A funny thing happened while I was endlessly collecting ballots from staff and friends of Movie Mezzanine this past week. Just about everyone who was kind enough to contribute (see those kind people below) prefaced their individual lists by lamenting just how hard it was to choose merely ten films from a decade replete with brilliance. Moreover, most of the fine folks below posited – and perhaps you’ll agree – that the 1970s may very well be the finest decade in American cinema.
Anyway, now that we’ve got the ball rolling, we hope you contribute your list in the comment section. I look forward to aggregating all the ballots come November and producing comprehensives pieces on each of the ten films we choose to represent and define this decade in cinema. Click here for past installments of History of Film. Enjoy!
Sam Fragoso, Founder
1.) Annie Hall
2.) Taxi Driver
3.) Network
4.) All the President’s Men
5.) Days of Heaven
6.) Manhattan
7.) Chinatown
8.) Day for Night
9.) American Graffiti
10.) That Obscure Object of Desire
The Movie Mezzanine Staff
Tom Clift, Co-Founder
1.) Network
2.) Jaws
3.) Alien
4.) Apocalypse Now
5.) Manhattan
6.) Star Wars: A New Hope
7.) Chinatown
8.) The Sting
9.) The Exorcist
10.) Duel
Jake Cole, Senior Editor
1.) The Age of Medici
2.) Stalker
3.) Barry Lyndon
4.) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
5.) Duelle
6.) Opening Night
7.) Taxi Driver
8.) Perceval le Gallois
9.) Mikey and Nicky
10.) Pakeezah
James Blake Ewing, Columnist
1.) Days of Heaven
2.) Apocalypse Now
3.) Stalker
4.) Chinatown
5.) A Clockwork Orange
6.) Wise Blood
7.) Scenes from a Marriage
8.) Camera Buff
9.) Aguirre: The Wrath of God
10.) That Obscure Object of Desire
Daniel Schindel, Chief Reviewer
1.) Days of Heaven
2.) Woodstock
3.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4.) Blue Collar
5.) Alien
6.) Annie Hall
7.) Grey Gardens
8.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
9.) Le Cercle Rouge
10.) 21 Up
Katina Vangopoulos, Editorialist
1.) Grease
2.) The Deer Hunter
3.) Dog Day Afternoon
4.) Aguirre, the Wrath of God
5.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
6.) Star Wars: A New Hope
7.) Wake In Fright
8.) Network
9.) Rocky
10.) Apocalypse Now
Ty Landis, Columnist
1.) A Woman Under the Influence
2.) Stalker
3.) Apocalypse Now
4.) Taxi Driver
5.) Barry Lyndon
6.) Cries and Whispers
7.) Halloween
8.) Days of Heaven
9.) A Clockwork Orange
10.) 3 Women
Colin Biggs, Newswire Editor
1.) The Godfather
2.) The Exorcist
3.) McCabe and Mrs. Miller
4.) Apocalypse Now
5.) The Godfather: Part II
6.) Network
7.) Chinatown
8.) Jaws
9.) The Conversation
10.) Alien
John Oursler, Contributor
1.) Nashville
2.) Network
3.) Cabaret
4.) A Woman Under the Influence
5.) Harlan County, USA
6.) Chinese Roulette
7.) The Exorcist
8.) The Brood
9.) McCabe and Mrs. Miller
10.) The Obscure Object of Desire
Russell Hainline, Renaissance Man
1.) Aguirre, the Wrath of God
2.) Apocalypse Now
3.) Network
4.) Alien
5.) Blazing Saddles
6.) Manhattan
7.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
8.) Jaws
9.) The Conversation
10.) Chinatown
Ryan McNeil, Contributor
1.) The Godfather
2.) The Godfather: Part II
3.) Network
4.) Taxi Driver
5.) Nashville
6.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
7.) Star Wars
8.) Cabaret
9.) Manhattan
10.) The Exorcist
Odie Henderson, Contributor
1.) Chinatown
2.) All That Jazz
3.) Taxi Driver
4.) The Godfather Part II
5.) Sounder
6.) The Godfather
7.) Blazing Saddles
8.) All the President’s Men
9.) Day for Night
10.) Star Wars: A New Hope
Brogan Morris, Contributor
1.) Taxi Driver
2.) Chinatown
3.) The Godfather: Part II
4.) Straw Dogs
5.) Apocalypse Now
6.) Get Carter
7.) Barry Lyndon
8.) McCabe and Mrs. Miller
9.) Manhattan
10.) Alien
Michal Oleszczyk, Contributor
1.) California Split
2.) W.R. Mysteries of the Organism
3.) Sounder
4.) Taxi Driver
5.) Nashville
6.) The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
7.) Deep End
8.) Killer of Sheep
9.) The Last Detail
10.) Stalker
Kevin Ketchum, Contributor
1.) Taxi Driver
2.) Jaws
3.) Days of Heaven
4.) Alien
5.) Apocalypse Now
6.) The Exorcist
7.) Manhattan
8.) Network
9.) Star Wars: A New Hope
10.) The Godfather
Jesse Knight, Contributor
1.) Annie Hall
2.) Beyond the Valley of Dolls
3.) Network
4.) A Clockwork Orange
5.) Manhattan
6.) The Omen
7.) Carnal Knowledge
8.) The Jerk
9.) Picnic At Hanging Rock
10.) Roller Boogie
Kristen Sales, Columnist
1.) The Godfather
2.) Taxi Driver
3.) Annie Hall
4.) Alien
5.) Jaws
6.) The Passenger
7.) The Long Goodbye
8.) Spirit of the Beehive
9.) The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
10.) Days of Heaven
Forrest Cardamenis, Contributor
1.) The Godfather: Part II
2.) Days of Heaven
3.) Taxi Driver
4.) Cries and Whispers
5.) Chinatown
6.) No Lies
7.) Tale of Tales
8.) A Woman Under the Influence
9.) Manhattan
10.) The Mirror
