Traffic is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan. It explores the illegal drug trade from several perspectives: users, enforcers, politicians, and traffickers. Their stories are edited together throughout the film, although most characters do not meet each other. The film is an adaptation of the 1989 British Channel 4 television series Traffik. The film stars an international ensemble cast, including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas, Tomas Milian, Topher Grace, James Brolin, Steven Bauer, and Benjamin Bratt. It features both English and Spanish-language dialogue.
20th Century Fox, the original financiers of the film, demanded that Harrison Ford play a leading role and that significant changes to the screenplay be made. Soderbergh refused and proposed the script to other major Hollywood studios; it was rejected because of the three-hour running time and the subject matter—Traffic is more of a political film than most Hollywood productions. USA Films, however, liked the project from the start and offered the filmmakers more money than Fox. Soderbergh operated the camera himself and adopted a distinctive color grade for each story line so that audiences could tell them apart.
Traffic was released in the United States on December 27, 2000, and received critical acclaim for Soderbergh's direction, the film's style, complexity, messages, and the cast's performances (particularly del Toro's). Traffic earned numerous awards, including four Oscars (from five nominations): Best Director for Steven Soderbergh, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro, Best Adapted Screenplay for Stephen Gaghan and Best Film Editing for Stephen Mirrione. It was also a commercial success with a worldwide box-office revenue total of $207.5 million, well above its estimated $48 million budget.
In 2004, USA Network ran a miniseries—also called Traffic—based on the film and the 1989 British television series.
Plot
Mexico story line
In Mexico, police officers Javier Rodriguez and Manolo Sanchez stop a drug transport. General Salazar, a high-ranking Mexican official, interrupts their arrest to offer Javier a special assignment: apprehending Francisco Flores, a hitman for the Tijuana Cartel, headed by the Obregón brothers.
In Tijuana, under torture, Flores gives Salazar the names of Obregón cartel members, who are arrested. Javier and Salazar's efforts cripple the Obregóns' cocaine outfit, but Javier discovers that Salazar is a pawn of the rival Juárez Cartel; Salazar's anti-drug campaign is a charade to wipe out the Juárez Cartel's competitors.
Sanchez attempts to sell information about Salazar's true affiliation to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but Salazar has him murdered in the desert with Javier forced to watch. Javier had also been working on arranging a deal with the DEA to testify against Salazar in exchange for electricity in his neighborhood to keep local children from being tempted by street gangs and crime. Salazar's secrets are revealed, and he is arrested.
Javier makes a statement to the media about the widespread corruption in the police force and army. Later, Javier watches as children play baseball at night in their new stadium.
Wakefield story line
Robert Wakefield, a conservative Ohio judge, is appointed to head the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy as drug czar, though he is warned that the war on drugs is unwinnable. Meanwhile, Robert's teenage daughter Caroline has been using cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, developing a drug addiction after her boyfriend Seth introduces her to freebasing. Caroline, Seth, and their friend Vanessa are arrested when they try to dump an overdosing fellow student at a hospital. Robert and his wife Barbara struggle to deal with Caroline's addiction, which Barbara has secretly known about for months.
Robert finds himself caught between his demanding new position and difficult family life. Visiting Mexico, he is encouraged by Salazar's successful efforts in hurting the Obregón brothers. Returning to Ohio, Robert learns that Caroline has run away to Cincinnati after stealing money from her parents to pay for drugs.
Dragging Seth along, Robert searches Cincinnati for his daughter. After a drug dealer who is prostituting Caroline refuses to reveal her whereabouts, Robert breaks into a seedy hotel room and finds a semi-conscious Caroline in the company of an older man. In Washington, D.C. to present a "10-point plan" to win the war on drugs, Robert falters halfway through the speech, and tells the press that the war on drugs implies a war on one's own family, which he cannot endorse. Later, Robert and Barbara attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting with Caroline, telling the other attendees that they are "here to listen".
