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- Jeremy Urquhart
- 'Apocalypse Now' (1979) Director: Francis Ford Coppola. It's easy to call Apocalypse Now a great war movie, but it's also more than just a war movie. It's a loose adaptation of the novella Heart of Darkness, following one man who's given the task of traveling deep into a jungle for the purposes of killing another who's said to have gone rogue, and therefore poses a threat.
- 'Chinatown' (1974) Director: Roman Polanski. Chinatown expertly brings the film noir genre into the 1970s, melding classic noir tropes and storytelling devices with a New Hollywood look/feel.
- 'The Conformist' (1970) Director: Bernardo Bertolucci. Though it's certainly not a musical (instead functioning more as a psychological drama), The Conformist is another early 1970s movie that joins Cabaret as a blunt, eye-opening exploration of Fascism.
- 'Jaws' (1975) Director: Steven Spielberg. Jaws wasn't the very first movie Steven Spielberg ever directed, but it was his first arguably perfect (or close to it) one.
- Marc Chacksfield
- The Godfather Part II (1974) View now at Amazon. Whenever the argument arises over the inferiority of sequels, Francis Ford Coppola’s first follow-up to The Godfather is commonly used as a classic example that bucks the trend.
- Star Wars (1977) View now at Amazon. After Jaws showcased just what mainstream audiences were looking for in the 70s, George Lucas took the idea of a blockbuster one step further.
- Jaws (1975) View now at Amazon. While Star Wars is often seen as the film which invented the summer blockbuster, it was actually Steven Spielberg’s terrifying tale of shark v man which changed how Hollywood viewed the warmer months.
- Alien (1979) View at Amazon now. One of the last films of the decade was also one of the most important. Blending sci-fi and horror in a way that hadn’t been done before (at least not quite as successfully), Ridley Scott’s terrifying thriller kicked off a franchise that’s still going today - a sequel to 2017’s Alien: Covenant is currently in the works.
2 days ago · The 70s movies you need to see, from Star Wars to The Godfather, Taxi Driver to Apocalypse Now, The Jerk and beyond.
May 16, 2024 · The 1970s was a transformative era for cinema, bringing forth a wave of influential films that redefined the landscape of filmmaking. This decade saw a remarkable fusion of creative visionaries, innovative storytelling, and groundbreaking techniques that set new benchmarks in cinematic excellence.
- 10 'Monty Python and The Holy Grail'
- 9 'Taxi Driver'
- 8 'The Sting'
- 7 'A Clockwork Orange'
- 6 'Apocalypse Now'
- 5 'Alien'
- 4 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope'
- 3 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'
- 2 'The Godfather Part II'
- 1 'The Godfather'
IMDb Rating: #148 — 8.1/10 Decades later, Monty Python and the Holy Grail continue to keep audiences smiling with their comedic ridiculousness. In this Middle Ages tale, King Arthur and his knights set out to find the Holy Grail, only to be faced with a wave of outright bizarre and outlandish obstacles. Writers and directors Terry Gilliam and Terry...
IMDb Rating: #117 — 8.2 A dark, but epic installment in the careers of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver remains just as compelling over four decades later. Travis Bickle (De Niro) takes a job as a late-night cab driver in New York City, where he slowly begins to detach from reality as he fantasizes about saving the city until a 12-ye...
IMDb Rating: #112 — 8.2 One of the original "the art of the con" movies, The Sting, featured solid performances from its leading men that still inspire movies today. Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is an aspiring con man who is out for revenge against Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), a ruthless crime boss who murders his friend. Hooker seeks out and te...
IMDb Rating: #104 — 8.2/10 Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is a true dystopian nightmare. Set in a futuristic version of England, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) — a sadistic gang leader — bargains for his freedom from jail by participating in behavior modification experiments that condition him to hate violence. As he returns to society, those who he...
IMDb Rating: #53 — 8.4/10 Francis Ford Coppola takes audiences into the dark depths of war and madness with Apocalypse Now. Deep in the trenches of the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with trekking upriver to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a promising officer who reportedly went mad. As Willard's journey drags on, ...
IMDb Rating: #51 — 8.4/10 Audiences can thank this film for one of the most gut-wrenching horror sequences in genre history (you know the one). After receiving an unknown distress call, the crew of a commercial starship wakes from their cryo-sleep to investigate and are soon terrorized by an alien organism that attached itself to a crew member. Thi...
IMDb Rating: #28 — 8.5/10 The episode that started it all is deservedly in the top ten for its release decade. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hopetransported audiences to a galaxy far, far away where a group of rebels, including a pilot, a princess, and an orphan, join forces to fight for the rebellion and save the galaxy from the Empire's regime. R...
IMDb Rating: #18 — 8.6/10 This acclaimed adaptation brought viewers some of the best adversarial characters of all time to the silver screen. Jack Nicholson stars as the recently admitted patient R.P. McMurphy, who rallies a mental institution's more timid, introverted patients against Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who rules the ward with an iro...
IMDb Rating: #4 — 9.0/10 A spectacular follow-up to the number-one movie of the 1970s, The Godfather Part II, is just as brutal. As their stories are told side-by-side, audiences are introduced to the early life of Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) as he rises to power, while in the present day, his son Michael (Al Pacino) controls the empire Vito bui...
IMDb Rating: #2 — 9.2/10 The definition of iconic and a "how-to" in mafia storytelling, The Godfathercontinues its reign as the best of the '70s and number two of all time on the Top 250. When his youngest son Michael (Al Pacino), returns, the head of a well-respected mafia family, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), decides to take a step back, but...
- Contributing List Writer
1. Patton. 1970 2h 52m PG. 7.9 (108K) Rate. 86 Metascore. The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton. Director Franklin J. Schaffner Stars George C. Scott Karl Malden Stephen Young. 2. M*A*S*H. 1970 1h 56m R. 7.4 (77K) Rate. 80 Metascore.
My 25 personal favorite movies from 1970-1979. Honorable Mentions: Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971) The Last Picture Show (1971) The Sting (1973) Serpico (1973) Young Frankenstein (1974) Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974) The Conversation (1974) Zerkalo (1975) Love And Death (1975) The Tenant (1976) Rocky (1976) Saturday Night Fever ...
