Top 25 Movies of the 1970s

1. Harry and Tonto
2. Nashville
3. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
4. Network
5. A Woman Under The Influence
5. Harold and Maude
6. Mikey and Nicky
7. The Godfather
8. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
9. A Clockwork Orange
10. Taxi Driver
11. The Godfather: Part II
12. One Is A Lonely Number
13. Chitchat On The Nile
14. Fat City
15. Sunflower
16. Autumn Sonata
17. Five Easy Pieces
18. Stroszek
19. Annie Hall
20. A Brief Vacation
21. Next Stop, Greenwich Village
22. An Enemy of the People
23. Dog Day Afternoon
24. Barry Lyndon

(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)

 

Again, in no particular order:

Apocalypse Now
Days Of Heaven
Nashville
M*A*S*H
Eraserhead
Heart Of Glass
Chinese Roulette
World On A Wire
Silent Running
The Godfather Part II
Assault On Precinct 13
The Marathon Man
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser
All The President's Men
Across 110th Street
The Last Picture Show
...and God Said To Cain
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
Le Mans
A Clockwork Orange
The Day Of The Jackal
The Lost Honor Of Katharina Blum
My Name Is Nobody
Don't Look Now
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul

 

I see a few Fassbinder's.. Did you like "Whity"? I liked the story, and thought it was kinda funny.

 

Sadly, I haven't seen Whity yet. That was the western kind of film, right?

 

Yup. I had a feeling I asked you before

 

It'd be great if all those films came out again here in austria. Whity was put out on DVD more than ten years ago, only to fade into obscurity. Same with the Chinese Roulette disc. They're very hard to come by as we speak...

 

Maybe you can google every month or so to see if its online? Or maybe checking out an art-house theater? It's my favorite of his, and I've seen about 20. I'd describe it as a domestic Western.

 

Will do that for sure. It sounds great!

 

In order:

The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Two-Lane Blacktop
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
Vanishing Point
Brewster McCloud
Ulzana's Raid
Dawn of the Dead
Black Belt Jones
Woodstock
Electra Glide in Blue
Zabriskie Point
Star Wars
Black Mama, White Mama
Black Gunn
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Shaft
The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart
Report to the Commisioner
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Apocalypse Now
Journey Through the Past
Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here
Shaft in Africa
Alien
Jeremiah Johnson

 

Chinese Roulette is available on BD from Arrow Academy, as a twofer with Fox and His Friends. Looking now, the Arrow shop is showing limited availability. Could just be a stock issue, or their licence could be coming to an end. Best act quickly, if you want to pick it up:

Fox And His Friends (+ Chinese Roulette) Blu-ray | Arrow Films

Whity is not yet available on BD anywhere in the world, but Fassbinder’s works have slowly been coming out, so hope springs eternal.

As to the original question, the 1970s is my favourite decade for cinema, and I own hundreds of films from that period. Not sure I could whittle it down to 25. I’ll give it some thought.

 

Nice you picked Le Mans, Clockwork, Jackal, Picture Show, Marathon, Apocalypse & Don't Look Now!

 

I have not seen too many Movies from the '70s, but after watching the CNN Movie of the Decades Episode on the 1970s, did write down a few Movies that looked interesting, which I would like to see such as 'Dog Day Afternoon', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest' & 'Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind'(seems like a SciFi Movie which a Genre that I like, but this Movie looks interesting). Most Older Movies I have seen(and in most cases own on BluRay or DVD) are Horror Movies. I cannot even list 25 Movies, but below are ones I have seen and liked or loved(probably forgetting a few Titles though):

The Godfather Part 1 & 2
Halloween
Jaws & Jaws 2
The Exorcist
Alien
Black Christmas(bought it after reading that is was the Original Slasher Movie)
Carrie
The Deer Hunter
Taxi Driver
Rocky & Rocky II

 

Many of those films (in particular Le Mans, Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now) helped shape my personal taste in film and my desire to one day become a director myself. All my picks are very special movies to me

 

No particular order:

The Exorcist
Apocalypse Now
Taxi Driver
Alien
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Dirty Harry
Magnum Force
Halloween
When A Stranger Calls
Taxi Driver
Death Wish
Dawn of the Dead
Zombie (a.k.a. Zombie 2)
The Jerk
Carrie
Rocky
Rocky 2
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
Superman
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Warriors
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Grease
Play Misty For Me

 

For my list, I went by release date.

Woodstock
Patton
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Performance
A Clockwork Orange
The Godfather
O Lucky Man!
Enter the Dragon
The Sting
Blazing Saddles
The Godfather Part II
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rocky
Network
Eraserhead
Annie Hall
Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope)
Suspiria
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Superman
Dawn of the Dead
Manhattan
Apocalypse Now
Monty Python's Life of Brian
All That Jazz

 

Godfather II
Godfather
The Sting
Young Frankenstein
Blazing Saddles
The Twelve Chairs
The Sunshine Boys
Bad News Bears
Monty Python & The Holy Grail
Three Days of the Condor
Animal House
The Goodbye Girl
The Muppet Movie
American Graffiti

 

Iam very impressed with your vision and achievement.
What did you think of Get Carter, Performance and Gimme Shelter and can you advise me of any of your films?

 

Well, to my shame, I haven't yet watched any of the three. I'm on a big journey to fill the important educational holes at the moment, so the three are on my list of course. As for my own work, I'm not *yet* at directing, but rather at writing screenplays for myself to participate in screenwriting competitions - I started sending in my work earlier this year. Just turned 20, so I'm currently in a prenatal state of my (hopefully) career but constantly working on it.

 

No shame there. You are still very young, and I admire your ambition and sense of purpose.

All three films mentioned are worthy of your time, but, if I were to put together a list of just 25 from the 1970s, only Performance would make the cut (and that was filmed in 1968). Please, make seeing Performance a priority, and be sure to see it with the original U.K. dialogue track.

 

Thanks all music and musician-related movies get watched in their original sound tracks by me, so that's my plan for "Performance", too Plus, I don't even know if there exists a german dubbing, anyway.

 

I wasn’t talking about a German dub. There is a bad American dub that changes the dialogue and some of the cockney accents to better accommodate U.S. ears.

Get Carter suffers from the same issue. In both cases, seek out the current U.K. BD releases for the correct soundtracks.

 

Oh, thanks for that warning! I wouldn't have thought of something like that I just checked, both films' UK blu ray releases are easy to get around here, so there should be no problem to watch them asap

 

In no particular order:

Performance
Don’t Look Now
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Aguirre, Wrath of God
Straw Dogs
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Mirror
Stalker
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
F for Fake
O Lucky Man!
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Punishment Park
Edvard Munch
The Passenger
Annie Hall
McCabe and Mrs Miller
Nashville
The Last Movie
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
The Wicker Man
The Conversation
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Mean Streets

 

Keep it up, I realise though by 20 you can't have watched everything!

 

I had forgotten about The Wicker Man, Straw Dogs & Picnic At Hanging Rock which are all superb and dramatic.