Bullitt
1968 · 113 min
Directed by Peter Yates. Written by Alan Trustman, Harry Kleiner. Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon.
Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses. This thriller includes one of the most famous car chases ever filmed.
Critics 98% · audiences 85% · streaming on Hoopla, Tubi · 2 Oscar nominations, 1 won
What they said about Bullitt
- 1968
terrific movie, just right for Steve McQueen: Fast, well acted, written the way people talk
— Critics' Pick, The New York Times
How it got made
Bullitt was co-produced by McQueen's Solar Productions and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. The film was pitched to Jack L. Warner as "doing authority differently".
Bullitt was director Peter Yates' first American film. He was hired after McQueen saw his 1967 U.K. feature, Robbery, with its extended car chase. Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Pictures had distributed Robbery, did not like the film much, but Alan Trustman, who saw the picture the week he was writing the Bullitt chase scenes, insisted that McQueen, Relyea, and D'Antoni (none of whom had ever heard of Yates) see Robbery and consider Yates as director for Bullitt.
In the original novel Mute Witness, the lead character is an older, overweight police lieutenant named Clancy. D'Antoni and his original co-producer Ernest Pintoff considered the film a vehicle for Spencer Tracy, but his death in 1967 ended that. McQueen was a great admirer of Tracy and took on the project, in part, as a tribute to him. The original novel was also set in New York City, not San Francisco.
At the box office
Bullitt garnered both critical acclaim and box-office success. It grossed $210,000 in its first week, including a Hall-record Saturday of $49,073. Produced on a $5.5 million budget, the film grossed $19 million in 1968, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film that year, and over $42.3 million in the U.S. through 2021.
Afterwards
The famous car chase was later referenced in, among others, Peter Bogdanovich's screwball comedy film, What's Up, Doc?, the Clint Eastwood film, The Dead Pool, in the Futurama episode, "Bendin' in the Wind", and in the Archer episode, "The Kanes". The car chase can be seen playing on the screen in the drive-in theater scene in the 2014 film, Need for Speed. The 13th episode of the TV series Alcatraz includes a recreation of the chase scene, with newer models of the Mustang and Charger. Bullitt producer Philip D'Antoni went on to film two more car chases, The French Connection and The Seven-Ups, both set and shot in New York City. "The Bullitt Mustang" was a season-six episode of Blue Bloods, in which the car was central to a plot involving its theft.
The Ford Mustang name has been closely associated with the film. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company released the Bullitt edition Ford Mustang GT. Another version of the Ford Mustang Bullitt, which is closer to resembling the original film Mustang, was released in 2008 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the film. A third version was released in 2018 for the 2019 and 2020 model years. In 2009, Bud Brutsman of Overhaulin built an authentic-looking replica of the Bullitt Mustang, fully loaded with modern components, for the five-episode 2009 TV series, Celebrity Rides: Hollywood's Speeding Bullitt, hosted by Chad McQueen, son of Steve McQueen.
The Mustang is featured in the 2003 video game Ford Racing 2, in a drafting challenge, on a course named Port Side. It appears in the Movie Stars category, along with other famous cars such as the Ford Torino from Starsky & Hutch and the Ford Mustang Mach 1 from Diamonds Are Forever. In the 2011 video game, Driver: San Francisco, the "Bite the Bullet" mission is based on the famous chase scene, with licensed versions of the Mustang and Charger from the film. In the 2021 video game Forza Horizon 5, the film is referenced (but not directly named) by characters discussing an extremely similar Mustang after it is found abandoned in a barn, and again once it is restored.