1970s Movies Appreciation Thread

Previous threads:

1950s

1960s

Favorite films from this decade:

Taxi Driver
Chinatown
Paper Moon
The Last Picture Show
All the President's Men
Patton
Cabaret
The Conversation
Sorcerer
A Fistful of Dynamite

My Favourite filmmakers this (awesome) decade would be:
Nicolas Roeg
Werner Herzog
F. F. Coppola obviously (Congrats for the recent AFI win Sir!)
William Friedkin
Martin Scorsese

The actors and actresses I appreciate this decade are:
Al Pacino & Rober DeNiro... living legends.
Gene Hackman (RIP)
Diane Keaton
Vanessa Redgrave & Glenda Jackson

Can't wait to explore more (hopefully in the current year):
I have several Sidney Lumets lined-up... I know I love John Cassavetes... More Clint Eastwood would be nice... Fassbinder too.

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HEI guys.

The bulk of my favourite films is from the 1970s, very closely followed by the 1960s.
There appears to be no trend in favourite filmmakers, the only one who pops up regularly is Ken Russell. All the others have their best output spread across several decades (e.g. Roman Polanski, Sidney Lumet).

I think the decade brought us many of the best-looking films, not just because of how the films were made (and how they managed to make it seem so effortless) but also because of the "look" of the seventies. Colourful, gritty, it had such a deep texture.

What are your favourite Ken Russell films? I loved The Devils and Women in Love and liked The Girl Friend. The rest seem to have received mixed reactions, to different degrees...

And you're right on about their "look". I wish today's movies were half that provocative.

Harry and Tonto
Nashville
A Woman Under the Influence
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Network
The Godfather
The Godfather: Part 2
Mikey and Nicky
Fat City
A Clockwork Orange
Harold and Maude
Last Tango In Paris
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Sunflower
The Conversation
Annie Hall
Stroczek
Alice in the Cities
The Deer Hunter
Chinatown
The Last Detail
Rocky
Dog Day Afternoon
Series Noire
The Ear
Zandy's Bride
Slap The Monster On Page One
Hope
Taxi Driver
Five Easy Pieces
Chit-Chat On The Nile
A Special Day
The Working-Class Goes To Heaven
Autumn Sonata
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Fifth Seal
Wise Blood
Minnie and Moskowitz
An Enemy of the People
One is a Lonely Number
Barry Lyndon
Hothead
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Johnny Got His Gun
Blume In Love
The New Centurions
Le Chat
Adoption
I Only Want You To Love Me
Lies My Father Told Me
Mother Kuesters Goes To Heaven
The Punishment
Nuts In May
Payday
Papillon
The Yellow Handkerchief
Whity
Horse
The Beguiled
Death In Venice
The Red Circle
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Scarecrow
Turkish Delight
The Emigrants
Scenes From a Marriage
Made For Each Other
Opening Night
Joe
Mr Klein
The Outfit
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
My Brilliant Career
The Day of the Jackal
Equus
The Ascent
Love In The Afternoon
Dirty Harry
The Long Goodbye
The Getaway
And Justice For All
Straw Dogs
Hardcore
Ode To Billy Joe
Two Men In Town
Sounder
Camera Buff
I For Icarus
The Visitors
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Paper Moon
10 Rillington Place
The Castle of Purity
Midnight Express

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The Devils, Woman In Love, Tommy and Valentino. Russell himself dismissed the biopic as a mistake but that doesn't mean anything to me.
Apart from the gorgeous cinematography (with a healthy dose of kitsch) I also enjoy the incredible energy in his films, and the actors always seem to be on board with it.
Apparently, Valentino was a production nightmare, but when you look at the three biggest players here - a British director, an American pop star turned actress and a renowned East-European ballet dancer - it seems like a recipe for disaster.
All very talented but with completely different work ethics.

I also like The Music Lovers but it's not quite as strong, thematically.
Haven't seen Savage Messiah yet, I need to buy a copy from Ebay.
As for his films post-seventies...I don't know. The 80s decade was unkind to many filmmakers so maybe it's better to avoid them.

70s have a lot more of my favorite films than 50s/60s


Jaws
Godfather pt 2
Halloween
Alien
Star Wars
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Deep Red
Young Frankenstein
Murder on the Orient Express
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Exorcist
Blazing Saddles
Harold and Maude
Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Scrooge
Rocky
Taxi Driver
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
What's Up Doc
Wicker Man

So who had the best run of films in the 70s?

Clint Eastwood
Dustin Hoffman
Jack Nicholson
Donald Sutherland
Gene Hackman
Sean Connery
Charles Bronson
Charlton Heston
Faye Dunaway
Gene Wilder
Roger Moore
Someone else?

According to https://www.ultimatemovierankings.co...e-stars-1970s/, the biggest box office stars of the 70s? Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, and Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford?? Never thought of him as a 1970s movie star.

Star Wars
American Graffiti
Apocalypse Now
Heroes
Getting Straight
Frisco Kid
Force 10 From Navarone
The Conversation
Hanover Street

Rather prolific for a 70s star.

How many of these were leading roles? Because it's not just about the movies.
I'm pretty sure it was Indiana Jones that made Harrison Ford hot property.

Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neal, Dustin Hoffman, Pacino & De Niro were the real big 70s stars.

Prophecy is one of my favorite monster movies

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Yep, of course this all could be sorted by lead roles, but the list pretty much assumes the reader knows who was and wasn't a lead, and thus they can make the distinctions themselves.

Seems to me that they put all the data in a blender and the pap that comes out of it is the "truth".

No, that doesn't work for me at all.

It’s not meant to be taken as “the truth”, but the raw data from their calculated numbers.

And is that useful...or not? Sorry for asking but it confuses me.

Probably the second most groundbreaking decade in cinema; so full of iconic films that established genres, tropes, and trends.

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The 70s, particularly in America, found a way to make realism cinematic, which to me feels like the apex of what can be done with film. What the whole art form had been building towards for decades. That's not to say all sorts of greatness didn't come before, or hasn't continued to come since, but there was a magic window of time there where all sorts of directors were creating impossible little miracles. It was a weird kind of alchemy they were doing, and then suddenly everyone seemed to forget how to do this particular trick. But at least we got seven or eight solid years of it.

The 70’s were a great time for film. Gritty dramas not just in America, but abroad. France, Italy, Japan, Sweden and Germany in particular.
Australia has its Ozploitation, as well as its own separate movement for more serious fare.
In Italy, we had the several great Giallo and Italian horror in general. Spain had some interesting stuff out at the same time with their horror genre. France had Rollin. Nuff said.
In Japan, Kinji Fukasaku reinvented the Yakuza genre so my chi they made it a subgenre, noted as “actual record” yakuza as opposed to the previous yakuza films.
It was a great time for film.