Bullitt

It is simply one of the most exciting and intelligent action films in years, probably the best good-cop film we can expect to encounter.

Good scripting and excellent direction by Peter Yates maintain deliberately low-key but mounting suspense.

There isn't much here, and what there is is awfully easy.

The action sequences are brilliant, done without trickery in real locations (including a great car chase which spawned a thousand imitations) to lend an extraordinary sense of immediacy to the shenanigans and gunfights.

Stlick, stylish and ineffably cool, this was perhaps McQueen's defining role. Also mention goes to the uncreditied star of the film; San Francisco.

McQueen is great in Bullitt, and the movie is great, because director Peter Yates understands the McQueen image and works within it. He winds up with about the best action movie of recent years.

‘…while the 110 mph car chase is one of cinema’s most visceral scenes, the whole package just sings as a study of driven machismo…

Over 54 years after its release, Bullitt remains one of the best thrillers in cinematic history with much thanks to its historic chase sequence.

Here is lean, mean perfection in the treatment of a screen standard, the detective melodrama. Steve McQueen is in top form as the convention-flouting cop involved in thwarting gangsters.

...seems to have established the template for a certain kind of cop movie (and television show).