Christopher Runyon, Essayist
1.) Days of Heaven
2.) Eraserhead
3.) Apocalypse Now
4.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
5.) Stalker
6.) Alien
7.) Taxi Driver
8.) World on a Wire
9.) Harold and Maude
10.) The Wild Child
Alexander Huls, Contributor
1.) Stalker
2.) The Godfather
3.) The Conversation
4.) F For Fake
5.) Five Easy Pieces
6) Jaws
7.) The Spirit of the Beehive
8.) Chinatown
9.) Aguirre, The Wrath of God
10.) Barry Lyndon
Friends of Movie Mezzanine
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
1.) All That Jazz
2.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3.) Hospital
4.) Taxi Driver
5.) Days of Heaven
6.) Suspiria
7.) Solaris
8.) Arabian Nights
9.) The Conformist
10.) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Jack Giroux, Film School Rejects
1.) The Last Detail
2.) Apocalypse Now
3.) Taxi Driver
4.) Jaws
5.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
6.) Shampoo
7.) Five Easy Pieces
8.) Paper Moon
9.) Annie Hall
10.) Saturday Night Fever
Michelle Orange, Author of This Is Running For Your Life
1.) Cabaret
2.) Chinatown
3.) Amarcord
4.) McCabe and Mrs. Miller
5.) Taxi Driver
6.) A Clockwork Orange
7.) Night Porter
8.) The Marriage of Maria Braun
9.) Manhattan
10.) Alien
Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects
1.) Jaws
2.) Breaking Away
3.) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
4.) The Long Goodbye
5.) Twitch of the Death Nerve
6.) Watership Down
7.) Assault On Precinct 13
8.) Being There
9.) Halloween
10.) Brewster McCloud
Tina Hassannia, Slant Magazine
1.) Celine and Julie Go Boating
2.) Still Life
3.) F for Fake
4.) Badlands
5.) Don’t Look Now
6.) The Brood
7.) Solaris
8.) California Split
9.) Hi, Mom!
10.) Real Life
Kenji Fujishima, In Review Online
1.) Barry Lyndon
2.) Aguirre, the Wrath of God
3.) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
4.) The Conversation
5.) Solaris
6.) Dawn of the Dead
7.) Mean Streets
8.) Four Nights of a Dreamer
9.) All the President’s Men
10.) The Phantom of Liberty
Peter Labuza, The Cinephiliacs
1.) Stalker
2.) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
3.) New York, New York
4.) The Long Goodybe
5.) The Night of Counting the Years
6.) Mickey and Nicky
7.) (nostalgia)
8.) Edvard Munch
9.) Downpour
10.) Manila in the Claw of Light
David Ehrlich, Film.com
1.) Aguirre, The Wrath of God
2.) In the Realm of the Senses
3.) (nostalgia)
4.) Days of Heaven
5.) Jeanne Dielman
6.) Trilogy of Life
7.) Sholay
8.) F For Fake
9.) How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman
10.) The Castle of Cagliostro
Sheila O’Malley, RogerEbert.com
1.) Taxi Driver
2.) Nashville
3.) Dog Day Afternoon
4.) A Woman Under the Influence
5.) Slap Shot
6.) Blazing Saddles
7.) Chinatown
8.) Annie Hall
9.) Stalker
10.) Sounder
Mel Valentin, VeryAware
1.) The Conversation
2.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3.) That Obscure Object of Desire
4.) Stalker
5.) Badlands
6.) The Wicker man
7.) A Clockwork Orange
8.) Manhattan
9.) Life of Brian
10.) The Holy Mountain
Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
1.) The Godfather
2.) Nashville
3.) Chinatown
4.) Annie Hall
5.) Taxi Driver
6.) Jaws
7.) All the President’s Men
8.) Hickey and Boggs
9.) The Taking of Pelham 123
10.) Halloween
Alonso Duralde, The Wrap
1.) The Godfather
2.) Celine and Julie Go Boating
3.) Chinatown
4.) Scenes from a Marriage
5.) The Conversation
6.) Jaws
7.) Mean Streets
8.) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
9.) Cousin Cousine
10.) Taxi zum klo
Joshua Moore, Programmer of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
1.) Badlands
2.) Five Easy Pieces
3.) Harold and Maude
4.) Interiors
5.) Last Picture Show
6.) Love & Death
7.) Manhattan
8.) Mean Streets
9.) Rocky
10.) Woman Under the Influence
R. Kurt Osenlund, Slant Magazine
1.) Network
2.) Cabaret
3.) Alien
4.) All the President’s Men
5.) Manhattan
6.) Taxi Driver
7.) The Godfather
8.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
9.) Dog Day Afternoon
10.) The Deer Hunter
Scott Mendelson, Forbes
1.) Animal House
2.) Chinatown
3.) The Godfather
4.) Halloween
5.) Jaws
6.) Marathon Man
7.) The Omen
8.) Star Wars: A New Hope
9.) Superman
10.) Taxi Driver
Noel Murray, The Dissolve
1.) McCabe & Mrs. Miller
2.) Days of Heaven
3.) Dawn of the Dead
4.) The Conversation
5.) The Godfather
6.) Serpico
7.) The French Connection
8.) Richard Pryor: Live In Concert
9.) Annie Hall
10.) Nashville
Eric Kohn, IndieWire
1.) F for Fake
2.) All That Jazz
3.) Jaws
4.) Star Wars: A New Hope
5.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
6.) Chinatown
7.) The Conversation
8.) Dawn of the Dead
9.) The Wicker Man
10.) Paper Moon
Cameron Williams, Graffiti with Punctuation
1.) Alien
2.) Jaws
3.) The Exorcist
4.) The Godfather
5.) The Godfather: Part 2
6.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
7.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
