The French Connection

The French Connection is a 1971 American neo-noir crime action thriller film starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, and Fernando Rey, and directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay, written by Ernest Tidyman, is based on Robin Moore's 1969 book of the same name. It tells the story of fictional NYPD detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, whose real-life counterparts were Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, in pursuit of wealthy French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier.