Backdraft (film)
1991 film by Ron Howard
Backdraft is a 1991 American action thriller drama film directed by Ron Howard and written by Gregory Widen. Starring Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rebecca De Mornay, Donald Sutherland, Robert De Niro, Jason Gedrick and J. T. Walsh, it follows Chicago firefighters on the trail of a serial arsonist.
It was released by Universal Pictures on May 24, 1991, to generally positive reviews, and grossed $152.4 million worldwide. It received three Academy Award nominations for Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. It also inspired a special effects attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, which opened in 1992 and closed in 2010. It was followed by the sequel, Backdraft 2, in 2019, with Baldwin and Sutherland reprising their roles.
Plot
Two firefighters of Engine 17 of the Chicago Fire Department (CFD) are brothers: the elder, Lieutenant Stephen "Bull" McCaffrey, is experienced, while Brian has labored in his brother's shadow. Brian returns to firefighting after several other careers falter, although Stephen has doubts that Brian is fit to be a firefighter. In 1971, Brian witnessed the death of their firefighting father, Captain Dennis McCaffrey, while accompanying him on a call.
The longest-serving of the men at Engine 17, John "Axe" Adcox, served under the McCaffreys' father and was like an uncle to the boys when they lost their father.
The public source identifies “Backdraft (film)” as 1991 film by Ron Howard. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Backdraft, film and Howard.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q499371. VIAF identifies the subject as 292530235. The Library of Congress control number is n98052289. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1992, 2010 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Backdraft (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.