Blow Out

film by De Palma [1981]

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July 16, 2026

Quick Summary

Blow Out is a 1981 conspiracy-thriller film directed by Brian De Palma. It is an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up.12

The film stars John Travolta as a sound-effects mixer who accidentally records audio evidence suggesting a car accident was actually an assassination. Despite Travolta's performance and Nancy Allen's role as a helpful prostitute, the film's bleak ending may have contributed to its poor box office performance.1

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Brian De Palma
The 1980s and ’90s
De Palma next made Blow Out (1981), a conspiracy-theory thriller based on his own original screenplay. A tribute to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), it featured John Travolta as a sound-effects mixer who inadvertently records a car accident that seemingly causes the death of a politician. However, the audio suggests…
Read More
De Palma next made Blow Out (1981), a conspiracy-theory thriller based on his own original screenplay. A tribute to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), it featured John Travolta as a sound-effects mixer who inadvertently records a car accident that seemingly causes the death of a politician. However, the audio suggests…
Read More

John Lithgow
The World According to Garp, Terms of Endearment, and Footloose
…as a sadistic assassin in Blow Out (1981). Lithgow’s breakthrough, however, was his turn as a transsexual former football star in The World According to Garp (1982), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. The following year he garnered further acclaim—and, later, a second Oscar…
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…as a sadistic assassin in Blow Out (1981). Lithgow’s breakthrough, however, was his turn as a transsexual former football star in The World According to Garp (1982), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. The following year he garnered further acclaim—and, later, a second Oscar…
Read More