Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.
- Won 2 Oscars
- 17 wins & 14 nominations total
Paul L. Smith
- Hamidou
- (as Paul Smith)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBanned (and never released theatrically) in Turkey until 1992 when the private television channel HBB broadcast it.
- GoofsThe Turkish spoken by the Turkish characters in the film is uniformly broken. The actors are obviously not Turkish; sometimes the language is so broken it is difficult for native speakers to understand what they are saying.
- Quotes
Max: The best thing to do is to get your ass out of here. Best way that you can.
Billy Hayes: Yeah, but how?
Max: Catch the midnight express.
Billy Hayes: But what's that?
Max: [laughs] Well it's not a train. It's a prison word for... escape. But it doesn't stop around here.
- Crazy creditsThe only opening titles are: Columbia Pictures presents a Casablanca FilmWorks production an Alan Parker film Midnight Express After this, the opening prologue text reads "The following is based on a true story. It began October 6, 1970 in Istanbul, Turkey."
- Alternate versionsSome of the VHS and Betamax copies included text before the end credits run that did not appear on the DVD and Blu-ray copies "On May 18,1978 the motion picture you have just seen was shown to an audience of world press at the Cannes Film Festival.... 43 days later the United States and Turkey entered into formal negotiations for the exchange of prisoners." This dialogue existed on HBO's showing of the movie back in 1985.
- ConnectionsEdited into The Running Man (1987)
- SoundtracksIstanbul Blues
Vocals by David Castle
Written By Oliver Stone, Billy Hayes (as William Hayes)
Arranged and Lyrics by David Castle
Acoustic / Electric Guitars by Patrick McClure
Drums, Percussion by Jerry Summers
Strings by Fritz Sonnleitner and Sid Sharp
Bass by Rick Tierney
Piano, Electric Piano, Clavinet by David Castle
Published by Rick's Music Inc./Gold Horizon Music Corp. (BMI)
(p) 1978 Casablanca Record and FilmWorks, Inc.
© 1978 Columbia Pictures
Featured review
Unfair Depiction of Turkey
This movie is pretty good, but speaking as an American who has lived in Turkey, this movie is a dramatization of a true story. While Turkey certainly has its problems with corruption, this movie is hardly something one should use to form an opinion on Turkey.
helpful•5453
- missamerica1974
- Jan 12, 2004
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Ponoćni ekspres
- Filming locations
- Fort St. Elmo, Valletta, Malta(as the Turkish prison)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,300,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $35,000,000
- Gross worldwide
- $35,000,000
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