His finest films—Cruising (1980), The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), To Live and Die in L.A.—are lotuses in the mung, gloriously efflorescent spores on the fertilizer of innumerable Z-grade genre formulas: the good bad cop, the haunted teenager, the thin line between law and fate.

By Adam Nayman Despite its ruggedly physical mien, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer is a haunted movie, possessed by the unavoidable spectre of its smash-hit predecessor The Exorcist (1974). Even as he ostensibly disavowed the supernatural in what was originally intended to be a moderately-budgeted in-between picture before he embarked on a major production about the Bermuda…

By Olivier Père With The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), to cite some of his most famous films, William Friedkin has made a deep impact on contemporary American cinema, establishing himself as one of the most talented and uncompromising of the New…