Best Movies of the 70's

BEST MOVIES OF THE 70’s - An Excerpt


The 1970s were arguably -- pound for celluloid pound -- the greatest decade in movie history. The twin towers of 'The Godfather' and 'Godfather II' cast their shadows the farthest, but every genre is represented by excellence.

From 'Annie Hall' to 'Animal House,' we've seldom laughed harder. Factor in musicals, horror, high drama and such cultural touchstones as 'American Graffiti' and 'Star Wars' and you'll see that the '70s contributed more to our culture than just disco ('Saturday Night Fever' notwithstanding). Read on for our countdown of the top 40 movies of the 1970s. -- By Tom Johnson

No 40 : (Superman 1978)
The greatest criminal mind of our time, Lex Luthor, plots the greatest land grab in history with the aid of a couple of waywardly aimed ICBMs. The first -- and best -- of the 'Superman' franchise is immeasurably aided by Gene Hackman's peevishly droll turn as L.L. It's a wonderful example of what can happen when a versatile dramatic actor is cast against type in a comedy role.

No 39 : ( The Way We Were 1973)
Opposites attract (before inevitably splitting) in this uber-romantic hookup of pushy Jewish gal (Barbra Streisand) and WASPY blond Adonis (Robert Redford) in a love match that spans from a late 1930s Ivy League campus setting to the early '50s and the Hollywood blacklist. Although the film, directed by Sydney Pollack, suffered some maddening amputations in the cutting room, Alan and Marilyn Bergman's Oscar-winning title tune goes a long way in evoking a nostalgic mood that still elicits teary eyes and sniffles.

No 38 ( Carrie 1976)
A watershed moment in the history of horror movies, 'Carrie' (starring an utterly believable Sissy Spacek in the eponymous role) is one of the very best movie adaptations of a novel by Stephen King -- and there have been dozens. An immediate hit with critics and audiences, the movie underscores the old axiom: the meek shall inherit the earth -- albeit a bit scorched. Most wince-worthy moment: Carrie's prom dousing with the bucket of pig's blood.

No 37 ( Badlands 1973 )
Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek are riveting as a homicidal killer and his teenaged moll in this mesmerizing, cultish thriller based on the infamous Starkweather-Fugate killing spree that occurred in the Midwest in the 1950s. Spacek's narration (a monochromatic recitation of the grisly events) stands in stark contrast to the haphazard nature of the killings, making the on-screen action even more chilling. Terrence Malick helms in his usual understated manner.

No 36 ( Deliverance 1972 )
Bone-chilling adaptation of James Dickey's novel about four Atlanta businessmen who take a weekend canoe trip smack-dab in the middle of Georgia cracker country (and we're not talking saltines). Features the rousing dueling banjos sequence and two of the most terrifying sadists (Bill McKinney and Herbert Coward) to ever haunt the backwoods. Ned Beatty made his debut here and was branded ever after for his iconic scene as the redneck's porcine object of ridicule.

No 35 ( Saturday Night Fever 1977 )
Who cares if the story of a young Italian-American who can only find meaning on the dance floor was as inane as the threadbare plot of an old RKO musical. When John Travolta began to bust a move at his Brooklyn disco to the infectious falsettos of the Bee Gees, a late-1970s lifestyle was born and a new face joined the Hollywood superstar pantheon. But that lightning couldn't be bottled again: A sequel and Broadway musical both flopped.

No 34 ( Patton 1970)
In one of the most memorable biographies ever adapted to the screen, George C. Scott is a veritable tour de force as the controversial, hard-charging WWII General George S. Patton. Karl Malden is equally brilliant in support as G.I. General Omar Bradley, but it's the incisiveness brought to bear on Patton's many facets and flaws that really propels this story like a Sherman tank blasting through a Normandy hedgerow. Winner of Best Picture, Actor (Scott), Director (Franklin Schaffner) and Original Screenplay Oscars.

No 33 ( Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978)
Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams must stay awake and warn fellow San Franciscans of an alien invasion before it's too late in this above-average remake of the 1956 classic sans the dated McCarthy-era Red Scare subtext. And oh, that piercing shriek … yikes!

No 32 'The Last Picture Show' (1971)
An incisive and, at times, quite elegiac portrait of the denizens of a small Texas oil town in the 1950s is wonderfully cast and written (by Larry McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich from McMurtry's bestselling novel). Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Oscars for their brilliant portrayals, but the whole cast is spot-on in a movie whose sequel ('Texasville') revisited the same characters two decades later.