Ayala/DEA story line
In San Diego, an undercover DEA investigation led by Montel Gordon and Ray Castro leads to the arrest of Eduardo Ruiz, a dealer posing as a fisherman. Ruiz gives up his boss, drug lord Carl Ayala, the Obregóns' biggest distributor in the United States. Ayala is indicted by a tough prosecutor, hand-selected by Robert Wakefield to send a message to the cartels.
As Ayala's trial begins, his pregnant wife Helena learns of her husband's true profession from his associate, Arnie Metzger. Facing the prospect of life imprisonment for her husband and death threats against her child, Helena hires Flores to assassinate Ruiz and end the trial nolle prosequi. Flores plants a car bomb, but he is killed by a sniper in retaliation for his cooperation with General Salazar, and the bomb meant to kill Ruiz instead kills Agent Castro.
Knowing Ruiz will soon testify, Helena makes a deal with Juan Obregón, who forgives the Ayala family's debt and has Ruiz poisoned. Ayala is released, and he deduces that Metzger accepted $3 million to inform on Ruiz to the FBI and facilitate Ayala's downfall; Metzger is later visited by armed men. Soon after Ayala's release, Gordon bursts into his homecoming celebration and is forced out. Having planted a listening device under Ayala's desk, Gordon smiles as he walks away.
Relationship to actual events
Some aspects of the plotline are based on actual people and events:
- The character General Arturo Salazar is closely modeled after Mexican General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, who was secretly on the payroll of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juárez Cartel.
- The character Porfirio Madrigal is modeled after Fuentes.
- The Obregón brothers are modeled after the Tijuana Cartel's Arellano Félix brothers.
At one point in the film, an El Paso Intelligence Center agent tells Robert his position, official in charge of drug control, does not exist in Mexico. As noted in the original script, a Director of the Instituto Nacional para el Combate a las Drogas was created by the Attorney General of Mexico in 1996.
Cast
Production
Development
Steven Soderbergh had been interested in making a film about the drug wars for some time but did not want to make one about addicts. Producer Laura Bickford obtained the rights to the British television miniseries Traffik (1989) and liked its structure. Soderbergh, who had seen the miniseries in 1990, started looking for a screenwriter to adapt it into a film. They read a script by Stephen Gaghan called Havoc, about upper-class white kids in Palisades High School doing drugs and getting involved with gangs. Soderbergh approached Gaghan to work on his film but found he was already developing a film about drugs for producer/director Edward Zwick. Bickford and Soderbergh approached Zwick, who agreed to merge the two projects and come aboard as a producer. Fox CEO Bill Mechanic championed the film, but he departed from the studio by the time the first draft was finished. It went back into turnaround. Mechanic had also wanted to make some changes to the script, but Soderbergh disagreed and decided to shop the film to other major studios. They all turned him down because they were not confident in the prospects of a three-hour film about drugs, according to Gaghan. Those who agreed, including U.S. Senators Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, and Don Nickles, and Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, were filmed in a scene that was entirely improvised. This meant that almost all of Benicio del Toro's dialogue would be subtitled. Once the studio realized this, they suggested that his scenes be shot in English and Spanish, but Soderbergh and del Toro rejected the suggestion. was worried that another actor would be brought in and re-record his dialogue in English after he had worked hard to master Mexican inflections and improve his Spanish vocabulary. Del Toro remembers: "Can you imagine? You do the whole movie, bust your butt to get it as realistic as possible, and someone dubs your voice? I said, 'No way. Over my dead body.' Steven was like, 'Don't worry. It's not gonna happen.'" In the opening credits of the film, Soderbergh tried to replicate the typeface from All the President's Men and the placement on-screen at the bottom left-hand corner. Analyzing this film helped the director deal with the large cast and working in many different locations for Traffic. downtown San Diego and La Jolla were utilized as the environment for the film.
Post-production
The first cut of Traffic ran three hours and ten minutes.
