Best films of 70s

by ArchiZelig | created - 31 May 2013 | updated - 31 May 2013 | Public

Sex, Drugs, Rock n roll and Godfather.

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1. Raging Bull (1980)

R | 129 min | Biography, Drama, Sport

90 Metascore

The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent

Votes: 380,088 | Gross: $23.38M

2. Apocalypse Now (1979)

R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War

94 Metascore

A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest

Votes: 709,909 | Gross: $83.47M

3. The Godfather (1972)

R | 175 min | Crime, Drama

100 Metascore

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton

Votes: 2,011,540 | Gross: $134.97M

4. The Godfather Part II (1974)

R | 202 min | Crime, Drama

90 Metascore

The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

Votes: 1,363,697 | Gross: $57.30M

5. Chinatown (1974)

R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

92 Metascore

A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.

Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez

Votes: 349,728

6. Alien (1979)

R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

89 Metascore

The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 950,053 | Gross: $78.90M

7. Paper Moon (1973)

PG | 102 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

77 Metascore

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership.

Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, John Hillerman

Votes: 52,444 | Gross: $30.93M

8. Harold and Maude (1971)

PG | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

62 Metascore

Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.

Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack

Votes: 81,829

9. Taxi Driver (1976)

R | 114 min | Crime, Drama

94 Metascore

A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks

Votes: 920,236 | Gross: $28.26M

10. Being There (1979)

PG | 130 min | Comedy, Drama

83 Metascore

After the death of his employer forces him out of the only home he's ever known, a simpleminded, sheltered gardener becomes an unlikely trusted advisor to a powerful tycoon and an insider in Washington politics.

Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden

Votes: 77,628 | Gross: $30.18M

11. Barry Lyndon (1975)

PG | 185 min | Adventure, Drama, War

89 Metascore

An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger

Votes: 183,006

12. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi

77 Metascore

In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke

Votes: 881,060 | Gross: $6.21M

13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

R | 133 min | Drama

84 Metascore

In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.

Director: Milos Forman | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco

Votes: 1,072,042 | Gross: $112.00M

14. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

R | 125 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

86 Metascore

Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does.

Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar

Votes: 272,987 | Gross: $50.00M

15. The French Connection (1971)

R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama

94 Metascore

A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.

Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco

Votes: 135,625 | Gross: $15.63M

16. Scarecrow (1973)

R | 112 min | Drama

72 Metascore

An ex-con drifter with a penchant for brawling is amused by a homeless ex-sailor, so they partner up as they head east together.

Director: Jerry Schatzberg | Stars: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Dorothy Tristan, Ann Wedgeworth

Votes: 19,222 | Gross: $9.00M

17. The Passenger (1975)

PG-13 | 126 min | Drama, Thriller

90 Metascore

Unable to find the war he's been asked to cover, a frustrated war correspondent takes the risky path of co-opting the identity of a dead arms-deal acquaintance.

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry

Votes: 26,172 | Gross: $0.62M

18. The Exorcist (1973)

R | 122 min | Horror

83 Metascore

When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb

Votes: 454,785 | Gross: $232.91M

19. Amarcord (1973)

R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama

A series of comedic and nostalgic vignettes set in a 1930s Italian coastal town.

Director: Federico Fellini | Stars: Magali Noël, Bruno Zanin, Pupella Maggio, Armando Brancia

Votes: 46,803 | Gross: $0.58M

20. The Shining (1980)

R | 146 min | Drama, Horror

68 Metascore

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Votes: 1,106,121 | Gross: $44.02M

21. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

90 Metascore

Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.

Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness

Votes: 1,449,158 | Gross: $322.74M

22. Jaws (1975)

PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller

87 Metascore

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary

Votes: 659,233 | Gross: $260.00M

23. Annie Hall (1977)

PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance

92 Metascore

Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.

Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane

Votes: 278,327 | Gross: $39.20M

24. The Sting (1973)

PG | 129 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

83 Metascore

Two grifters team up to pull off the ultimate con.

Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning

Votes: 279,806 | Gross: $159.60M

25. Stalker (1979)

Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

85 Metascore

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko

Votes: 144,691 | Gross: $0.23M

26. Eraserhead (1977)

Not Rated | 89 min | Fantasy, Horror

87 Metascore

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Director: David Lynch | Stars: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates

Votes: 127,412 | Gross: $7.00M

27. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

PG | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

93 Metascore

A surreal, virtually plotless series of dreams centered around six middle-class people and their consistently interrupted attempts to have a meal together.

Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Paul Frankeur, Bulle Ogier

Votes: 46,816 | Gross: $0.20M

28. Death in Venice (1971)

GP | 130 min | Drama, Romance

While recovering in Venice, sickly composer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio.

Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci

Votes: 23,031 | Gross: $0.15M

29. Cries & Whispers (1972)

R | 91 min | Drama

When a woman dying of cancer in early twentieth-century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long-repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.

Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin

Votes: 36,972 | Gross: $1.74M

30. Sleuth (1972)

PG | 138 min | Mystery, Thriller

A man who loves games and theater invites his wife's lover to meet him, setting up a battle of wits with potentially deadly results.

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Alec Cawthorne, John Matthews

Votes: 50,153 | Gross: $4.08M



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