost world of the city, and a lost style of film-making.

| Feb 19, 2013

There is only one problem with the excitement generated by this film. After it is over, you will walk out of the theater and, as I did, curse the tedium of your own life. I kept looking for someone who I could throw up against a wall.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 18, 2013

Hard as nail crime saga with a blistering central performance.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 13, 2012

Four decades after its initial release, William Friedkin's Oscar-sweeper The French Connection remains an electrifying achievement.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 11, 2011

It's hard to imagine it now, but there are only two types of cop movie: pre and post-The French Connection. That's how big it is.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 7, 2010

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

| Feb 20, 2009