Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is an expert surveillance man in San Francisco. His routine wiretapping job turns into a nightmare when he hears something disturbing in his recording of a couple; he may have captured something a lot more important than adulterous goings-on. His investigation of the tape and how it might be used sends Harry spiraling into a web of secrecy, murder and paranoia.
Critics Reviews:
- “Although not as formidable in scope and ambition as the Godfather films, this paranoid thriller is arguably one of the high points of the director Francis Ford Coppola’s extraordinary run of form in the early 1970s.” – Wendy Ide (Times (UK))
- “As a thriller alone, The Conversation would be worth our attention. But as a thriller which also expresses our actual and collective nightmares, it absolutely demands it.” – Joy Gould Boyum (Wall Street Journal)
- “Coming after the dark, sumptuous classicism of The Godfather, The Conversation's choppy, elliptical style looked almost like the work of a different filmmaker, one willing to take risks with new forms and techniques.” – Adam Nayman (The Ringer)