8.) Mad Max
9.) Superman: The Movie
10.) Rocky
Adam Cook, MUBI
1.) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
2.) Taxi Driver
3.) The Godfather Part 1
4.) The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
5.) The Mother and the Whore
6.) A Woman Under the Influence
7.) Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
8.) Days of Heaven
9.) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
10.) Mean Streets
Christopher Campbell, NonFics
1.) Badlands
2.) The Conversation
3.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
4.) Grey Gardens
5.) Life of Brian
6.) Welfare
7.) Star Wars: A New Hope
8.) The Jerk
9.) Network
10.) Blazing Saddles
Matt Goldberg, Collider
1.) Being There
2.) Chinatown
3.) Alien
4.) Taxi Driver
5.) Star Wars
6.) Dog Day Afternoon
7.) Blazing Saddles
8.) Sleuth
9.) The Conversation
10.) A Clockwork Orange
James Ward, Visalia-Times Delta
1.) The Godfather
2.) The Godfather: Part II
3.) Star Wars: A New Hope
4.) Chinatown
5.) Jaws
6.) Network
7.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
8.) The Exorcist
9.) Apocalypse Now
10.) Cabaret
Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
1.) The Godfather Pt. II
2.) Days of Heaven
3.) The Godfather
4.) Stalker
5.) Taxi Driver
6.) Jaws
7.) Apocalypse Now
8.) Solaris
9.) Aguirre, The Wrath of God
10.) Nashville
Allison Loring, Film School Rejects
1.) Annie Hall
2.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
3.) All The President’s Men
4.) Grease
5.) Halloween
6.) Animal House
7.) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
8.) Star Wars: A New Hope
9.) The Rocky Horror Picture Show
10.) Charlotte’s Web
Matt Prigge, Metro US
1.) Zorns Lemma
2.) Jeanne Dielman 23 quai du commerce 1080 Bruxelles
3.) Barry Lyndon
4.) Love and Death
5.) Celine and Julie Go Boating
6.) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
7.) Manhattan
8.) Dawn of the Dead
9.) McCabe & Mrs. Miller
10.) Edvard Munch
…
111 thoughts on “History of Film: The Best Movies of the 1970s”
Man, I wish I could have added Don’t Look Now to those ten selections. Such a great decade and so few slots.
1. Suspiria
2. Annie Hall
3. Taxi Driver
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. Manhattan
6. Dawn of the Dead
7. Alien
8. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
9. Deep Red
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1. The Godfather
2. A Woman Under the Influence
3. Badlands
4. Annie Hall
5. Scenes from a Marriage
6. Taxi Driver
7. Day for Night
8. Aguirre
9. Stalker
10. Dog Day Afternoon
but Scenes of a Marriage was TV though
How bout a top 10 of films people should check out:
1. Alice in the Cities
2. Un Homme Qui Dort
3. The Ascent
4. California Split
5. Seven Beauties
6. We All Love Each Other So Much
7. What’s Up Doc
8. Mon Oncle Antoine
9. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
10. Providence
Lots of great people in that list of lists — nice
..and by “great people” I mean “great internet/writers about movies” or whatever the proper “title” is
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Nashville (Robert Altman)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette)
Girlfriends (Claudia Weill)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman)
Annie Hall (Woody Allen)
Suspiria (Dario Argento)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassevetes)
Claire’s Knee (Eric Rohmer)
jeanne dielmann? you are such a puppet of the ‘radicals’ who control film culture. that is a boring ass movie but I guess it’s so intellectual and great cuz all those geek critics say it’s soooo profound.
I’m sure there’s more to her enjoying Jeanne Dielman that her simply complying to what you suggest is critical consensus. Also isn’t it a given that if something stimulates someone intellectually, it therefore doesn’t fit into the ‘boring-ass movie’ category? Michael Haneke is arguably boring, with regard to the languid pace and ascetic style, yet his films are, in my opinion, hardly boring.
what do you have against pealing potatoes? Is it like a potato hatred in general? Do you also really hate The Turin Horse? Quit oppressing potatoes dude. Films featuring heavy usage of potatoes totally deserve their place among the greats.
OK, this is going to be tough…
1. Days of Heaven
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. Apocalypse Now
4. Taxi Driver
5. Solaris
6. Amarcord
7. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
8. A Woman Under the Influence
9. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
10. Harold & Maude
Not one of you listed Siberiade? Sad.
this militant ‘higher than thou’ isolationism is about one thousand percent closer to the dork label you’re brandishing with such verve than any person who dares pick Jeanne Dielman here. Get a grip.
“No ‘Seven Beauties’ and ‘Swept Away’?”
Um why would someone…. nevermind.
