Traffic (2000 film)

Traffic
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Produced by	Edward Zwick Marshall Herskovitz Laura Bickford
Screenplay by	Stephen Gaghan
Based on	Traffik by Simon Moore
Starring	Steven Bauer Benjamin Bratt James Brolin Don Cheadle Erika Christensen Clifton Collins Jr. Benicio del Toro Michael Douglas Miguel Ferrer Albert Finney Topher Grace Luis Guzmán Amy Irving Tomas Milian D. W. Moffett Dennis Quaid Peter Riegert Jacob Vargas Catherine Zeta-Jones
Music by	Cliff Martinez
Cinematography	Peter Andrews
Edited by	Stephen Mirrione
Production company	Bedford Falls Productions Laura Bickford Productions Initial Entertainment Group
Distributed by	USA Films
Release date	December 27, 2000 (2000-12-27) (Los Angeles premiere) January 5, 2001 (2001-01-05) (United States)
Running time	147 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Spanish
Budget	$48 million
Box office	$207.5 million

Traffic is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan. It explores the illegal drug trade from a number of perspectives: users, enforcers, politicians, and traffickers. Their stories are edited together throughout the film, although some of the characters do not meet each other. The film is an adaptation of the 1989 British Channel 4 television series Traffik.

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, but 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 cinematography tint for each story so that audiences could tell them apart.

Traffic was critically acclaimed and earned numerous awards, including four Oscars: 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 $46 million budget.