Ah, the 70s: a revolutionary time for technology, social consciousness and, above all, cinema. Among the films of the 70s, we witness the birth of the blockbuster with Jaws, the birth of an outstanding franchise with Star Wars and, according to Who You Ask, the greatest successes of cinema with Francis Ford Coppola’s two-component adaptation of Mario Puzo’s film. The Godfather (you decide whether or not the second component surpasses the first film).
If we’re now starting to make you feel nostalgic (or, for a younger audience, curious), we’ve picked our favourites from that period, adding where you can stream them, renting or buying them digitally, or even buying a physical copy. one of those if you don’t already have one. Here’s our assortment of the biggest hits of the ’70s.
The 1970s were a transformative time for space and horror films (for reasons we’ll get to later), but it wasn’t until the decade came to an end that we saw, by a large extent, the best combination of those two genres. With this thrilling suspense workout set in the most harmful environment known to man. Following a team trapped through a slimy, malevolent beast, director Ridley Scott’s Alien is a brilliantly crafted fusion of slasher with creature-like ability that has made Sigourney Weaver one of the premier scream queens for generations to come.
Some people think that the media and politics are more at odds these days, but this inspiring story of an ambitious crusade for facts amid a firewall of corruption proves that the existing clash is only the most recent bankruptcy in a long ongoing history. Based on the e-book Through Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford), All the President’s Men tells the story of the authors’ own struggles to shed light on the 1972 Watergate scandal.
Richard M. Nixon has a slight connection to this masterful epic through co-writer and director Francis Ford Coppola, as the U. S. military was still preoccupied with the standoff in Vietnam during his presidency. Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and set in that notorious war, Apocalypse Now follows Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret project to cross the border into Cambodia to track down and assassinate a Green Beret Colonel with a damaging divine complex, played by Marlon Brando.
Speaking of politics, how about a film that chooses not to take them so seriously?Director Hal Ashby’s thought-provoking satire, Being There, stars comedy legend Peter Sellers in one of his biggest roles as a naïve gardener who, (and for reasons he doesn’t realize: he becomes a close adviser to a tough businessman and, eventually, an influential voice in Washington, D. C. , Anno Domini.
Speaking of comedy legends, how about two who surely take things seriously and, in some ways, in a dazzling and funny way in their feature films?Whether or not Up in Smoke, co-written with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong (the iconic movie smokers collectively known as Cheech and Chong), is the biggest stoner movie of all time, is up for debate, but few would disagree that it’s the first movie about primary stoners.
Murder, corruption and vile secrets are the central themes of this crime drama that borrows from the old black thrillers of Hollywood’s Golden Age with twists that are incredibly unique for the time but are still timeless and entertaining today. Set in California in 1937, Chinatown chronicles a complex and potentially fatal case, followed by small-time personal investigator Jake Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson in his fourth Oscar-nominated role.
Before earning a reputation as one of the most exciting and influential names in film history, teenager Steven Spielberg made his directorial debut with a small, self-financed sci-fi film called Firelight in 1964. Thirteen years later, he turned it into one of the most iconic alien “invasion” films ever made: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a surprising story of people coming into contact with more beings, featuring one of John Williams’ most productive scores of his career.
Writer-director Francis Ford Coppola had two films in the running for Best Picture at the 1975 Academy Awards, one of which we will mention later won the award and the other (The Conversation) still acclaimed everywhere and being a stark warning. A story far ahead of its time years later. Gene Hackman plays a lonely and disillusioned surveillance expert who begins to question his own and his career’s ethical barriers when he discovers evidence that a young couple would possibly be the target of murder.
The late George A. Romero brought the modern, undead, carnivorous incarnation of the zombie with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Ten years later, he resurrects the genre he pioneered with the creepy and strangely stimulating economic satire Dawn. of the Dead, which unfortunately is rarely available for streaming or virtual rental and will also cost you more than a penny to buy on DVD or Blu-ray.
Buy Dawn Of The Dead on Blu-ray on Amazon.
The aforementioned The Conversation is one of five films on our list starring the late actor John Cazale, who, until his death in 1978 from lung cancer, directed only five films, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The last role was in The Deer Hunter, a harrowing and unforgettable meditation on the debilitating effects of war perceived through the eyes of three close friends (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage) who broke up after suffering traumatic cases while serving in Vietnam.
After Western-era works like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly made him a star, Clint Eastwood brought his outlaw persona to a civilized and fashionable Western landscape in the lead role of Dirty Harry earlier in the decade. Eastwood’s rebellious crime The hero of San Francisco will have to rely on his instincts and his own questionable strategies to catch a ruthless killer encouraged by the Zodiac Killer in the first of five nearly similar iconic films that replaced the crime mystery genre forever.
The third film to pair the late John Cazale with Al Pacino was Dog Day Afternoon, in which the two play other ordinary people whose attempts to rob a bank to fund the transgender operation of Pacino’s character’s (Chris Sarandon) character’s lover turn into a media circus. . . The most shocking aspect of director Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning masterpiece is that it’s based on a true crime.
Another classic example of an event influencing a gold medal in a commercially successful, hugely influential Oscar-nominated film is The Exorcist, the terrifying story of an actress (Ellen Burstyn) desperate to cure her 12-year-old daughter, Regan (Linda Blair) of the sinister forces that have invaded her frame with the help of the Exorcist. in the first place, reluctant from a skeptical priest (Jason Miller). The curious thing about this adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel is that director William Friedkin never approached it as a horror film, however, as an observation about mysterious faith, which might explain why it is not only considered one of the most productive horror films of all time, but also one of the most productive horror videos based on a true story some 50 years later.