No 31 ('Blazing Saddles' 1974 )
Mel Brooks never met a genre he didn't like … to satirize. The director's trademark irreverence (and raunchiness) is given full sway in a hilarious spoof of Westerns that has every time-honored tradition (good guys vs. bad guys, crusading lawmen, quick-trigger gunslingers) metaphorically circling the wagons. Standouts in Brooks' first big hit film include Harvey Korman as the duplicitous Hedley Lamarr, Madeline Kahn as a Marlene Dietrich-like chanteuse and Cleavon Little in the role of the black sheriff of a redneck town. Yippee ki-yay!

No 30 ( Kramer VS Kramer 1979 )
In a distaff version of the usual deadbeat dad scenario, a wife (Meryl Streep, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) walks out on her yuppie husband (Dustin Hoffman, winner of the Best Actor Oscar) and young son who are left to fend for themselves before she later returns wanting custody of the child. Wonderful acting all around in a film that also garnered Best Picture, Screenplay and Director (Robert Benton) trophies.

No 29 ( Being There 1979)
Peter Sellers has seldom been better (and never more restrained) than as Chance the Gardener, a man-child whom people mistake to be a brilliant soothsayer in Jerzy Kosinski's brilliant adaptation of his novel. It could be said that in light of certain recent occupants of the Oval Office, the movie, stunningly, retains an air of pertinence even today. Includes one last roar from old lion Melvyn Douglas, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as a political kingmaker who legitimizes Chance.

No 28 ( Cabaret 1972)
The seedy, amoral underbelly of pre-war Berlin gets the full sardonic treatment from Bob Fosse (who won a Best Director Oscar) with his brilliant staging of the John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway musical. Liza Minnelli's Oscar-winning turn as divinely decadent American girl Sally Bowles caught up in all the empty glitter is a revelation (and was a career maker for her). And Joel Grey (Oscar winner for Best Actor) is memorably macabre as the Kit Kat Club's Nazi-worshipping Master of Ceremonies.

No 27. ('The Life of Brian' 1979)
The controversial and, to many believers, highly offensive account of a man whose life parallels Jesus Christ's, nonetheless delivers pungent laughs in the patented Monty Python style with the 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' production number rivaling a 1930s Busby Berkeley choreographic extravaganza. We have just four words for that: Blessed are the cheesemakers.

No.26. ('Dog Day Afternoon' 1975)
A year after his groundbreaking film debut in 'The Godfather: Part II,' Al Pacino cemented his stature as a major Hollywood heavy with this high-velocity performance as a skeezy street hustler who botches a bank robbery intended to pay for a sex operation for his male lover (John Cazale, who played Fredo in 'The Godfather I and II'). Sidney Lumet -- with a feel for capturing NYC locales that few directors have ever matched -- directs Pacino in a sizzling performance that keeps pace with the movie's soaring thermometer temps.

No 25 ('American Graffiti' 1973)
Before he blasted off to a galaxy far, far away, director George Lucas gave us this nostalgic coming-of-age drama about high-schoolers facing life after graduation in Modesto, CA. A veritable who's who of soon-to-be-name actors appear, including Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers, Cindy Williams, Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss (who catapulted into the acting big leagues with his performance). BTW: Where were you in '62?

No 24 ( 'A Clockwork Orange' 1971)
Stanley Kubrick's rubric (based on Anthony Burgess' novel) about a future dystopian England with a crime-management problem was unsettling three decades ago and remains potent today. Malcolm McDowell hits just the right note of menace as a sociopathic hooligan whose re-programming takes an odd turn. Most chilling scene: McDowell and his "droog" thugmates raping and pillaging to the sunny musical counterpoint of … 'Singin' in the Rain.'

No 23 ('National Lampoon's Animal House' 1978)
A no-holds-barred gonzo comedy and one of the funniest films ever made, 'Animal House' was the wellspring from which burbled many other Lampoon feature films and even a short-lived TV series based on the Delta House frat boys -- none of them hilarious by half. John Belushi's infectious mugging as Bluto (GPA of 0.0), Mark Metcalf as homicidal martinet Douglas Niedermeyer (shot by his own troops in Vietnam) and the casting of tough guy character actor John Vernon in the role of long-suffering Dean Wormer were nothing short of inspired.

No 22. ('One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975)
Nonconformist misfit R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) enters a mental hospital and proceeds to marshal all the shut-ins against their common enemy, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). The first movie since 'It Happened One Night' in 1934 to win all five top Oscars -- Picture, Director (Milos Forman), Actor, Actress and Screenplay -- is a rousing confirmation of the humanity that inhabits us all, if only we dig deep enough.

