The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case ofRobbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The film features Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn, Lee J. Cobb, Jason Miller, and Mercedes McCambridge. The film is one of a cycle of 'demonic child' movies produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Rosemary's Baby and The Omen.
The film became the most profitable horror film of all time and one of the highest earning movies in general, grossing $401,400,000 worldwide (and a further $112,053,066 for the Director's Cut re-release in 2000), and at the time of release briefly became the highest-grossing film of all time, until being surpassed one year later by Steven Spielberg's Jaws. The film proved a huge effect on popular culture. The film earned ten Academy Award nominations—winning two, one for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay, and losing Best Picture to The Sting. Along with the novel on which it was based, Blatty's script has been published several times over the years. The Exorcist was commercially released in the United States by Warner Bros. on December 26, 1973, and re-released on March 17, 2000, with a restored version released on September 22, 2000. It was named the scariest movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly andMovies.com[citation needed] and by viewers of AMC in 2006, and was #3 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (wiki)
