Movies from the 70s or so where the lead character dies at at the end

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Love Story (co-lead), The Exorcist (male lead, at least), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Nashville ...

that was the review he said this in r1. I forgot to mention that.

Stepford Wives

Chinatown

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Zabriskie Point.

Godfather.

Was Easy Rider 60s or 70s?

Michael didn't die at the end, r8.

On Golden Pond (H Fonda not quite dead at the end because they didn't want to make the film even more depressing than it was).

He mentioned it in a review of First Love (1971) and referenced another recent film he reviewed Deep End (1970) Both films starred John Moulder Brown. Jane Asher died in the latter film and Dominique Sanda in the former.

Almost all of them?

But the title character did R10

Brian's Song

The Exorcist and The Omen.

r14 I take your point, but to me, the movie is about Michael's becoming the title character.

Carrie

"Bonnie and Clyde"

Ode To Billy Joe; The Omen

The last paragraph of the Goodbar review:

What we get (and I quote from someone walking out of the screening ahead of me) is "another one of those movies that are supposed to be all filled with significance because the person gets killed at the end." What we might have gotten is a movie about a character obsessed, and fascinated, by what the end might be. Even a movie about how she got to be that way.

Silent Running

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Buster and Billie

The OP reminded me of this FAMILY GUY cutaway:

Jesus Christ Superstar

Earthquake

Was Angie considered a lead in Dressed to Kill?

The Poseidon Adventure

My Cocaine, was , though.

Re-regard.

Geraldine Page in Interiors

Hair

[quote]Movies from the 70s or so

The Wild Bunch (1968)

Easy Rider (1969)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Sorry, The Wild Bunch was also from 1969.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) really opened the floodgates, huh?

McCabe and Mrs Miller. Don't look Now. (Julie Christie survived them both, but her love interests were not so lucky!).

The Mind of Mr Soames

Apocalypse Now

The Wicker Man

Jaws

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Marlon Brando in LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Horrible depressing endings were very much a 70s thing.

Lennie

Last House on the Left

Knightriders

1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Devils of Loudun

The Taking of Pelham 123

Willard.

Most of Robert Altman's 70s films end with a death, if not of a main character then of a significant supporting character.

BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970)

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971)

IMAGES (1972)

THE LONG GOODBYE (1973)

THIEVES LIKE US (1974)

NASHVILLE (1975)

3 WOMEN (1977)

A WEDDING (1978)

QUINTET (1979)

R17 and he does take over after the Godfather dies at the end

Carrie?

Apocalypse Now is debatable, I feel Sheen would be considered the lead and he doesn't die.

R1- In the 1970's I was looking for Mr. Goodbar

The China Syndrome-Jack Lemmon.

Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom

In the Realm of the Senses

Peeping Tom

Kirk Douglas in "There Was a Crooked Man", a comic western with a dark twist, well worth seeing.

Matron Brando was totally the star of Apocalypse Now

Spoilers folks! Spolers!

R55 star? Sure. Lead character? Not really.

I love how bleak the 70s endings were. Nashville especially is so memorable…especially the haunting rendition of “It Don’t Worry Me” immediately afterwards.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1975)

Hello, Dolly! might have been better if somebody died at the end. Or before the end.

1985 film with a 70's vibe To live and die in L.A. William Peterson

R21 the book was popular and much discussed and most people who went to the film knew how it was going to end

R32 Decades later, that ending of Hair still brings such deep emotions to the fore.

[quote]The Taking of Pelham 123

Lt. Garber's very much alive, to Mr. Green's chagrin.

(^.^)

Race With the Devil (technically they're not "dead" at the end -- but we can all agree that they're toast)

[quote]One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

R23 Did he die at the end? I thought he was lobotomized.

Easy Rider or was that 60s?

There’s more than one lead character in most films, kids.

R67 he was, but later the big Indian chief smothered him to death with a pillow.

Harold And Maude

Earthquake

The Parallax View

Don't forget 1973's "Sunshine". What would the Seventies have been without bare-faced, philosophy-spouting, dying hippie girls? Co-stars DL fave Brenda Vaccaro.

R66 I like Race with the Devil. it's creepy and scary

Network

Westworld

[quote] Hello, Dolly! might have been better if somebody died at the end. Or before the end.

In the original idea for the film, Gene Kelly was going to have Irmengarde violently kill Dolly Gallagher Levi by shoving her in front of the train from Yonkers to NYC, but at the last minute Barbra Streisand objected.

𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐩𝐞𝐬 (1970)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐦𝐞𝐠𝐚 𝐌𝐚𝐧 (1971)

𝐒𝐨𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 (1973)

Dying in his films became something of a trend with Charleton Heston.

Nicholas and Alexandra

The Mechanic. Two leads dead for the price of one.

Didn't Tonto the cat die at the end of "Harry and Tonto"?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

They never tell us conclusively whether all the children with Charlie survive or not, which really disturbed me when I was small since almost all of them are in life-threatening danger. (In the book, they all survive but they're all one way or another disfigured for life except Veruca--but I didn't read the book until years later.)

All That Jazz

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Elvira Madigan

Grease

R61 that’s a good one! I lost my shit when Petersen got shot.

Jaws

Brian’s Song

Thelma and Louise

R91, 'Thelma and Louise' is from 1991.

Caligula....deservedly so

Mommie Dearest

Electra Glide in Blue

The Boys in Company C. It's a Vietnam movie. I liked it much better than "Platoon", which was very overrated.

Soylent Green

The Wicker Man

"What's the Matter with Helen."

Just watched it on TCM last night. Seeing Debbie Reynolds hanging up on her little stage in her sailor costume was quite the shock.

Jaws. He had a mouthful of teeth but couldn't last forever.

Old Yeller

Charlotte's Web

Cool Hand Luke

The Great Gatsby

Sunset Boulevard

[quote] Matron Brando was totally the star of Apocalypse Now

But he wasn't the lead character.

I liked when they'd do this in the 70's, because while it might have been depressing, you didn't leave the movie wanting to hang yourself or wondering why you just spent two hours of your life watching that movie. You knew the character dying at the end had a point and the filmmakers were trying to tell you not to make the same mistakes they did. It wasn't just cynicism or nihilism.

The Stepford Wives is the ending that still chills me to the bone. It's so depressing, but it packs a wallop and the film wouldn't work with a happy ending.

The Stepford Wives (1975)

Happy endings were out of style in the early-ish 70s. As the decade wore on, it was back to happy endings, like the The Goodbye Girl, and Star Wars.

Mame

Or did the audience just want her to die already?

[quote] Marilyn was Holly in real life.

Uh, no. Even being the "kook" that she Holly Golightly was never the train wreck that Marilyn Monroe was.

Sugarland Express. Goldie was first-billed, but the male lead dies.

Payday (1973) Rip Torn

Clint Eastwood in The Beguiled (1971)

When I saw "The Beguiled" I was truly shocked by Clint Eastwood dying at the end. And he was killed by a bunch of vengeful, jealous females! I was quite stunned by a character played by Clint Eastwood having an ending like that.

"Blow Out" and Nancy Allen's shocking murder.

Wait...was Eastwood killed by DL icon, Pamlyn Ferdin, aka Lucy Winters from the Jan Brady afro episode of The Brady Bunch...

R111 Yes, he was. She got the mushrooms.

The Cowboys (1972) - John Wayne is gruesomely shot in both arms, a leg, and the back, by psycho Bruce Dern, and left to die slowly.

R113- For a sec I thought you wrote that John Wayne is gruesomely HOT

Performance The Long Good Friday Quadrophenia The Night Porter