No 21. ( 'Network' 1976)
Paddy Chayefsky's withering satire on the three-ring-circus of network television and its slavish devotion to ratings was nothing if not prescient. Peter Finch won a posthumous Oscar as deranged news anchor and Mad Prophet of the Airwaves Howard Beal. But the whole cast is uniformly excellent, including Faye Dunaway (another Oscar winner) as a single-minded programmer with a Nielsen rating where her heart should be, William Holden in the role of a conscientious old school newsman and Beatrice Straight (another Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress) as his wife.

No 20. ('The Jerk' 1979)
Steve Martin's movie career hasn't enjoyed quite the upward trajectory that his standup and appearances on 'SNL' have garnered over the years. Still, in his first starring vehicle, Martin finds his comic footing as clueless and preternaturally naive Navin Johnson ("born a poor black child") who goes from rags to riches, back to rags. Think 'Dumb and Dumber' … and dumbest.

No 19 ( 'The Sting' 1973)
The winner of seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director (George Roy Hill), 'The Sting''s one of the most marvelously realized buddy movies ever committed to celluloid. Coming closely on the heels of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' the film underscored the fact that Newman and Redford's charismatic blending -- which attracted audiences like ants to a picnic -- wasn't coincidental; it was providential.

No 18 ( 'Jaws' 1975)
One of the greatest suspense movies ever filmed stems from a foolproof premise: a monstrous, underwater behemoth enjoys all the advantages while all you can do is pathetically dog-paddle away and not look like sushi. Reverse the fish in a barrel aphorism (substituting humans) and you've got it. Steven Spielberg's first gargantuan hit mixes horror with laughs and features Robert Shaw (who chews more scenery than the shark) in the prize role of salty old sea-dog Quint.

No 17 . ( 'M*A*S*H' 1970)
Director Robert Altman hit an early career peak with this irreverent sideways glance at American surgeons (Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, et. al.) plying their trade at a mobile army surgical hospital near the front lines during the Korean War. The ensemble cast of little-heralded character actors melds together as seamlessly as Hawkeye Pierce closing a suture in a darkly droll comedy that spawned the long-running TV series.

No 16. ( 'Halloween' 1978)
The original 'Halloween,' with its potent shocks, silent bogeyman in the character of Michael Myers and brisk pacing, was a low-budget revelation. The film put scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis on the map as a marquee movie star and kicked director John Carpenter's career into hyperdrive. And not since 'The Exorcist''s 'Tubular Bells' have we shuddered to such a creepy instrumental theme (scored by Carpenter, no less).

No 15. ( 'The French Connection' 1971)
Gene Hackman is Popeye Doyle, an indefatigable New York cop who'll stop at nothing to foil the plans of heroin smugglers intent on moving a giant cache of the drug into Manhattan. And that includes driving the pursuit car in perhaps the greatest old school chase scene ever lensed -- decades before CGI. Five Oscars include Picture, Actor (Hackman), Director (William Friedkin who hit his pinnacle here) and Screenplay.

No 14. ( 'Young Frankenstein' 1974)
Mel Brooks spoofs another genre -- horror, sort of -- in an uproarious, fractured take on James Whale's classics 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein.' Brooks' stock company regular Madeline Kahn is hysterical as the oversexed monster bride and Peter Boyle kills as the misshapen, misunderstood hulk with a heart of gold. Best bit: Gene Wilder and Boyle strutting their stuff in top hat, white tie and tails to 'Puttin' on the Ritz.'

No 13. ( 'Rocky' 1976)
Punchy palooka Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) gets the chance of a lifetime when heavyweight boxing champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) recruits the Italian Stallion as his next challenger. Although too many sequels have weakened its force, 'Rocky''s title bout still packs a tremendous emotional wallop. Winner of Best Picture and Best Director (John Avildsen) Oscars, the film also marked the beginning of Stallone's superstar trajectory after years of bit parts and walk-ons.

No 12. ( 'All the President's Men' 1976)
The movie that inspired a generation of American college kids to choose journalism majors, 'Men' follows intrepid Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they uncover the story of the century -- the Watergate cover-up and the fall of the Nixon presidency. Along the way, they prove the cautionary wisdom contained in the old saw: power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Won Oscars for Jason Robards as crusty Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and William Goldman for his screenplay.

No 11. ( 'The Exorcist' 1973)
A landmark in the annals of horror, the movie (adapted by William Peter Blatty from his bestselling novel) still packs potent shocks (as well as a surfeit of camp value). Kudos to the terminally creepy soundtrack ('Tubular Bells') and Mercedes McCambridge for supplying Pazuzu's guttural rasp.