When we talk about the evolution of the crime thriller, we can’t mention the Osautomobile for Best Picture of the same year, directed by director William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman in, arguably, his defining role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, who is perhaps simply called “Dirty Harry. ” Based on the e-book Robin Moore (itself animated by the truth), in which Doyle and her husband (Roy Scheider) uncover European drug trafficking operations in the United States, The French Connection is a fast-moving suspense drama with one of the most hypnotic stories. Intense car chases of all time.
Speaking of acclaimed eBook adaptations, few movies are considered as good, if not better, than their source. Winner of three Academy Awards for director Francis Ford Coppola, as well as Best Picture and Best Actor for Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather. It almost defines that short list, telling the hard story of how a man (Al Pacino) is lured into a violent life.
Of course, the offer to continue the story of the Corleone family, now officially led by Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, who must grow the family’s business while suspecting an internal crime, cannot be refused. Also awarded Best Shot at the 1975 Oscars, The Godfather II also serves as a prequel to the first film, and chronicles the rise of Robert De Niro’s Don Vito Corleone in his first Oscar-winning role.
Hollywood had never been so outspoken about the biggest school party before John Hughes’ appearance in the 1980s, however, Grease made a clever attempt to channel its righteous confessions of teenage angst through upbeat tunes. Director Randal Kleiser’s adaptation of the romantic hit series, set in the 1950s, is technically John Travolta’s second consecutive number one musical. Soon we will reach the first.
With a few exceptions, the horror genre (especially the subgenre involving the senseless murder of innocents) had struggled to be a complicated art. That would replace when director John Carpenter and his co-writer, Debra Hill, directed Halloween, which would introduce audiences to the trendy slasher film, one of the greatest horror movie villains of all time, Michael Myers, and Jamie Lee’s beloved Scream Queen prestige. Curtis as Laurie Strode
For years, Hollywood didn’t have an express call for a film that can only be described as a cultural occasion waiting for its release. That would replace when director Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, the thrilling creature feature that pits Roy Scheider against each other. , Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw opposed a wonderful 25-foot white shark and it is considered the first definitive “blockbuster”.
Few filmmakers have mastered star-studded comedy like the celebrated and defeated Robert Altman did. Few films have depicted his skill as well as Nashville, a satirical test fostered by American culture explained through the political side of country music.
Few filmmakers have mastered gripping, star-studded ensemble comedy like John Landis did with National Lampoon’s Animal House. Then again, the critical and publicity good fortune that follows members of a maligned fraternity (including level thief John Belushi, still in the midst of his influential tenure on SNL) in heated clash with his own school is one of the first of its kind and, after more than 4 decades, it is still considered the best.
Jack Nicholson’s first Oscar-winning role was that of R. P. McMurphy, a criminal whose allegation of insanity leads him to an intellectual establishment where he is subjected to a fate worse than prison: the ruthless remedy of Nurse Ratched (another Oscar winner, Louise Fletcher). . . From director Miloš Forman, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is another inspiring and witty story about an uprising against authority, a defining theme of the time.
Another prominent theme of the 1970s is the will to triumph over insurmountable odds, which describes Sylvester Stallone’s struggle to succeed in Hollywood. The actor would channel those reports into his script for Rocky, the story of an amateur boxer and underdog facing off against an undefeated champion, which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and spawn a franchise that still endures through the Creed films.
Sylvester Stallone would also succeed as a director and directed, at one point, Staying Alive, a sequel to 1983’s Saturday Night Fever. Of course, this critical and publicity failure would continue in John Badham’s time. A young man from Brooklyn who escapes his harsh realities on the dance floor with the disco music of the Bee Gees as his guide.
Speaking of classics that marked an era, although the aforementioned Jaws would possibly have been the first blockbuster film, the first film that comes to mind when describing the term will be released two years later and will be directed by Steven Spielberg’s intelligent friend and collaborator. Cinema has never noticed anything like the first Star Wars film, in which Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a Jedi-in-training, teams up with rebel pilot Han Solo (Harrison Ford) to save Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from the tyrannical Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones), and he has never been the same since.
None of Martin Scorsese’s most productive films is as dark and uncompromisingly brutal as this Paul Schrader-written story about a disturbed, insomniac Vietnam veteran (played by Robert De Niro at his most transparent) whose hatred of urban nightlife begins to consume him after it takes a job. Some might argue that, without its striking performances and sophisticated observation about poisonous masculinity, Taxi Driver would be nothing more than a reckless exploitation of cynicism and savagery in its darkest form.
While this pure, unforgiving, country-like nightmare, and one of the most productive horror videos on Pluto TV, has been hyped and even begins with the claim that it’s based on a true story, that’s not entirely true. In fact, writer-director Tobe Hooper’s inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in which five travelers are pursued by the gruesome Leatherface and his cannibalistic circle of relatives, was only part of Ed Gein’s murders and some other component of his own morbidity. curiosity as you walk through the strength tool segment of a crowded breakdown shop.
Author Roald Dahl, more than simply captivating the mind’s eye of his readers, is able to break new ground on what the mind’s eye is capable of in his books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, about a handicapped young man who becomes one of five children. Directed by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Mel Stuart from a screenplay by Dahl himself, Willy Wonka.
Would you say you covered all the most productive videos of the 1970s?If so, which one is your favorite?
Jason Wiese writes for CinemaBlend. Su assignment is the result of years of dreaming of a career as a filmmaker, of having set himself a career as a “professional cinephile,” of reading journalism at Lindenwood University in St. Petersburg, and of reading journalism at Lindenwood University in St. Petersburg. John’s, from St. John’s. Charles, MO (where he is cultural editor of his student-run print and online publications), and a brief stint reviewing movies for fun. He later continued his movie complaint activity on TikTok (@wiesewisdom), where he posts videos twice. per week. Look for his call in almost every single article about Batman.
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