Motoring

If there's one thing that Gene Hackman is good at playing, it's angry and frantic. He transfers both of these qualities over into his driving in William Friedkin's arresting cop/crook thriller 'The French Connection'. Few films that won the Best Picture Oscar contain a car chase, never mind one as brilliant or realistic as this.

Hackman's cop character Jimmy Doyle is pursuing a suspect who has hijacked a monorail that effortlessly cuts over New York City, while he has to settle for a car that ploughs through the busy traffic below. Much of it was shot without the proper permits - one man's car was involved in a crash as he was on his way to work, unaware that a chase was being filmed.