No 10. ( 'Star Wars' 1977)
Who'd have thought an interstellar soap opera that owes a huge debt to B-movie Depression-era serials ('Flash Gordon'), would resurrect like the Phoenix (make that the Death Star) into one of the most popular movies of all time. Full of memorable characters (not the least of which are robots C3PO and R2D2), evil personified in Darth Vader, cheesy (in retrospect) special effects, and infused with a rollicking sense of fun, 'Wars' delivers like a well-placed thrust from a light-saber.

No 9. ( 'The Deer Hunter' 1978)
A group of American Green Berets who grew up in a Pennsylvania steel town and enlisted together to fight in Vietnam find themselves pawns in a harrowing game of Russian roulette with their Viet Cong captors. Winner of Best Picture, Director (Michael Cimino) and Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken) Oscars, 'Hunter' is a truly haunting film about the crushing toll that misguided conflict exacted on an entire generation.

No 8 ( 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1975)
The Pythoners embark on an epic Arthurian quest to find the holy chalice used by Christ during the Last Supper in their first original film not stitched together from existing sketches. Great sight gags abound: the Black Knight suffering serial amputations, the Trojan Rabbit, the knights who say "Ni" and several running gags that break the fourth wall. The movie inspired the 2005 Tony Award-winning musical 'Spamalot.'

No 7 ('Apocalypse Now' 1979)
Director Francis Ford Coppola's opus was reviled by many Vietnam vets at the time for its hoary, Grand Guignol treatment of combat (epitomized by gung-ho stereotypes like Robert Duvall's Air Cav colonel), but the themes of alienation and utter futility of war still resonate poignantly, especially in the longer, uncut 'Redux' version of the movie. And when you add a babbling, unhinged Marlon Brando and sullen, existential Martin Sheen, the film delivers like well-aimed rounds squeezed off from an M-16.

No 6 . ('Alien' 1979)
A landing team from an interstellar towing ship responds to a distress beacon and soon encounters some leathery looking eggs on an abandoned alien ship. Uh-oh! A hugely popular fright movie, 'Alien' took the age-old scenario of people trapped in a haunted house and set it adrift in the void of deep space where there is little chance of escape and where your worst nightmares are given free reign.

No 5. ('Annie Hall' 1977)
Woody Allen turned a major artistic corner -- away from gag-oriented humor and nonsensical plots -- with this semiautobiographical story of a nerdy schlemiel who romances, wins, then loses the shiksa of his dreams (Diane Keaton); all set against the wondrous backdrop of New York City. Winner of a clutch of Oscars, including Best Picture, Actress (Keaton), Director (Allen) and Screenplay (Allen and Marshall Brickman).


No 4. ('Taxi Driver' 1976)
Graveyard shift New York City hack driver Robert De Niro has had his meter punched one too many times and he's about to lose it with his disgust at what a human sewer NYC's become. De Niro's stock-in-trade intensity mushrooms like an atomic bomb blast whenever he's working under the artistic aegis of Martin Scorsese. And the director hits a career highpoint with this bleak rumination of alienation pushed to homicidal limits.

No 3. ('Chinatown' 1974)
An important homage to 1940s noir, 'Chinatown' was the last movie Roman Polanski directed in the U.S. before skipping to Europe to avoid doing time for a sexual assault charge. Robert Towne won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and John Huston's memorable portrait of the sociopathic Noah Cross currently ranks 16th on AFI's list of 50 Greatest Film Villains of All Time

No 2. ('The Godfather' 1972)
The granddaddy of all great Mob stories to come (extending to 'The Sopranos'), this sleeper upon release transcended the studio suits' modest expectations and has since become embedded in our collective consciousness like the Statue of Liberty … or Bernie Madoff. Winner of an Oscar troika -- Best Picture, Actor (Brando) and Adapted Screenplay -- 'The Godfather''s an offer you can't refuse.

No 1. ('The Godfather: Part II' 1974)
Naysayers said it couldn't be done, but a scant two years after the landmark success of 'The Godfather,' director Francis Ford Coppola grabbed the brass ring once again with a sequel (it won an Academy Award for Best Picture) that was dramatically and artistically even more powerful than its predecessor. The trials and tribulations of the Corleone family continue as Michael (Al Pacino) extends his criminal tentacles via the usual methods: a tangled web of lies, obfuscation and murder. Other Oscars include one for Coppola and a Best Supporting statuette for Robert De Niro in flashbacks as the young Don Vito.