Sorcerer is a 1977 American neo-noir action drama thriller film produced and directed by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou. It is the second adaptation of Georges Arnaud‘s 1950 French novel Le Salaire de la peur.
Although it is often considered a remake of the 1953 French film The Wages of Fear,[13] Friedkin disagreed with this assessment, as his film was adapted from the novel.[14] The film depicts four outcasts from varied backgrounds living in a Central American village who are assigned to transport two trucks loaded with aged, poorly kept dynamite that is “sweating” its dangerous basic ingredient, nitroglycerin.[10]
The film opens with a prologue that consists of four segments described by critics as “vignettes”.[29][30][31] They show the principal characters in different parts of the world and provide their backstories.
The film’s title refers to one of the trucks, which has the name Sorcerer painted across the hood (the other is named Lazaro); the narrative features no supernatural or magical character or event. As director William Friedkin went location scouting in Ecuador and researched the peculiar ornaments on cargo trucks he had seen there, he noticed there were names painted on them, which ranged from relatives to mythological references.[39] Firstly he came up with the name Lazaro after Lazarus; then after some time struggling to find another moniker, a listen to the Miles Davis album Sorcerer served as an inspiration to name the other truck, though the word was painted in French: “Sorcier”. Friedkin then decided to change his working title Ballbreaker to Sorcerer, which he described as “an intentional but ill-advised reference to The Exorcist“.[40]
In the director’s opinion, the premise of The Wages of Fear (both the novel and the first film adaptation) seemed to him a metaphor for “the world [being] full of strangers who hated one another, but if they didn’t cooperate, if they didn’t work together in some way, they would blow up.”[42] Walon Green, the screenwriter, said that he and Friedkin “wanted a cynical movie where fate turns the corner for the people before they turn it themselves”. Additionally, their intention was to “write a real movie about what we thought was the reality of Latin America and the presence of foreigners there today”.[43]
According to Friedkin cited by Kachmar, his artistic intent was to shoot the entire film without “sentiment” or “melodrama”, rendering it completely devoid of “heartfelt moments”. [54] Friedkin’s oeuvre has been frequently noted by critics for its lack of “clear-cut heroes or villains”,[6] and the director himself admitted that he believes in neither.[55]
Sorcerer marked the first Hollywood film score for the German krautrock and electronic band Tangerine Dream. William Friedkin, during his visit in Germany, attended their concert in a derelict church in the Black Forest.
The Criterion Collection released Sorcerer on Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray on 24 June 2025.[28]