Bullitt

Bullitt is Peter Yates’s tightly controlled 1968 crime thriller, following Steve McQueen as a laconic San Francisco detective. The film is celebrated for its inventive, high-speed car chase through the city, but it also builds tension through quieter observations of urban life and sharply drawn contrasts between San Francisco’s neighborhoods, institutions, and centers of power.

The screening presents the film on 35mm, with a supporting short, Visions of a City, shown beforehand. The program is part of the Harvard Film Archive series *Visions of a City, Or A Weekend in San Francisco*.

When: November 6, 2026

Showtime: 7:00 pm

Venue: Harvard Film Archive

Film: *Bullitt*

Director: Peter Yates

Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and Jacqueline Bisset

Format: 35mm, color

Run time: 114 minutes

Description: The film alternates bursts of action with the reserved presence of McQueen’s detective, using San Francisco as a richly textured setting. Its locations range from a rundown Embarcadero hideout to a powerful politician’s Pacific Heights mansion, as well as the detective’s quieter Nob Hill neighborhood. Extended sequences at San Francisco General Hospital and San Francisco International Airport place the characters in impersonal institutional spaces, reinforcing the film’s atmosphere of mounting pressure and encroaching corporate power.

Preceded by: *Visions of a City*, directed by Laurence Jordan.

Short-film details: United States, 1957/1978; 16mm, tinted black and white; 7 minutes.

Short-film description: Filmed in 1957 and completed in 1978, Jordan’s dreamlike portrait of Beat poet Michael McClure transforms San Francisco’s streets through reflective surfaces and visual distortion, creating a ghostly, fluid journey through the city.

Print source: Harvard Film Archive

Tickets: Price not available