Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is the best known surveillance specialist in the business; paranoid, and antisocial, he lives a solitary, guarded life. When a mysterious client and his assistant ask him to spy on a young couple in a San Francisco square, Caul accepts this job. But something feels peculiar about the conversation between those two people, and he begins to suspect they may be involved in a murder plot. Previously neutral about the ethics of his profession, Caul must decide whether to pursue his suspicions; as he does so, this professional eavesdropper and intensely private man finds his own privacy being violated. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, Coppola’s legendary conspiracy thriller, one of the key American films of the 1970s, is re-released in a glorious 4K restoration.

Notes by David O’Mahony