Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★ 13

  If loneliness had a sound it would be the score from this movie.

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  Review by brat pacino ★★★★ 11

  “Feeling that the character was one-dimensional, Harrison Ford decided to play him as gay, a risky choice in 1974, and personally purchased the loud green silk suit for 900 dollars (4,285 in 2015 dollars). Francis Ford Coppola was at first shocked by the outfit at rehearsals, but after discussing it with Ford, was so impressed with this interpretation, that he expanded the role into a supporting character, gave the character a name (Martin Stett) and had Production Designer Dean Tavoularis create an office that reflected the character's orientation.” - IMDb

  fellas is it gay to wear a green suit and have a well-decorated office 🤔

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  Review by Rida ★★★★★ 79

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  It’s one thing to be living alone in your twenties. It’s an entirely different situation when you’re forty-two, overly paranoid, and almost completely friendless. Harry Caul (whose name probably has more significance than its resemblance to the word call) is a surveillance man, a professional eavesdropper who quiets his bouts of conscience by going to confession and abstaining from taking the Lord’s name in vain. The Conversation follows him furtively, even intrusively, as he nears a mental breakdown after realizing that his work may have yet again become the catalyst to a murder.

  I’m not afraid of death. I am afraid of murder.

  Harry wouldn’t like us following him around like this. Coppola constantly makes us aware of our intrusion…

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  Review by esther ★★★★ 14

  gasped like an idiot at the reveal in this literally 50 year old movie. that’s cinema baby.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 7

  84

  I could probably only count on one hand the number of performances I find better than Gene Hackman's in The Conversation. Total, sustained alienation pervaded by frustration and guilt of profession, all internalized and instead seen through a drooping stance, an elongated eye-to-eye encounter with a pen placed in his front suit pocket, a wandering complexion. Harry's dream is so very important because it's the only moment where he truly speaks to another human being, and yet it isn't fueled by compassion but by the bubbling guilt under the surface, only seen in compositions manipulated via negative space. Its main jump scare is one of the best, too.

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  Review by liam f ★★★★ 3

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  in all seriousness though, what would you do if your toilet just started bleeding

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 1

  Trying to maintain a professional, technical distance in a craft that requires not just puncturing but shattering illusions of privacy and intimacy. A stone-cold isolation and anxiety classic. “I’m not following you, I’m looking for you. Big difference.” 

  [35mm]

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  Review by sarah squirm ★★★★★ 2

  gene hackman: the noise musician

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  Review by Joe ★★★★★ 9

  "Since when are you here to be entertained?"

  As thriller-metaphors for the act of movie-watching go, I'd take this even over Rear Window. Harry has so much in common with the archetypal cinephile, neglecting (or foregoing altogether) his personal life in favor of his voyeuristic obsession, which he in turn tries to avoid any emotional or moral engagement with - it's all about the quality of the recording, the technical requirements his work must fulfill, the substance of what's recorded on the tape having nothing to do with him (so he says). But his conscience nags him, he takes a leap, he does the very thing he wants to avoid and gets emotionally involved, gets engaged, and attempts to interpret ... and does so incorrectly. Poor guy will probably never post another Letterboxd review ever again.

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  Review by Aaron ★★★★★ 14

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  “He’d kill us if he got the chance.”

  I’ve been thinking about The Conversation ever since watching Her. Very different films, I know, but both are about melancholy mustachioed men with questionable sartorial taste retreating from human contact behind a shroud of electronics. It doesn’t work out too well for either of them, although Her’s Theodore Twombly comes out of it much better than The Conversation’s Harry Caul (Gene Hackman, in a brilliantly controlled performance).

  Surveillance is Harry’s trade. He’s obsessed with his own privacy; he knows how to avoid detection. He’s called the best surveillance man on the East Coast. At first we think we can see why. His use of sophisticated equipment and techniques and his tireless devotion…

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  Review by brendan o'hare ★★★★½ 1

  Minus 1/2 star because when Gene Hackman was watching The Flintstones his TV was blurry. Would have been nice to see Fred in all his glory

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  Review by Laura ★★★½ 3

  maybe they bugged his apartment just so they could listen to his saxophone playing, did he ever think of that?