his film The French Connection: "After I saw Z, I realized how I could shoot the French Connection. Because he [Costa-Gavras] shot 'Z' like a documentary. It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next. And that is an induced technique. It looks like he happened upon the scene and captured what was going on as you do in a documentary. My first films were documentaries too. So I understood what he was doing but I never thought you could do that in a feature at that time until I saw Z." On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% "fresh" score based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's consensus states: "Powerfully effective, this anti-fascist political thriller stands out as both high-conscience melodrama and high-tempo action movie." The film was voted in Time'''s list of The 15 Best Political Films of All Time. The film was selected to be screened in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Box office The film had a total of 3,952,913 admissions in France and was the 4th highest-grossing film of the year. It was also very popular in the United States grossing $17.3 million, being one of the top five highest-grossing non-English language films there. AccoladesZ was the second foreign-language film in Academy history to receive a nomination for Best Picture, after Grand Illusion. See also List of submissions to the 42nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of Algerian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Shanghai, a Hindi film based on Z'' References External links Z background and analysis at Plaka Z: Sounding the Alarm an essay by Armond White at the Criterion Collection 1969 films Films set in 1963 Algerian drama films 1960s French-language films 1960s Russian-language films 1960s English-language films 1960s crime thriller films French crime thriller films English-language French films English-language Algerian films Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe winners Edgar Award-winning works Existentialist films Films about assassinations Films based on Greek novels Films directed by Costa Gavras Films set in Greece Films shot in Algeria Films shot in France Films shot in Paris Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award Political films based on actual events 1960s in Greek