Reception
Box office performance
Traffic was given a limited release on December 27, 2000, in four theaters where it grossed on its opening weekend. It was given a wide release on January 5, 2001, in 1,510 theaters, grossing $15.5 million on its opening weekend. The film made $124.1 million in North America and $83.4 million in foreign markets for a worldwide total of $207.5 million, well above its estimated $46 million budget.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 222 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Soderbergh successfully pulls off the highly ambitious Traffic, a movie with three different stories and a very large cast. The issues of ethics are gray rather than black-and-white, with no clear-cut good guys. Terrific acting all around." On Metacritic, the film has received an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, and wrote: "The movie is powerful precisely because it doesn't preach. It is so restrained that at one moment—the judge's final speech—I wanted one more sentence, making a point, but the movie lets us supply that thought for ourselves". Stephen Holden, in his review for The New York Times, wrote: "Traffic is an utterly gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Or rather it is several interwoven thrillers, each with its own tense rhythm and explosive payoff". In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote: "Traffic marks [Soderbergh] definitively as an enormous talent, one who never lets us guess what he's going to do next. The promise of Sex, Lies, and Videotape has been fulfilled".
Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and praised Benicio del Toro's performance, which critic Owen Gleiberman called, "haunting in his understatement, [it] becomes the film's quietly awakening moral center". Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, wrote: "Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, who based this on a British television miniseries of the same name, have created an often exhilarating, soup-to-nuts exposé of the world's most lucrative trade". In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers wrote: "The hand-held camerawork – Soderbergh himself did the holding—provides a documentary feel that rivets attention". However, Richard Schickel of Time, in a rare negative review, finds the film's biggest weakness to be that it contains the "cliches of a hundred crime movies" before concluding that "Traffic, for all its earnestness, does not work. It leaves one feeling restless and dissatisfied". In an interview, director Ingmar Bergman lauded the film as "amazing".
Accolades
Steven Soderbergh received dual nominations for Best Director that year for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, winning the award for the latter.
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| rowspan="5"| Academy Awards
| Best Picture
| Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick, and Laura Bickford
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Film Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| ALMA Awards
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Feature Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Latino Cast in a Feature Film
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Soundtrack or Compilation for Television and Film
|
|-
| Amanda Awards
| Best Foreign Feature Film
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center"|
|-
| American Cinema Editors Awards
| Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic
| Stephen Mirrione
|
| align="center"|
|-
| American Film Institute Awards
| colspan="2"| Top 10 Movies of the Year
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Artios Awards
| Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Casting – Drama
| Debra Zane
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Berlin International Film Festival
| Golden Bear
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Best Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Black Reel Awards
| Best Supporting Actor
| Don Cheadle
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
| Favorite Actor – Drama
| Michael Douglas
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Favorite Supporting Actor – Drama
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Favorite Supporting Actress – Drama
| Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
|-
| BMI Film & TV Awards
| Film Music Award
| Cliff Martinez
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Bodil Awards
| colspan="2"| Best American Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
| Best Director
| rowspan="2"| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="4"| British Academy Film Awards
| Best Direction
|
| align="center" rowspan="4"|
|-
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| British Society of Cinematographers Awards
| Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center"|
|-
| César Awards
| Best Foreign Film
| Anthony Minghella
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="6"| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress
| Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
|-
| Best Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Chlotrudis Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Movie
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Cast
|
|-
| Costume Designers Guild Awards
| Excellence in Contemporary Film
| Louise Frogley
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Critics' Choice Movie Awards
| colspan="2"| Top 10 Films
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Picture
|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Top 10 Films
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress
| Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
|-
| Directors Guild of America Awards
| Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Edgar Allan Poe Awards
| Best Motion Picture
| Stephen Gaghan ; <br> Simon Moore
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Empire Awards
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best British Actress
| Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
|-
| Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Florida Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| rowspan="2"| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Gold Derby Awards
| Best Supporting Actor of the Decade
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Golden Globe Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Motion Picture – Drama
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
| Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
|-
| Best Director – Motion Picture
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Golden Reel Awards
| Best Sound Editing – Dialogue & ADR, Domestic Feature Film
| Larry Blake and Aaron Glascock
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Grammy Awards
| Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or <br> Other Visual Media
| Cliff Martinez
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Humanitas Prize
| Feature Film
| Stephen Gaghan
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Imagen Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Theatrical Feature Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Kinema Junpo Awards
| Best Foreign Language Film
| rowspan="2"| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Best Foreign Language Film Director
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Actor
| Michael Douglas
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Original Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Film Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| rowspan="2"| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Manaki Brothers Film Festival
| Golden Camera 300
|
| align="center"|
|-
| MTV Movie Awards
| Breakthrough Female Performance
| Erika Christensen
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Nastro d'Argento
| Best Foreign Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| National Board of Review Awards
| colspan="2"| Top Ten Films
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| National Society of Film Critics Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| New York Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="4"| <br>
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Actor
| rowspan="2"| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
|
|-
| rowspan="12"| Online Film & Television Association Awards
| Best Picture
| Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick, and Laura Bickford
|
| align="center" rowspan="12"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Youth Performance
| Erika Christensen
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Casting
| Debra Zane
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Film Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Sound
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Ensemble
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Titles Sequence
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Official Film Website
|
|-
| rowspan="8"| Online Film Critics Society Awards
| colspan="2"| Top 10 Films
|
| align="center" rowspan="8"|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Picture
|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Ensemble
|
|-
| rowspan="6"| Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Picture
|
| align="center" rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Film Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| Political Film Society Awards
| colspan="2"| Exposé
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Prism Awards
| colspan="2"| Theatrical Feature Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| San Diego Film Critics Society Awards
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="9"| Satellite Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Motion Picture – Drama
|
| align="center" rowspan="9"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Best Art Direction
| Keith P. Cunningham
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Stephen Mirrione
|
|-
| Best Original Score
| Cliff Martinez
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Motion Picture Ensemble
|
|-
| Saturn Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Screen Actors Guild Awards
| Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
| Steven Bauer, Benjamin Bratt, James Brolin, <br> Don Cheadle, Erika Christensen, Clifton Collins Jr., <br> Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Miguel Ferrer, <br> Albert Finney, Topher Grace, Luis Guzmán, <br> Amy Irving, Tomas Milian, D. W. Moffett, <br> Dennis Quaid, Peter Riegert, Jacob Vargas, <br> and Catherine Zeta-Jones
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Picture
|
| align="center" rowspan="4"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Stephen Gaghan
|
|-
| Teen Choice Awards
| Choice Movie Breakout
| Erika Christensen
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Toronto Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Male Performance
| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Turkish Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Film
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Director
| Steven Soderbergh
|
|-
| Best Actor
| rowspan="2"| Benicio del Toro
|
|-
| Village Voice Film Poll
| Best Supporting Performance
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Writers Guild of America Awards
| Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
| Stephen Gaghan
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Young Hollywood Awards
| Breakthrough Male Performance
| Topher Grace
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Standout Female Performance
| Erika Christensen
|
|}
Top ten lists
Traffic appeared on several critics' top ten lists for 2000. Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:
- 2nd: A. O. Scott, The New York Times
- 2nd: Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
- 2nd: Bruce Kirkland, The Toronto Sun
- 3rd: Stephen Holden, The New York Times
- 3rd: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
- 3rd: Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- 4th: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
- 4th: Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
Home media
In the United States, the film was released on DVD on May 28, 2002, by The Criterion Collection. In Australia, Traffic was released on DVD by Village Roadshow, with an MA15+ rating. Despite the Australian packaging stating the length to be 124 minutes, the actual DVD version is just over 141 minutes long. It was released on Blu-ray by Universal Pictures in April 2010 in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It was released on Blu-ray by Criterion in January 2012, featuring a new transfer in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
See also
- Hyperlink cinema — the film style of using multiple interconnected story lines
- List of media set in San Diego
- Mexican drug war
- Narco film
Notes
References
External links
- Traffic: Border Wars an essay by Manohla Dargis at the Criterion Collection