The Day of the Jackal

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The Day of the Jackal

PG

1973

2h 21m

Mystery & Thriller

Crime

Drama

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Popcornmeter

91%

Tomatometer

35 Reviews

88%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

An underground French paramilitary group is intent on eliminating President Charles de Gaulle (Adrien Cayla-Legrand), but when numerous attempts on his life fail, they resort to hiring the infamous hit man known as "The Jackal" (Edward Fox). As the enigmatic assassin prepares to shoot de Gaulle, he takes out any problematic people along the way. Meanwhile, Lebel (Michel Lonsdale), a savvy Parisian police detective, begins to solve the mystery of the killer's identity.

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Critics Consensus

The Day of the Jackal is a meticulously constructed thriller with surprising irreverence and taut direction.

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Penelope Gilliatt

The New Yorker

03/04/2024

It is the sustained gentleness of Fred Zinnemann’s professional temperament that makes the picture a clockwork amusement to watch.

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Keith Uhlich

(All (Parentheses)) (Substack)

12/20/2022

Possesses a tonal coldness that aligns viewers with the assassin’s reptilian machinations. —Guest post by Michael Joshua Rowin

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William B. Collins

Philadelphia Inquirer

06/14/2022

As the tension rises, you feel terribly helpless. You just have to sit there and let it happen.

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Michael Calleri

Niagara Gazette

Jul 21

It may be fiction, but Fred Zinnemann’s “The Day Of The Jackal” feels like a great documentary. The masterful movie proceeds with the precision of a Swiss watch. There is a terrific cinematic beauty to the film’s foundational realism.

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Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

Jul 6

4/4

...Fox gives us a fleshed-out performance of an intelligent killer who will stop at nothing to take out his target, carefully plotting the assassination but relying on his wits to evade Claude Lebel (Lonsdale) at every twist and turn.

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Eddie Harrison

film-authority.com

11/15/2024

5/5

…a great movie because of the detail…the Jackal is the logical extension of the triumph of money over the human spirit, an remorseless killer with zero inner life, existing only to thwart the will of the people for his own personal gain...

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Sharon S.

@collegepath1 Jan 10

It’s a classic and we even picked up on more points that were given a role in the remake with Eddy Redmayne

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Paul D

@madmanfrommadtown Jan 5

It's 90 minutes of fairly basic "cat and mouse" type thing. That's all fine. But then in the end what happens is the detective can't catch the mouse and decides to just go to DeGaulle's speech... where he happens to see an open window and goes up and catches the assassin. So the whole movie was pretty much a joke on the audience. None of it mattered. They could have just posted look outs on the rooftops and saved everyone the trouble. It's like a murder mystery where they spend 90 minutes making you think "is it the butler? the lover?" and in the last scene, that the killer was just a random psychopath with no motive at all.

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Robert L.

@bobdaboss Nov 14

Absolute cinema. Fred Zinnemann, you meticulous son of a gun. Had me locked in like I took a 30mg Adderall. Easily my favorite political thriller. Edward Fox was great.

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Tom M

Oct 15

After reading the novel after watching the tv remake, I decided to take in the original adapted film. Cold, consice and sticking fairly close to the book, this has a forward momentum over quite a long movie run time. Interesting to see how they get through some of the plot difficulties, but this is solid film making.

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Xiaoyu X.

@Xiaoyu Sep 25

Masterpiece. The acting, the scenery, and the editing all tremendous…Except Jackal’ wife is too hysterical. We audience came home tired from work and only wanna see some real legend, real romance.

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D P

Apr 4

This was an excellent movie. I did not expect this quality of story crafting from a movie in the 70s. I was fully invested in the outcome of this plot.

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Fred Zinnemann

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Edward Fox

The Jackal

Michaël Lonsdale

Lebel

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Synopsis

An underground French paramilitary group is intent on eliminating President Charles de Gaulle (Adrien Cayla-Legrand), but when numerous attempts on his life fail, they resort to hiring the infamous hit man known as "The Jackal" (Edward Fox). As the enigmatic assassin prepares to shoot de Gaulle, he takes out any problematic people along the way. Meanwhile, Lebel (Michel Lonsdale), a savvy Parisian police detective, begins to solve the mystery of the killer's identity.

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Producer: John Woolf, David Deutsch, Julian Derode
Screenwriter: Frederick Forsyth, Kenneth Ross
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Co: Universal/Universal Int
Rating: PG
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Crime, Drama
Original Language: British English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 30, 1973, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 11, 2015
Runtime: 2h 21m

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