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.

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