Ok, mama town. Here are a few reasons why someone might pick Jeanne Dielman:
1) They think it’s a singular achievement not only in terms of its feminism, but in terms of its construction and its presentation of routine
2) They think it’s a work that deserves to be seen by more people
3) It’s gaining in popularity and they simply happen to like it
Not everything is as nefarious as you seem to assume. From your alternate list it’s clear you’re a passionate cinephile, and while it can be very frustrating to feel like the one unpretentious voice against a backslapping clique of self-appointed experts, to come out guns blazing questioning others’ motives does nothing but make you look like an ass and make your opponents feel justified in their echo chamber. Debate, challenge, propose alternatives, sure, but vomiting bile all over people generally doesn’t work as a strategy for accomplishing anything. James’s comment about “militant higher than thou isolationism” is spot on – and while that urge can feel sexy and righteous at first, it’s very lonely and embarrassing in the long run.
Thanks for your recommendations. I too am fascinated by the fact that Last Tango, once so canonical, seems to be going through an overlooked phase. Maybe next time you can use your knowledge, not insulting assertions, as your starting point.
Barry Lyndon
Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)
Kaspar Hauser
Godfather
Straw Dogs
Le Diable Probablement
Faustrecht der Freiheit
Obscure Object Of Desire
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Another dork lists Jeanne Dielmann.
It has become something of a cliche for feminist idiots and castrated neutered white boy geeks. If you wanna shortcut to declaring yourself a ‘radical intellectual’ who’s privy into the systems of ‘patriarchal control’ and some such, just say you actually got something from watching a 3 1/2 hr film about a woman who shines shoes before stabbing someone after an orgasm. Cinematic veganism for freeze dried souls.
First of all, I’d rather you didn’t make broad assumptions about my possession (or lack thereof) of genitals. The fact I find Jeanne Dielmann an important film is rooted in my love of modernism (hardly radical, though intellectual I guess is at the core of the issue) more than any desire to be “in”. Thank you for your eminently constructive criticism though.
Yours truly,
Freeze dried soul
Anyone who votes for Jeanne Dielmann is a pompous dork idiot. It’s 3 1/2 hrs of sheer boredom with a woman peeling potatoes in static shots before she finally has an orgasm and kills someone. I guess for girls, it’s cool to list a great film by a woman director. For castrated politically correct liberal boys, I guess it’s a way to show how radical they are, how progressive and conscious they are of the hidden systems of oppression in bourgeois society and all that crap.
And of course, they love to brag how they made it through a long ‘difficult’ film that most people just don’t understand. Well, whoopity-do, I am sooooooo impressed. (eyes rolling).
Gimme a break. Boring is boring, stupid is stupid, self-indulgent is self-indulgent.
and crucially, your opinion (as feisty as it might be) remains the opinion of one individual of which all other opinions are not meant to naturally derive from.
I’ll out-radicalize all of you intellectually and ideologically conformist dorks. It’s funny how listing Jeanne Dielmann used to be a hallmark of being contrarian. Now, it’s a conformist kneejerk choice among the Politically Crowed Pod People crowd. Go to any film geek community, and some zit-faced dork will say Jeanne Dielmann is one of the greatest movies of all time. So desperate to be admitted into the in-crowed of like-minded PC dorks.
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how radical I am.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how cinephile geeky I am.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how slavish I am to critics like Rosenbaum, Kehr, Hoberman, and Taubin who are my gods.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how pro-homo I am since Akerman is a lesbo.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how wonderful I am since Akerman is a Jew.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how intellectual I am since I can appreciate a film that most people won’t understand.
Jeanne Dielmann!! Boy, that will show how acutely I am aware to the structures of oppression in our ‘male-dominated’ society where even seeming respectable women are just whores.
Blah blah blah.
You dorks are so predictable and boring.
Here, to feed your obvious obsession.
Mama town!!! Boy, can I show what a presumptuous ass I am.
Wow. Jeanne Dielmann left quite an impression on you.
Dear Mama Town,
If you find people’s tastes boring, which you are free to, please speak your mind with just a bit more eloquence. Also — please offer up a list of your own and perhaps, you know, a name. Anonymity is fun all, but this is getting tiring.
Please don’t make me delete your comments. Lets stay on topic here.
Thank you.
Hey, nice lists guys. Very happy to see ‘The Brood’ get some love and ‘Network’ too. Don’t get riled up by the haters! Keep doing what you do!
In alphabetical order…
Annie Hall
Asylum: R.D. Laing
Barry Lyndon
The Big Mess
Brewster McCloud
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson
California Split
Catch-22
Dawn of the Dead
Deep Red
Don’t Torture a Duckling
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
F for Fake
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Hatchet for the Honeymoon
The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow
House
Impressions of Outer Mongolia
Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Occupation
Johnny Got His Gun
The Long Goodbye
The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart
Mahler
MASH
Mean Streets
Network
New Book
Not I
A Perfect Couple
Perfumed Nightmare
Prophecies of Nostradamus: Catastrophe 1999
The Phantom of Liberty
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Punishment Park
Puzzle
Rabid Dogs
La Rupture
The Scarlet Flower
Steeplechase Park
Stroszek
Suspiria
Taxi Driver
The Tenant
Tommy
Tout Va Bien
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist
A Wedding
I’m disappointed that three professional critics included Rocky on their lists…
How about Grease topping one of the lists and showing up on a second. Was it a fun movie; sure. Was it a great movie? Of course not.
