The Best Films of the 1970s
by LeoCrow2002 | created - 10 Oct 2010 | updated - 29 Sep 2011 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,009,479 | Gross: $134.97M
2. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 361,853 | Gross: $48.98M
3. Taxi Driver (1976)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Votes: 919,379 | Gross: $28.26M
4. The Godfather Part II (1974)
R | 202 min | Crime, Drama
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Votes: 1,362,636 | Gross: $57.30M
5. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 709,333 | Gross: $83.47M
6. Mean Streets (1973)
R | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
In New York City's Little Italy, a devoutly Catholic mobster must reconcile his desire for power, his feelings for his epileptic lover, and his devotion to his troublesome friend.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson
Votes: 119,498 | Gross: $3.13M
7. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 349,494
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
R | 133 min | Drama
In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
Director: Milos Forman | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco
Votes: 1,071,322 | Gross: $112.00M
9. Nashville (1975)
R | 160 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Over the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Shelley Duvall
Votes: 28,535 | Gross: $14.82M
10. Annie Hall (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 278,187 | Gross: $39.20M
11. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
R | 125 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar
Votes: 272,853 | Gross: $50.00M
12. Network (1976)
R | 121 min | Drama
A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall
Votes: 170,430
13. The Last Picture Show (1971)
R | 118 min | Drama, Romance
In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied North Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson
Votes: 52,320 | Gross: $29.13M
14. Manhattan (1979)
R | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The life of a divorced television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Michael Murphy
Votes: 147,131 | Gross: $45.70M
15. The Last Waltz (1978)
PG | 117 min | Documentary, Biography, Music
A film account and presentation of the final concert of The Band.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robbie Robertson, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Van Morrison
Votes: 20,107 | Gross: $0.32M
16. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 658,743 | Gross: $260.00M
17. The Sting (1973)
PG | 129 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Two grifters team up to pull off the ultimate con.
Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning
Votes: 279,610 | Gross: $159.60M
18. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,448,258 | Gross: $322.74M
19. Five Easy Pieces (1970)
R | 98 min | Drama
A dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.
Director: Bob Rafelson | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg
Votes: 40,484 | Gross: $19.40M
20. A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
R | 155 min | Drama, Romance
Although wife and mother Mabel is loved by her husband Nick, her mental illness places a strain on the marriage.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands
Votes: 28,662 | Gross: $13.34M
21. Blazing Saddles (1974)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Western
In order to ruin a western town, a corrupt politician appoints a black Sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.
Director: Mel Brooks | Stars: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman
Votes: 152,320 | Gross: $119.50M
22. Barry Lyndon (1975)
PG | 185 min | Adventure, Drama, War
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger
Votes: 182,850
23. The Conversation (1974)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 121,704 | Gross: $4.42M
24. New York, New York (1977)
PG | 155 min | Drama, Music, Musical
An egotistical saxophonist and a young lounge singer meet on VJ Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long, uphill climb.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, Lionel Stander, Barry Primus
Votes: 21,865 | Gross: $16.40M
25. Serpico (1973)
R | 130 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
An honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Biff McGuire
Votes: 134,596 | Gross: $29.80M
26. Badlands (1973)
PG | 94 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri
Votes: 78,300
27. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
PG | 112 min | Drama, Romance
A recently widowed woman is on the road with her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Mia Bendixsen, Alfred Lutter III
Votes: 27,439 | Gross: $18.60M
28. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
R | 120 min | Drama, Western
A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Old West mining town, and their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane
Votes: 27,605 | Gross: $8.20M
29. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 880,545 | Gross: $6.21M
30. Killer of Sheep (1978)
80 min | Drama
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
Director: Charles Burnett | Stars: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett
Votes: 7,528 | Gross: $0.40M
31. The French Connection (1971)
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco
Votes: 135,505 | Gross: $15.63M
32. Scarecrow (1973)
R | 112 min | Drama
An ex-con drifter with a penchant for brawling is amused by a homeless ex-sailor, so they partner up as they head east together.
Director: Jerry Schatzberg | Stars: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Dorothy Tristan, Ann Wedgeworth
Votes: 19,206 | Gross: $9.00M
33. Last Tango in Paris (1972)
NC-17 | 129 min | Drama, Romance
A young Parisian woman meets a middle-aged American businessman who demands their clandestine relationship be based only on sex.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Maria Michi, Giovanna Galletti
Votes: 58,288 | Gross: $36.14M
34. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
R | 109 min | Comedy
At a 1962 college, Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the entire Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.
Director: John Landis | Stars: John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst
Votes: 129,223
35. Coming Home (1978)
R | 127 min | Drama, Romance, War
In 1968 California, a woman whose husband is a Marine officer fighting in Vietnam falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.
Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern, Penelope Milford
Votes: 14,783 | Gross: $32.65M
36. The Conformist (1970)
R | 113 min | Drama
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio
Votes: 33,653 | Gross: $0.54M
37. Night Moves (1975)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Los Angeles private investigator Harry Moseby is hired by a client to find her runaway teenage daughter. Moseby tracks the daughter down, only to stumble upon something much more intriguing and sinister.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin
Votes: 17,678
38. Bananas (1971)
PG-13 | 82 min | Comedy
When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalbán, Nati Abascal
Votes: 37,747 | Gross: $11.80M
39. The Last Tycoon (1976)
PG | 123 min | Drama, Romance
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel is brought to life in this story of a movie producer slowly working himself to death.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jeanne Moreau
Votes: 9,571 | Gross: $1.82M
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