The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is a 1977 American biographical drama film written, produced, and directed by Larry Cohen.

It stars Broderick Crawford as Hoover, alongside an ensemble cast including Jose Ferrer, Michael Parks, Rip Torn, James Wainwright, Celeste Holm, Ronee Blakely, John Marley, Michael Sacks, Brad Dexter, Tanya Roberts and in final screen appearances, Jack Cassidy and Dan Dailey.

[1] Both Cassidy and Dailey met with then First Lady Betty Ford and helped director Cohen get permission to film in Washington, D.C., in locales where the real Hoover visited or worked.

The film was shown at the Kennedy Center in Washington to a mixed response from Republicans and Democrats who did not like the dark visions Cohen evoked on American politics and the portrayals of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon: actor Howard da Silva played Roosevelt, and impersonator James LaRoe (credited as Richard M. Dixon) plays Nixon.

In particular, it explicitly states that Hoover's overbearing and dominant mother rendered him unable to fully relate to women to the degree that he would be willing to date or even marry.

Hoover then leaves for his office and in a fit of anger, becomes sexually aroused/frustrated listening to an audio tape of one of his targets making love to a woman.

In an interview from 2019 writer-director Larry Cohen said he knew back then that Mark Felt was Deep Throat, and that this knowledge informed his film: "Nobody wanted to believe it.