Probably haven’t put enough thought into it, but mine would be:
1-Taxi Driver
2-Apocalypse Now
3-Alien
4-Chinatown
5-Mean Streets
6-Network
7-Sisters
8-Texas Chainsaw Massacre
9-The Conversation
10-One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
My 10 favs
1. The Long Goodbye
2. Catch-22
3. The Marriage of the Maria Braun
4. Black Christmas
5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
6. Claire’s Knee
7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
8. Suspiria
9. Nashville
10. Picnic at Hanging Rock
1. Jaime
2. Hapax Legomena
3. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
4. Lancelot du Lac
5. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
6. Korol Lir / King Lear
7. Mes petites amoureuses / My Little Loves
8. The Conversation
9. Avanti!
10. La maison des bois / House in the Woods
Where can I see La maison des bois / House in the Woods? Looks like a 4-part French mini-series, right?
Slap Shot
The Godfather Part II
Nashville
Killer of Sheep
Taxi Driver
The Mirror
Le Circle Rouge
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Mean Streets
Apocalypse Now
Lots of great lists, like every decade, the 70s is ripe with quality cinema, depending on where you look for it. My top 10 would be,
1) The Godfather (1972)
2) A Clockwork Orange (1971)
3) Stroszek (1977)
4) Yozhik V Tumane (Hedgehog In The Fog, 1975)
5) Halloween (1978)
6) Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht (Nosferatu The Vampyre, 1979)
7) Dawn Of The Dead (1978)
8) All The President’s Men (1976)
9) Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle, 1970)
10) Annie Hall (1977)
1. Days of Heaven
2. Apocalypse Now
3. The Discreet Charm of…
4. Taxi Driver
5. Cries and Whispers
6. Solaris
7. The Conformist
8. Le Cercle Rouge
9. Harold and Maude
10. The Godfather Pt I and II
Honorary Mentions: Chinatown, the Conversation, Autumn Sonata, Annie Hall
1. Nashville
2. Network
3. Jaws
4. Dog Day Afternoon
5. The Godfather
6. Annie Hall
7. Chinatown
8. Taxi Driver
9. The Conversation
10. The Last Picture Show
1. Harold and Maude,
2. Jaws
3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4. American Graffiti
5. Rocky
6. Chinatown
7. Annie Hall
8. Barry Lyndon
9. Network
10. Taxi Driver
and special mentions to Nashville, Cabaret, Rocky, Animal House, Apocalypse Now, Godfather 1&2, The Conversation, Paper Moon, What’s Up, Doc?, The Last Picture Show, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Five Easy Pieces
ahhhh and Dog Day Afternoon
My Top Ten:
1. The Godfather.
2. The Godfather Part II.
3. Star Wars..
4. Apocalypse Now.
5. Jaws.
6. All the President’s Men.
7. The Conversation.
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
9. Taxi Driver.
10. The French Connection.
1. Barry Lyndon (1975)
2. Apocalypse Now (1979)
3. The Day of the Jackal (1973)
4. Jaws (1975)
5. Nashville (1975)
6. The Godfather Part II (1974)
7. Network (1976)
8. The Other (1972)
9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
10. The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
1. A Clockwork Orange
2. The Conformist
3. Manhattan
4. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
5. That Obscure Object of Desire
6. Badlands
7. Watermelon Man
8. Two-Lane Blacktop
9. Barry Lyndon
10. Taxi Driver
1. Last Tango in Paris
2. Suspiria
3. A Touch of Zen
4. Chinatown
5. Barry Lyndon
6. Don’t Look Now
7. The Three Musketeers
8. The Conversation
9, McCabe and Mrs. Miller
10, The Last Detail
THANK YOU for putting Suspiria on a list!
Hastily put together, but my ten favorites in alphabetical order:
Barry Lyndon
The Conformist
The Conversation
Cries and Whispers
Don’t Look Now
Harold and Maude
Hausu
Phantom of the Paradise
Smile
Taxi Driver
1. The Godfather Part II – Coppola
2. Annie Hall – Allen
3. Alien – Scott
4. Barry Lyndon – Kubrick
5. Chinatown – Polanski
6. Cries and Whispers – Bergman
7. Stalker – Tarkovsky
8. Taxi Driver – Scorsese
9. A Woman Under the Influence – Cassavetes
10. Apocalypse Now – Coppola
1. All the President’s Men
2. The Godfather
3. Annie Hall
4. Harold and Maude
5. Days of Heaven
6. Taxi Driver
7. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
8. Quadrophenia
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
10. Life of Brian
Pingback: History of Film: Top 10 Movies from the 1970s | CinEffect
10. The Last Picture Show
9. The Godfather Part II
8. Days of Heaven
7. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
6. The Godfather
5. Chinatown
4. Annie Hall
3. Apocalypse Now
2. Barry Lyndon
1. Taxi Driver
1.The Passenger (1975)
2.The Godfather (1972)
3.Annie Hall (1977)
4.Days of Heaven (1978)
5.Star Wars (1977)
6.Chinatown (1974)
7.Barry Lyndon (1975)
8.The Conversation (1974)
9.Taxi Driver (1976)
10.The Long Goodbye (1973)
1.The Devil Probably
2. Celine and Julie Go Boating
3. F For Fake
4. Two Lane Blacktop
5. Beware of the Holy Whore
6. We Won’t Grow Old Together
7. Bye Bye Monkey
8. Spirit of the Beehive
9. Bang Bang
10. Vengeance is Mine
Annie Hall
Barry Lyndon
Chinatown
The Conversation
Cries and Whispers
Day for Night
Duel
Harlan County, USA
The Last Detail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
This is horribly tough. Curse the quality of this decade. The following ten can mostly be reordered fairly well.
1. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
2. The Conversation
3. The Tenant
4. Network
5. Life of Brian
6. Wake in Fright
7. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
8. Last Tango in Paris
9. Annie Hall
10. Pink Flamingos
Honourable mentions:
– Would have made a top 15: Nashville, O Lucky Man!, Straw Dogs, F for Fake and Lacombe, Lucien.
– Others by listed directors: Apocalypse Now, Dog Day Afternoon, Desperate Living, Manhattan and Aguirre, Wrath of God.
– Others by other directors: Rollerball, Fantastic Planet, Alien, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Halloween, Taxi Driver, Suspiria, The Yakuza.
1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Godfather
3. The Godfather Part II
4. Life of Brian
5. Taxi Driver
6. Star Wars
7. Chinatown
8. The Conversation
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
10. The Wicker Man
No “Murmur of the Heart”?
No “Sorrow and the Pity”?
No “Hired Hand”?
No “Distant Thunder”?
No “Clockmaker”?
No “Tree of the Wooden Clogs”?
No “Lullaby of the Earth”?
No “Bread and Chocolate”?
No “Paper Chase”?
No “Jeremiah Johnson”?
No “The Wanderers” and “Invasion of Body Snatchers”?
No “Little Big Man”?
No “Stepford Wives”?
No “Pink Panther Strikes Again”?
No “Rabid”?
No “Unmarried Woman”?
No “Outlaw Josey Wales”?
No “Warriors”? Come out to play-ay.
No “Hard Times”?
No “Killer Elite”, “Bring Me The Head of Jeanne Dielmann”, “Ballad of Narayama”?
No “Zardoz”?
1. Chinatown
2. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
3. The Long Goodbye
4. Taxi Driver
5. Annie Hall
6. The Godfather
7. Blazing Saddles
8. The Conformist
9. Badlands
10. Barry Lyndon
1. Taxi Driver
2. Days of Heaven
3. Badlands
4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
5. Apocalypse Now
6. Eraserhead
7. THX 1138 (?)
8. Alien
9. The Exorcist
10. Cries and Whispers
Honestly, the 70s was such a great decade that these are all pretty much tied, and they’d all be candidates for the position as my fav film of all time too:
1. The Panic in Needle Park (1971,Jerry Schatzberg)
2. Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)
3. Zerkalo (1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)
4. All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
5. Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
6. Scarecrow (1973, Jerry Schatzberg)
7. Il Conformista (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci)
8. Wise Blood (1979, John Huston)
9. Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
10. Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
And as I can’t seem to stop myself, here’s another bunch of 70s masterpieces:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Fat City, 3 Women, Eden and After, Salo, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Deer Hunter, Chinesisches Roulette, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Picnic at Hanging, The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The French Connection, The Holy Mountain, Heroic Purgatory, Sleuth, Le Fantôme de la liberté, Scenes from a Marriage, Walkabout, The Night Porter, All the Presidents Men, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Dersu Uzala, A Clockwork, Barry Lyndon, Solyaris, Badlands, Pink Flamingos, Höstsonaten, Interiors, Desperate Living, Ansikte mot ansikte, Motforestilling, Cet obscur objet du désir, California Split, Novecento, Pretty Baby, The Man Who Would Be King, Aguirre, Wrath of God, Providence, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
1. Days of Heaven
2. Annie Hall
3. F for Fake
4. A Touch of Zen
5. Celine and Julie Go Boating
6. Two Lane Blacktop
7. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
8. Manhattan
9. All That Jazz
10. Taxi Driver
Pink Narcissus (Bidgood, 1971)
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage, 1971)
The Parallax View (Pakula, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
Female Trouble (Waters, 1974)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)
Grey Gardens (Maysles, 1975)
Carrie (De Palma, 1976)
3 Women (Altman, 1977)
All That Jazz (Fosse, 1979)
(in chronological order)
Pink Narcissus (Bidgood, 1971)
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage, 1971)
The Parallax View (Pakula, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
Female Trouble (Waters, 1974)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)
Grey Gardens (Maysles, 1975)
Carrie (De Palma, 1976)
3 Women (Altman, 1977)
All That Jazz (Fosse, 1979)
It’s impossible to narrow down this decade to a Top 10 list, but one film I haven’t seen listed is The Friends of Eddie Coyle from 1973, which may feature Robert Mitchum’s best performance.
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Taxi Driver
A Clockwork Orange
Apocalypse Now
Days of Heaven
Annie Hall
Nashville
Chinatown
Cabaret
Honorable mentions: Harold and Maude, The Deer Hunter, Animal House
1. The Godfather / The Godfather Part II
2. Taxi Driver
3. Barry Lyndon
4. Apocalypse Now
5. Chinatown
6. All the President’s Men
7. Jaws
8. Network
9. The Last Picture Show
10. Badlands
1. Husbands
2. The Devil, Probably
3. Minnie and Moskowitz
4. The Landlord
5. A Wedding
6. The Parallax View
7. Cria Cuervos
8. A Woman Under the Influence
9. In a Year of 13 Moons
10. The Heartbreak Kid
Can’t believe all the awful Woody Allen…
Minnie and Moskowitz! Thanks for remembering that one.
