Hello, everyone, and welcome to Slash Film Daily. Today is Friday, February 28, 2025. On today's episode of the show, we're going to be talking about some of our favorite Gene Hackman movies. My name is Ben Pearson. I'm an editor at Slashfilm.com, and I'm joined on today's episode by Slash Film staff writer Jeremy.

Hi, Ben. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, Jeremy. Thank you so much for joining me. We are here to talk about the

legendary Gene Hackman, who died earlier this week at the age of 95, along with his wife and one of

his dogs. And last I heard, the deaths were classified by the authorities as quote-unquote

suspicious and an investigation is underway and they're not ruling out carbon

monoxide poisoning. The whole thing is just deeply sad and very upsetting and movie fans everywhere,

including us at Slashfilm, have been sharing our tributes and remembrances. And I thought

that we'd take some time to do that here today. So, Jeremy, before we really dig in, maybe for some of our

younger listeners who didn't grow up with new Gene Hackman movies every few years, because

we retired over 20 years ago now, can you put him into context for people? Like what, I guess,

how would you describe his career? I think he was the,

the quintessential movie star of the new Hollywood era, which began in the late 1960s and stretched

through the 70s. This is the era that gave us Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg,

you know, all of these amazing filmmakers who were making movies that looked and sounded different

than those of their predecessors.

They kind of were shaking off the back lot, that studio

backlot look, you know, the big musicals, the big epic, you know, costume epics and everything

and making movies, you know, taking the cameras to the street, kind of like the Italian

realists did back in the 40s and 50s.

And they were, it was just kind of a time where Hollywood was really shaken up.

Movies, they were grittier.

They just felt more real.

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