This decade saw the release of some of the most enduring classics in contemporary American cinema while also seeing Taxi Driver robbed of the Best Picture and Director Oscar (by Rocky) as gritty realism and paranoia took over the movie theatres. That is until Star Wars arrived on the scene and created the blockbuster as we know it today.
From its opening shot of Malcolm McDowell staring with evil intent directly into the camera (which pulls back to reveal him drinking a glass of milk), Stanley Kubrick's brilliant CLOCKWORK ORANGE announces itself as a completely new kind of viewing experience. Banned in Britain for decades, the film,
Herzog's sweeping, explosive epic is rich in visual imagery and features a protean performance from frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski. Herzog's film is an acknowledged classic that has exerted a strong influence on the movie brat generation particularly Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'. A breathtaking
Director Ridley Scott's breakthough film, an immensely successful blend of horror and science fiction, is a classic in both genres and spawned a host of sequels and imitators. Starring Sigourney Weaver as warrant officer Ellen Ripley, ALIEN focuses on the crew of the space cargo ship Nostromo, which
Conspiracy film specialist Alan J. Pakula turned journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's best-selling account of their Watergate investigation into one of the hit films of Bicentennial year 1976. While researching a story about a botched 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate
A series of touching and effective vignettes, AMERICAN GRAFFITI presents a powerful collage of youth on the brink of maturity during the innocence of pre-Kennedy-assassination America. The film, set in 1962, follows one night in the lives of several recently graduated high school students. The genial
Woody Allen cowrote, directed, and stars in this award-winning film as a kvetchy Brooklyn comedian wistfully recalling his bygone relationship with flighty, adorable, and irrepressibly midwestern (read: not Jewish) Annie Hall. The film marked a transition from Allen's earlier absurdist comedies to a
Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam epic, loosely based on HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad, tells the story of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), a special agent sent into Cambodia to assassinate an errant American colonel (Marlon Brando). Willard is assigned a navy patrol boat operated by Chief (Albert Hall)
The railroad's bound to run through the sleepy town of Rock Ridge. Land there will be worth a fortune - but the townfolk already own the land. How do you drive them out? Send the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest gang you've got... and appoint a new sheriff you figure will last about 24 hours. But
rector Roman Polanski's neo-noir detective story is set during a heat wave in 1930s Los Angeles, whose residents are suffering from a water shortage as a result of an ongoing drought. Private investigator Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) runs a detective agency specializing in matrimonial strife and infidelity.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND is Steven Spielberg's extraordinary film about a man named Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) who becomes obsessed with meeting extraterrestrials after encountering a UFO on an abandoned road one night. Against the wishes of his wife (Teri Garr) and children, Neary, along
'The Deerhunter' is an astonishing, powerful and vivid epic about three men, steelworkers from Pennsylvania, whose lives are changed irrevocably in the tragic devastation of the Vietnam war. When Michael, Steven and Nick are captured by the Vietcong, they are forced to play Russian Roulette by their
You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk? Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its fascist message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood, in a role
Before Peter Finch was 'mad as hell' in NETWORK, Sidney Lumet's scorching indictment of the American television industry, Al Pacino played an equally ferocious and fed-up bank robber in Lumet's classic film DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Pacino is heartbreakingly real as Sonny, a smart and tough if self-destructive
With THE EXORCIST, William Friedkin (THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE BOYS IN THE BAND) rivals Hitchcock for heart-stopping terror in this deeply horrifying masterpiece that led to religious boycotts, fainting and nauseous audiences, and a commercial success that forever changed Hollywood. Linda Blair plays
The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
Great site, very interesting. This really was a great decade for film- the 70's. Will be in touch to see which ones I want.
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