Of the 4 I’ve seen on this list (Husbands, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Wedding, A Woman Under The Influence), “A Woman . . .” is the only great film. The other 3 are interesting curios.
How many of you were actually alive in the 70’s much less old enough to remember the 70’s? Might there be a different perspective if you were actually watching these movies when they came out? A part of the culture of that time? …..just a thought….and I was there….lived it….
I certainly wasn’t alive in the 70’s. Could you perhaps reflect on watching some of these movies during their release?
I was born in 1976. I couldn’t tell you what movies I actually saw in the 1970s. One of the earliest films I remember seeing in the theatre was superman II, but I know I definitely wasn’t going to a movie theatre for the first time. I remember a lot of the films my parents took me to were old films in reissue, such as Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion and Song of the South.
Top 10 Favorites
1. Breaking Away
2. What’s Up Doc?
3. The Out-of-Towners
4. The Goodbye Girl
5. Nashville
6. Badlands
7. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
8. Days of Heaven
9. Harold and Maude
10. Kramer vs. Kramer
In no particular order:
Siberiade
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Barry Lyndon
Taxi Driver
The Wanderers
Stalker
McCabe and Mrs Miller
Harold and Maude
Man of Marble
Night Moves. Straight Time.
Pingback: The Morning Read: Queue Fuel, The End of Toy Movies and More
Pingback: The Morning Read: Queue Fuel, The End of Toy Movies and More
Pingback: dearjupiter.com
1. Chinatown
2. Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
3. Obscure Object of Desire
4. Barry Lyndon
5. Clockwork Orange
6. Day for Night
7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
8. Nashville
9. Conformist
10. 1900
One possibility:
Siberiade
Godfather
Stalker
Vengeance Is Mine
The Wanderers
McCabe and Mrs Miller
Taxi Driver
Emigrants
Barry Lyndon
Jaws
Another possibility:
Godfather II
Mean Streets
Dog Day Afternoon
A Clockwork Orange
Straw Dogs
The New Land
Nashville
Duck You Sucker
Eros Plus Massacre
Man of Marble
Yet another possibility:
Chinatown
Woodstock
Husbands
Love and Death(or Sleeper)
Last Detail
That Obscure Object of Desire
Badlands
Apocalypse Now
Aguirre the Wrath of God
Deliverance
And then another:
The Ascent
Last Tango in Paris
THX 1138
Judge and the Assassin
Seven Beauties
Lancelot du Lac
Electra My Love
Two English Girls
Lacombe, Lucien
Sorrow and the Pity
1. All That Jazz
2. Sorceror
3. Being There
4. Swept Away
5. Don’t Look Now
6. Lenny
7. Pat Garret and Billy the Kid
8. Last Picture Show
9. The Long Goodbye
10. The Parallax View
And then there was another:
The Exorcist
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Dersu Uzala
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Sometimes a Great Notion
Zardoz
F for Fake
Dirty Harry
French Connection
Harold and Maude
Possibly great films yet to be seen:
Kaseki(fossil)
Summer Soldier(Teshigahara)
Ulzana’s Raid
Le Boucher
Mon Oncle Antoine
Bartleby
The Merchant of Four Seasons
The Mattei Affair
Kid Blue
Wedding in Blood
Man Is Not a Bird
La Rupture
The Marquise of O…
The Last Woman
Stroszek
Taking Off
The Revolutionary
Adalen 31
Goin’ Down the Road
The Phantom of Liberty
Juggernaut
The Middle of the World
The Romantic Englishwoman
Numero Deux (intersting that most 70s Godard films didn’t make the cut. 70s Satyajit Ray has been ignored too)
The Memory of Justice
The Last of Sheila
Memories of underdevelopment
Brothel No. 8
Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons
What?
Stavisky
Occasional Work of a Female Slave
Coilin and Platonida
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer
Katzelmacher
11 X 14
Sincerity
Pause!
The New Babylon
The Confrontation
Symphony For a Sinner
Eureka
She Had Her Gun All Ready
By Night with Torch and Spear
Declarative Mode
Tally Brown, N.Y.
Spying
Movies I have seen but didn’t quite make the cut:
American Hot Wax
Cockfighter
Pretty Baby
Women in Love
Escape from Alcatraz
Big Wednesday
Jonah—Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000
Robin and Marian
Tristana
The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid
Farewell, My Lovely
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
The Clockmaker
Martin
Kings of the Road
Has anyone seen Berlin Alexanderplatz? Or read the book?
Pingback: Una de cine: Mis diez películas de los 70 « INFOXICADO
01.) APOCALYPSE NOW
02.) THE GODFATHER
03.) REAL LIFE
04.) THE STING
05.) THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE
06.) …AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
07.) LENNY
08.) SCUM
09.) STRAIGHT TIME
10.) TAXI DRIVER
(Based on my favorite film from each year)
1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Amarcord
3. Apocolypse Now
4. Annie Hall
5. Taxi Driver
6. The Godfather Part II
7. The Deer Hunter
8. The Godfather
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
10. Le cercle rouge
I feel like this might be different if I made the list tomorrow. But I have to go with something.
