Any film director planning a chase sequence still does so with this 1971 William Friedkin movie in mind, because it remains, all these decades later, the gold standard for location chase films. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider star as New York detectives whose persistence is as indefatigable as their abrasiveness – and yet, for all their dedication and stubbornness, there’s a lot of 70s-era bleakness in The French Connection as well. Great movie – and the chop-shop sequence was honored, and somewhat recreated, recently in an extended sequence in AMC’s Better Call Saul. Watch for it.