The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola

Box office

The film had a $1,600,000 budget and grossed $4,420,000 in the U.S.

Critical response

The film has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 68 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The site's critics consensus reads "This tense, paranoid thriller presents Francis Ford Coppola at his finest—and makes some remarkably advanced arguments about technology's role in society that still resonate today."[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[15]

Roger Ebert's contemporary review gave The Conversation four out of four stars and described Hackman's portrayal of Caul as "one of the most affecting and tragic characters in the movies".[16] In 2001, Ebert added The Conversation to his "Great Movies" list, describing Hackman's performance as a "career peak" and writing that the film "comes from another time and place than today's thrillers, which are so often simple-minded".[17]

In 1995, The Conversation was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[18] Gene Hackman has named the film his favorite of all those he has made. His performance in the lead role was listed as the 37th greatest in history by Premiere magazine in 2006.[19] In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the eleventh-best edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.[20]

The film ranked 33rd on the BBC's 2015 list of "100 Greatest American Films", voted by film critics from around the world.[21] In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked the film 8th among 69 counted winners of the Palme d'Or to date, concluding "Made in a flash between the first two Godfather movies, Coppola’s existential spy thriller has since become a pinnacle of the genre."[22]

Accolades

The Conversation won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, the highest honor at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.[23] The film was also nominated for three Academy Awards for 1974,[24] but lost to Coppola's own The Godfather Part II. It won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film.[25]