The Last Picture Show
Manhattan
Annie Hall
Nashville
Taxi Driver
Cabaret
Jaws
The Spirit of the Beehive
Dog Day Afternoon
The Long Goodbye
Pingback: Link: History of Film - The Best Movies of the 1970s - Alexander Huls - Freelance Writer - Toronto
1) Annie Hall
2) The Wicker Man
3) Star Wars: A New Hope
4) Network
5) Jaws
6) Apocalypse Now
7) The Exorcist
8) Alien
9) Superman: The Movie
10) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Here’s my Top 10:
1) Apocalypse Now
2) Dog Day Afternoon
3) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4) The French Connection
5) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
6) Dirty Harry
7) Harold and Maude
8) Annie Hall
9) The Deer Hunter
10) Badlands
This decade was too good. Off the top of my head in the order they came to me…
1. Halloween
2. Alien
3. The Amityville Horror
4. Jaws
5. Star Wars (A New Hope)
6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
7. The Omen
8. The Exorcist
9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
10. A Clockwork Orange
01. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1970)
02. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971)
03. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
04. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
05. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
06. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
07. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
08. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
09. Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
10. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
Hmm…
1. Network
2. Taxi Driver
3. Annie Hall/Manhattan
4. Chinatown
5. The Conversation
6. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
7. The Graduate
8. Bonnie and Clyde
9. The Last Picture Show
10. The Exorcist
Hon. Men.: Star Wars
Sorry other countries, this is what I thought of off the top of my head.
The Graduate was from 1967
1. Alien – Ridley Scott
2. Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese
3. High Planes Drifter – Clint Eastwood
4. Superman: The Movie – Richard Donner
5. Kelly’s Heroes – Brian G. Hutton
6. Dirty Harry – Don Siegel
7. Pat Garret and Billy the Kid – Sam Peckinpah
8.Stalker – Andrei Tarkovksy
9. Serpico – Sidney Lumet
10. Two-Lane Blacktop – Monte Hellman
1. Taxi Driver
2. The Conversation
3. Busting
4. Serpico
5. Mean Streets
6. The Mechanic
7. The Godfather part 1 & 2
8. Freebie and the Bean
9. Jeremiah Johnson
10. California Split or Barry Lyndon or Dog Day Afternoon or Paper Moon or…
Pingback: There is Something about the 1970s | Regarding Film
No particular order:
Godfather
Godfather 2
Chinatown
Network
All the President’s Men
Manhattan
The Deer Hunter
Jaws
Taxi Driver
The Paper Chase (a personal favorite)
Pingback: My Homepage
It’s not a fancy list. Like we all do, I top-ten-list with the films I know, not films I wish I knew. Thanks for the other lists — for so many novel titles now I wish to know.
1. Five Easy Pieces (only movie I ever bought on VHS tape)
2. The Last Picture Show
3. Apocalypse Now
4. Taxi Driver
5. Eraserhead
6. Chinatown
7. Catch-22
8. Blazing Saddles
9. Being There
10. Star Wars*
* In elementary school, I saw the original release of Star Wars — I can’t bring myself to call it anything else. Immediately I went bonkers about it, for months, as did all my peers. To my childhood imagination, it was like a spilling a ton of nitrogen fertilizer on backyard soil. So rich and intense, it nearly left a chemical burn, and caused stories and drawings and daydreams to sprout from me prodigiously.
01. Murmur of the Heart.
02. Don’t Look Now.
03. 3 Women.
04. Richard Pryor: Live in Concert.
05. Suspiria.
06. Je T’aime Moi Non Plus.
07. Badlands.
08. Female Trouble.
09. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.
10. The Spirit of the Beehive.
Honorable mentions for: Killer of Sheep; Trash; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; The Killing of a Chinese Bookie; Five Easy Pieces; Fascination; Fantastic Planet; Lisa and the Devil; The Mother and the Whore; The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
It’s a totally impossible task to name my top ten films of the best decade for films there has ever been. Impossible. The only way for me is to consider ‘what films of the 1970s would I sit through numerable times and still want to watch again’. That being the criteria, here goes…and in no particular order…
Jaws
Paper Moon
Sleuth
The Godfather Part II
Chisum
M.A.S.H
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Get Carter
Papillon
The Day Of The Jackal
1. Chinatown
2. Rocky
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. The French Connection
6. The Godfather
7. The Omen
8. The Conversation
9. Five Easy Pieces
10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The problem with lists like these is that unless you’ve re-watched each of the films
within the last 10-15 years you have no idea if they hold up or not. There are
films I’d consider including on such a list, like CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE LAST
PICTURE SHOW and AMERICAN GRAFFITI, to name three, but I haven’t seen them in
decades. I have no idea if my feelings about them will have changed. I used to
think ANNIE HALL was Woody Allen’s best film, but when I tried to watch it on
cable a couple of years ago, I found it awfully tiresome. The films from the
1970s that I’ve revisited most often over the decades are genre films like
DIRTY HARRY, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, THE OUTLAW
JOSEY WALES, THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT and EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, not to
mention numerous kung fu, samurai and yakuza films (e.g. THE 36TH
CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, THE FIVE VENOMS, THE YAKUZA PAPERS, BABY CART AT THE RIVER
STYX, Sonny Chiba’s THE KILLING MACHINE, etc., etc., etc.).
I’m going with 1 movie per director… So:
1) Stalker
2) Life Of Brian
3) The Godfather, pt. II
4) The French Connection
5) Nashville
6) Aguirre: Wrath Of God (or Apocalypse Now)
7) Annie Hall
8) Being There
9) Days Of Heaven
10) The Spirit Of The Beehive
wondering why nobody picked deliverance….
Guys the best movie is The Exorcist!! No question! Nothing is that strong and more timeless!