YMMV / The Conversation

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Harry Caul had a mental breakdown after that family was killed. His colleagues all say flattering things to him, but behind his back they think he's washed-up and unstable. And that may have been why he was chosen to spy on Ann and Mark in the first place.
• Award Snub: It received three Academy Award nominations and went home empty-handed. Gene Hackman wasn't nominated for Best Actor and the only reason Francis Ford Coppola wasn't nominated for Best Director was because The Godfather Part II was also nominated and won. It DID however win the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes.
• Genius Bonus: Moran brags that twelve years earlier his phone tapping of a presidential candidate led to his defeat, but he doesn't want to name names. Since the film explicitly states that it's taking place in 1972, that means the candidate who got tapped in 1960 was...Richard Nixon.
  • Harsher in Hindsight when you consider subsequent real-life events. Finding out that the wiretaps lost him the election might have prompted Nixon's fictional, in-universe counterpart to create the famous Watergate tapes that in turn brought him down once again.
• Nightmare Fuel: See here.
• One-Scene Wonder: Robert Duvall.
  • Also Harry's mistress Amy, who displays a sense of warmth towards Harry while clearly being kept in the dark about his entire life and having her attempts to get to know him better shot down, something she admits to being unable to handle anymore.
• Paranoia Fuel
  Martin Stett: "We'll be listening to you."
• Retroactive Recognition: One of Harrison Ford's earliest roles.
• Signature Line: "He'd kill us if he got the chance."
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Since the movie came out during the Watergate scandal (and Harry uses bugging methods nearly identical to the Watergate burglars), everyone writing about the movie drew parallels between it and real life events. However, Coppola wrote the script nearly a decade before the movie went into production; the similarities are more a mixture of coincidental timing and Shown Their Work than political commentary.

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