(I just realized I made a mistake with two #5’s, but my back hurts, and it was hard not only limiting my options to 25, and also tough using IMDB scores as a reference, and deviating from it based on how I feel right now)
What a difference a decade makes! If France owned the 60s, the US owned the 70s.
Adding fewer than 25 to make up for the other thread:
Il Giardino Dei Finzi-Contini (1970) Vittorio De Sica
Jeanne Dielman (1976) Chantal Akerman
Love And Death (1975) Woody Allen
Mad Max (1979) George Miller
Monty Python Life of Brian (1979) Terry Jones
Network (1976) Sidney Lumet (just mentioned in another thread)
Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975) Lina Wertmuller
Pink Floyd (Live) At Pompeii (1972) Adrian Maben
Rollerball (1975) Norman Jewison
Série noire (1979) Alain Corneau
Solaris (1972) Andrei Tarkovsky
The Deer Hunter (1978) Michael Cimino
The Emigrants (Utvandrarna) (1971) and The New Land (Nybyggarna) (1972) Jan Troell
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) Victor Erice
And a quick shout-out to actors becoming auteurs like Jean-Louis Trintignant, Paul Newman or Barbara Loden and far-from-unanimous auteurs Jodorowsky or Fassbinder or Pasolini.
Apocalypse Now
Poseidon Adventure
The French Connection
The Black Stallion
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Airport
Airport 77’
The Towering Inferno
Juggernaut
Kelly’s Heroes (I had this on my 1960s’ list as I thought it was a 1969 film, but it’s from 1970. I’ll replace it with Women in Love, the Oliver Reed movie from 1969)
MASH
A Man Called Horse
Harold and Maude
The Omega Man
The Devil in Miss Jones
Deliverance
Sleuth
Coffy
Charlotte’s Web
The Last Detail
The Paper Chase
Papillon
Scorpio
Blazing Saddles
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Three Days of the Condor
The Bad News Bears
Silver Streak
Slap Shot
Smokey and the Bandit
The Deer Hunter
Hardcore
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Norma Rae
This was more difficult than the 1960s. I had to pare the list down from 33.
Godfather 1
Godfather 2
Apocalypse Now
The Conversation
Taxi Driver
Annie Hall
Nashville
Mccabe and Mrs Miller
Chinatown
Jaws
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
French Connection
The Sting
Patton
Barry Lyndon
All that Jazz
Days of Heaven
Five Easy Pieces
Spirit of the Beehive
Life of Brian
The Europeans
Amarcord
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Day for Night
Undoubtedly a great decade for American cinema and quite remarkable how so many young filmmakers emerged at the same time: Coppola, Scorcese, Spielberg, Lucas, Woody Allen, along with Robert Altman who was a bit older but emerged then. Also remarkable that Scorcese and Spielberg in particular are still going quite strong.
Patton (1970) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Gimme Shelter Dirty Harry (1971) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) The Harder They Come And Hope to Die Enter the Dragon (1973) Golden Voyage of Sinbad Blazing Saddles (1974) Chinatown Blood for Dracula, a.k.a. Andy Warhol’s Dracula Lenny The Parallax View Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) All the President’s Men (1976) Network The Man Who Fell to Earth Master of the Flying Guillotine Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Dawn of the Dead (1978) The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Bandits vs. Samurai Squad
*The Tin Drum *(1979) Hunter in the Dark
Hon. Mention:
F for Fake (1973) Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla/Terror of Mechagodzilla (1974/1975) Andy Warhol’s Bad (1977) Apocalypse Now (1979)
I wanted to highlight this and thank you for reminding me. Also, for anyone who’s interested, the film is known as Seven Beauties in English (and is available on YouTube gratis). Outstanding movie.
It was one of my favorite movies growing up and it’s probably the second best Superman movie ever made(after Superman II). Though to be fair most of the other Superman films were horrible.
Also *Star Trek: The Motion Picture * was released in 1979. And like the Superman(1978) it was exceeded in quality by its first sequel. Though *Star Trek: The Motion Picture * does deserve some credit for reviving the whole Star Trek franchise.
