Best of 1970s, a list by Bob Saggot

88

/35257/

86

/22250/

4.5

/2344268/

97

/153/

98

/41096/

100

/16/

4.0

age 16+

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

91

9.0

/1475099/

87

/21054/

85

/13460/

4.6

/1231676/

96

/129/

97

/18705/

90

/18/

age 16+

In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

89

8.4

/762405/

82

/13566/

83

/8800/

4.4

/885199/

91

/148/

94

/16503/

94

/15/

4.0

age 16+

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.

89

8.6

/1551904/

84

/47173/

82

/21816/

4.2

/2308678/

94

/206/

96

/34703/

90

/24/

4.0

age 8+

Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.

88

8.5

/1050883/

83

/33745/

81

/15889/

4.2

/1656240/

93

/207/

94

/22400/

89

/34/

4.0

age 15+

During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.

88

8.3

/10114/

82

/394/

81

/391/

4.4

/52170/

88

/24/

95

/472/

4.0

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

88

8.1

/19347/

78

/519/

75

/286/

4.2

/16640/

100

/26/

92

/580/

95

/9/

4.0

An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.

88

8.1

/373482/

79

/6334/

79

/4116/

4.3

/448367/

98

/144/

93

/5232/

92

/23/

4.0

age 15+

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

87

8.2

/1011381/

79

/18913/

81

/13085/

4.1

/2113264/

89

/163/

93

/13431/

94

/23/

4.0

age 17+

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

87

8.2

/297462/

82

/5130/

80

/2832/

4.2

/176630/

93

/107/

95

/3577/

83

/17/

4.0

age 13+

A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.

87

8.2

/7279/

82

/236/

75

/110/

4.3

/22626/

100

/22/

92

/186/

80

/5/

4.0

age 15+

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

87

8.0

/25695/

78

/484/

77

/438/

4.2

/61781/

100

/41/

91

/397/

4.0

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

86

7.9

/31277/

76

/775/

76

/697/

4.2

/60151/

96

/67/

92

/419/

92

/19/

4.0

When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.

87

8.0

/56357/

76

/1007/

76

/739/

4.2

/82829/

98

/115/

89

/953/

93

/15/

4.0

age 17+

High school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating a local beauty, while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife. As graduation nears and both boys contemplate their futures, Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business. Each struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.

86

8.1

/383501/

78

/5700/

79

/4100/

4.2

/268645/

86

/129/

91

/5764/

90

/18/

4.0

age 17+

Three steelworkers enlist in the Vietnam War, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter overseas changes their lives forever.

86

8.1

/183896/

78

/3262/

78

/1922/

4.3

/195360/

90

/81/

93

/3212/

83

/16/

4.0

age 16+

When veteran anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire his 25-year post because of his age, he announces to viewers that he will kill himself during his farewell broadcast. Network executives rethink their decision when his fanatical tirade results in a spike in ratings.

86

8.0

/155019/

78

/3229/

81

/2409/

4.4

/333199/

100

/47/

92

/1589/

85

/17/

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.

86

8.0

/26113/

76

/486/

77

/635/

4.2

/45887/

98

/40/

91

/423/

4.0

A committed filmmaker struggles to complete his latest project while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

86

7.9

/25159/

77

/560/

74

/424/

4.2

/47489/

100

/32/

91

/620/

4.0

age 13+

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

86

8.0

/32627/

79

/748/

78

/542/

4.4

/131491/

86

/37/

91

/574/

88

/16/

4.0

Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.

86

7.9

/38405/

76

/665/

76

/736/

4.2

/65400/

98

/58/

90

/658/

100

/11/

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

86

8.1

/56710/

79

/1062/

79

/789/

4.4

/96353/

91

/55/

94

/816/

77

/8/

4.0

age 12+

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.

86

7.9

/104105/

77

/2238/

77

/1755/

4.2

/189247/

92

/66/

89

/1488/

93

/8/

4.0

A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.

86

8.1

/727521/

78

/18212/

77

/11239/

3.9

/1545574/

97

/169/

91

/36180/

87

/21/

4.0

age 12+

When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine biologist, and a grizzled shark hunter embark on a desperate quest to kill the beast before it strikes again.

86

8.6

/1146245/

84

/15664/

84

/11120/

4.4

/866205/

93

/135/

96

/14990/

84

/21/

3.0

age 16+

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

85

7.7

/50041/

73

/918/

75

/876/

4.0

/97285/

98

/60/

88

/744/

93

/12/

4.0

In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.

