2. The French Connection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugrhPlRcWo4 William Friedkin pops up again with one of the best crime thrillers in film history, such that it ended up winning five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and also helped propel Gene Hackman to worldwide fame as the beleaguered Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle. Though the story of cops trying to take down heroin smugglers was plenty engaging enough for Hackman to scoop up that Best Actor Oscar, we like to think it's the genius chase sequence, in which Doyle gets into a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans to chase down an enemy, who just happens to be in a train above the streets of New York City that clinches it. It's among the most unconventional and iconic chase sequences ever filmed - again, featured in the video game Driver - given that it's not even between two cars, and as visceral as the scene is, it also enhances Doyle's character development, cementing how thoroughly obsessive and dangerously determined he is. A chase that is at once incredibly nuanced and breakneck, Friedkin proves why he's an A-list filmmaker of the highest order.