Favorite Film From the 1970s

On your list, "Chinatown". On mine, "Badlands".

R1 Definitely up there, but for me, Days of Heaven might have been number 11.

A Clockwork Orange

Good film them all. Which of them reach the inner depths of the human experience that great cinema can bring.

Cabaret

So many good ones, but my favorite is Network.

And, The Conversation

Paper Moon

Smile

Apocalypse Now

Annie Hall

Manhattan

Three Women

American Graffiti

The Exorcist

Five Easy Pieces

The Last Detail

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

I'm glad to see The Godfather in 1st place. There are some real men left on DL.

Oh!

Young Frankenstein (personally, I think it's far funnier than Blazing Saddles)

and

Female Trouble

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Blazing Saddles for this exchange:

"They said you wuz hung".

Cleavon Little: "And they be right".

And . . .

Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties)

Woodstock

You actually omitted the Taking of Pelham 123. 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 ??

Being There.

Unmarried Woman

Breaking Away.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Jaws

Ken Russell's The Devils (1971)

Where is Airport 75???

Dog Day Afternoon

The '70's was when the cinema (American cinema, in particular) really truly grew up and many of the greatest and most influential of all films come from this era, in large part because it's also a time when big studios were regularly financing daring, provocative films in that way that's just not possible any more.

Network would be tops for me too, followed by A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon but, from OP's list, Chinatown, The Last Picture Show and Taxi Driver would all be right up there too.

OP here. Just about every movie listed so far could easily have made my 10 and are probably all in the top 30. It's more of an emotional list, gut feeling; movies I went back to time and time again because of particular sequences or maybe a particular performance. In the back of my mind, I had 5 films I specifically didn't list expecting others would, and I was right: Network, Cabaret, Apocalypse Now, Dog Day Afternoon, and I just knew someone would mention Goodbar, (possibly before Annie Hall). I myself added A Clockwork Orange when I realized it wasn't in my 10, but couldn't decide what it would have replaced. Smile and Female Trouble were also strongly considered. I've watched both numerous times over the years. Airport 75 was a lot of fun. I considered it, but have to admit I would have chosen the first Airport from 1970. In retrospect, Airport is very cheesy and ridiculous, but was one of the very first movies I saw as a kid on a very big, wide screen. '75 didn't have the emotional pull of the Jacqueline Bisset sequence when she's fighting for her life and almost ejected from the plane.

R12 Please forgive me. I've never seen Pelham in it's entirety. Only sequences from the badly edited tv version. Maybe I'll amend that within the next few weeks.

You bitches are slipping - what about DL fave KLUTE???

I will add:

Black Christmas The Deer Hunter Deliverance The French Connection Norma Rae Phantom of the Paradise

Barry Lyndon, Harold and Maude, Star Wars, Life of Brian, The Wicker Man

Sci-fi geek, so Close Encounters, Star Wars, Alien, etc.

Barry Lyndon

Man Who Fell to Earth

Diary of a Mad Housewife.

OP has no personality, a very taste, beige, Kate Middleton list.

I'm surprised What's Up Doc wasn't ranked hire. It seems like every time TCM airs it, someone starts a new thread and it gets at least 100 replies.

I voted for Nashville, but McCabe & Mrs. Miller is my top Altman. As far as American films go, I also nominate the following:

Carnal Knowledge Payday The Panic in Needle Park Scarecrow The Killing of a Chinese Bookie Eraserhead The Landlord A New Leaf The Sugarland Express Charley Varrick Mean Streets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Straight Time

For me, it was between Chinatown and All That Jazz. Chinatown edged out All That Jazz by a hair.

Jaws

Way too hard to choose from all those great films (and others) from the 70s, so I went with my favorite at the time -The Poseidon Adventure. It was the first movie I went to a second time, and the first that I saw without my parents. I was enthralled by ocean liners for years afterward, and I'm a total cruise-a-holic today.

Now, of course, I appreciate the film on a completely different level. But even as a sixth grader, looking at Ernie Orsatti made me realize I wasn't like other boys..

You make me want to throw up, OP.