85

7.7

/22376/

74

/458/

76

/384/

4.2

/50677/

93

/29/

89

/500/

87

/4/

4.0

In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn.

85

7.7

/135030/

74

/3027/

75

/1952/

4.2

/245818/

94

/141/

89

/2050/

88

/17/

4.0

age 16+

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.

85

7.9

/82149/

77

/1587/

75

/1086/

4.1

/72835/

95

/64/

92

/1748/

83

/16/

4.0

age 14+

A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.

85

7.9

/289621/

76

/4938/

77

/4126/

4.0

/337688/

97

/129/

92

/6502/

92

/20/

3.5

age 14+

New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditsy Annie Hall.

85

7.9

/56779/

79

/1107/

79

/1049/

4.3

/169156/

100

/30/

91

/543/

82

/14/

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

85

7.7

/335395/

75

/11170/

75

/6016/

3.8

/1022456/

97

/92/

89

/15062/

91

/21/

4.0

age 16+

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

85

8.0

/179542/

79

/5134/

78

/3316/

4.0

/207365/

95

/74/

92

/10670/

83

/17/

4.0

age 12+

A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.

85

8.0

/8163/

77

/141/

74

/121/

4.2

/7336/

94

/17/

87

/40/

4.0

Karl and Kristina Nilsson work on a farm in a cold and desolate area of 19th century rural Sweden. Growing privations, combined with increasing social and religious persecution, motivate the Nilssons and many of their neighbors to strike out for the United States. Following a treacherous ocean crossing and an equally grueling land passage, the emigrants find themselves in seemingly idyllic Minnesota.

85

7.7

/7574/

73

/155/

73

/192/

4.2

/19290/

94

/35/

91

/96/

89

/18/

4.0

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

85

8.0

/14920/

79

/456/

82

/848/

4.2

/32927/

100

/14/

94

/81/

89

/10/

3.0

Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.

87

85

8.6

/11345/

83

/391/

80

/216/

4.4

/26710/

100

/13/

96

/297/

75

/11/

British progressive rock band Pink Floyd perform at the ancient Roman Amphitheater in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy in 1971. Although the band perform a typical live set from the era, there is no audience beyond the basic film crew.

85

7.9

/39354/

77

/642/

78

/753/

4.2

/74535/

92

/36/

90

/619/

4.0

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.

85

7.7

/54946/

76

/921/

75

/683/

3.9

/25830/

97

/34/

90

/910/

91

/16/

4.0

Tired of life as soldiers, Peachy Carnehan and Danny Dravot travel to the isolated land of Kafiristan, where they are ultimately embraced by the people and revered as rulers. After a series of misunderstandings, the natives come to believe that Dravot is a god, but he and Carnehan can't keep up their deception forever.

85

7.7

/67859/

74

/1400/

74

/1108/

4.1

/152080/

94

/66/

89

/1297/

94

/20/

4.0

age 14+

In 1916, a Chicago steel worker accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend and little sister to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer.

85

7.7

/83394/

74

/1767/

74

/1295/

4.0

/169002/

97

/61/

90

/1404/

94

/20/

4.0

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

85

7.7

/148836/

74

/3282/

75

/2052/

4.0

/188891/

97

/93/

87

/2340/

94

/18/

4.0

age 16+

Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.

85

8.0

/288936/

79

/4986/

78

/3220/

4.3

/449298/

96

/118/

90

/3874/

86

/15/

3.5

age 15+

Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.

85

8.2

/598759/

81

/15246/

78

/6201/

4.1

/626642/

92

/131/

95

/33989/

91

/24/

age 13+

King Arthur, accompanied by his squire, recruits his Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot and Sir Galahad the Pure. On the way, Arthur battles the Black Knight who, despite having had all his limbs chopped off, insists he can still fight. They reach Camelot, but Arthur decides not to enter, as "it is a silly place".

84

7.8

/5287/

76

/99/

73

/132/

4.0

/5966/

100

/8/

85

/16/

4.0

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

84

7.8

/67024/

74

/1373/

74

/1193/

4.1

/122194/

96

/56/

90

/1589/

4.0

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.

84

7.9

/113485/

77

/2296/

74

/1172/

3.9

/50142/

92

/51/

93

/2434/

86

/20/

4.0

age 14+

"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.

84

7.9

/136192/

78

/3551/

77

/1989/

4.2

/203020/

94

/71/

92

/2244/

84

/18/