Selected by the Production and Technology Branch.

35mm print! Steve McQueen gave arguably his most iconic screen performance in this influential police procedural directed by four-time Oscar nominee Peter Yates (Breaking Away). McQueen is San Francisco police detective Frank Bullitt, who uses unorthodox methods to investigate the murders of a mob witness and the policemen protecting him. The film’s outstanding technical elements include Frank P. Keller’s Oscar-winning film editing, William A. Fraker’s evocative location cinematography, and Lalo Schifrin’s cool jazz score, with stunt coordinator Carey Loftin supervising the groundbreaking car chase sequence, which is still as thrilling nearly sixty years later.

The Branch Selects program is made possible in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Academy Museum film programming is generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.