The Falcon and the Snowman

Based on a true story, this film follows Christopher Boyce, a young American hired to handle highly classified documents at a defense contractor that builds surveillance satellites. What he learns there shatters his faith in his own government, and he turns against the system he once served. With his childhood friend Daulton Lee, a small-time drug dealer, he begins passing top-secret material to the Soviet Union. The pair are amateurs rather than professionals, and their operation soon draws the attention of both superpowers.

John Schlesinger directed the film, which came in the middle of a run that began with Billy Liar in 1963 and continued through Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Marathon Man. Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay, and Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn play Boyce and Lee, with Pat Hingle, Joyce Van Patten and Richard Dysart among the credited cast of fifty-three. The production, made in the United Kingdom and the United States, cost 12 million dollars and returned 17 million worldwide.

On IMDb the film holds 6.8 out of 10 from about 14,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.4 from 184 votes. Critics rated it 7.3 from twenty-four reviews, higher than either audience figure.