Holy Grail and Life of Brian

Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety

Female Trouble

The Warriors and Mad Max

Three Days Of The Condor

Little Big Man

Parallax View

Marathon Man

Last Embrace

Chilly Scenes of Winter

Mahogany

Lady Sings the Blues

Earl Cornbread and Me

Eyes of Laura Mars

The Ritz

Shaft

Pumping Iron

The Bitch

The Stud

From the 70s?

The original Star Wars - hands down.

Little Big Man, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, The Deadly Trap, Doc, Oklahoma Crude, The Three Musketeers, Chinatown, The Towering Inferno,Three Days of the Condor,Voyage of the Damned, Network, Eyes of Laura Mars, The Champ.....

All of the above, really.

And don't forget The Four Musketeers, in which I- er the Milady character had more screentime!

No Cabaret?

Last Tango in Paris

An acquired taste perhaps... but seemed to capture the hedonistic self-loathing of the 70s. And Gato Barbieri's soundtrack set exactly the right mood....

Nice list OP and and hard to choose. I'm a fan of thrillers and noirs, so in addition to ones mentioned like Klute (1971), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Three Days of the Condor (1975) I'd add...

The French Connection (1971)

Serpico (1973)

The Conversation (1974)

All the President's Men (1976)

"Play it as it Lays" with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins.

Every time I see these lists of films from the 70's it reminds me that this was truly the greatest decade of cinema. I have seen all of these films multiple times and still enjoy them. It's a great testament to the filmmakers that they are all so eminently rewatchable.

The Towering 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Airport 1977

You don't have Network, Three Days of the Condor, or Eyes of Laura Mars on your list - so I don't know you.

So many amazing movies. Even the trash back then was enjoyable

Grease (1978). The Exorcist (1973)

The Way We Were

Kramer Vs Kramer

Being There

R45 Yep, this thread and these lists are a startling reminder... perhaps only the 30s was a greater decade... and few of those I need to see again, and so many of these I've watched multiple times. e.g. Taxi Driver, Godfather I... both I've seen multiple times and they never disappoint.

Andromeda Strain would be my favorite just off the top of my head -- choice subject to change.

Or Jaws, maybe I should make up my own list.

Days of Heaven (with the sound muted).

Carrie for the win. It's my all-time favorite movie. It's a minor/major masterpiece. Don't even get me started. There was a very good, very active DL Carrie thread about a year ago, and I had a lot to contribute to it, but at the time I couldn't reply. It was due to a lame-ass reason that i quickly resolved with all of this Corona downtime. Too late now though.

"All That Jazz" opened the last weeks of December in one theater in NY and one in LA so technically it's a 70's film but most of the country didn't get to see it until 1980.

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Julia

The Turning Point

Superman

The Silver Streak

Foul Play

The very underrated Hair from 1979

Bertolucci's The Conformist is very very good. (And I would not include his Last Tango in Paris as even worth sitting through today, except that it's kind of funny to think that people might have ever taken it seriously).

Network. Will always love it. Great and prophetic. Maybe the Godfather movies too.

Carrie is the most rewatchable so I'd probably go with that. Taxi Driver is a chore to sit through. Last Picture Show would be the most underrated of the bunch.

R61 I agree on The Conformist. But I disagree on Last Tango. The music and visuals and the way the story just falls ahead and acting fragments around it... all seem to capture something that was happening as "modern" shifted to "postmodern"... and laughing at Brando does nothing but enhance the fragmentation and darkness. And the music.... just turning up Gato Barbieri ...

But thanks for Bertolucci... and this thread ignores great stuff not in English for the decade.by iconic directors Cries and Whispers, Amarcord, Day for Night, Claire's Knee, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Murmur of the Heart, The Emigrants/New Land, any number of Fastbinder or Vertmueller ...

The Way We Were.

Murmur of the Heart is an amazing movie, the best Malle I've seen, by far. Thanks for the reminder, I will see it again --

R66, great movie.

Breezy. Introducing Miss Kay Lenz.

R64 I agree, some of my all-time favourite films are non-English language & from the 1970's - Stalker, Cries & Whispers, Spirit of the Beehive and Aguirre, for starters.

There is only one choice, the funniest horror film you will ever see.