*** ILE Best Films of the 1970s REVEALED ***

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101b. Cross of Iron
Sam Peckinpah, 1976

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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101b. Superman
Richard Donner, 1978

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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101c. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

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98. The Getaway
Sam Peckinpah, 1972

Points: 25
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 1

C-Man:
Kim, who was quite possibly the hottest human being on earth in the eighties. Then came the nineties and she got hooked up with a Baldwin, but she's still suuuuuper sexy in "The Getaway". Nudity is cool (as long as the fellas keep their togs on).

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97. The Harder They Come
Perry Henzell, 1972

Points: 28
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Pete Scholtes: I'd side with The Harder They Come only because the story is more mythic, and the music, which spans more years, includes some of the greatest popular music ever set to tape. The live gospel scene is so great. If there's a film from the rock steady era rotting away somewhere, I hope somebody finds it.

Eastern Mantra: This film's in my list of 14 impeccable films, and yet crazy ass me hasn't picked up the wonderful wonderful soundtrack. *le sigh*

I am disappointed The Harder They Come is so low. It has my favourite film soundtrack ever.

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96b. The Shout
Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978

Points: 27
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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96a. Patton
Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970

Points: 27
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Kenan: Oh come on. If you're bored watching Patton you need to check your pulse.

Oops: The opening scene in Patton is the shit. . .

happy the shout got three at least.

the scene where john hurt (playing a concréte music composer) slowly makes a new piece by close micing himself smoking a cigarette (static hiss) and recording trapped bees. followed by the scene where the maniac who can kill with his voice stares at him blankly, and says; "I've heard your music. it's empty. it's nothing."

Nightmare!

I forgot to vote for Night Porter. And forgot to vote for God Told Me To. I hope someone else did.

Number is off, but it shouldn't really matter, if people want to renumber after I'm done that's fine, but as longas they are in order!

I love you guys.

Patton, while 'professionally made' and primarily a Scott vehicle, leaves a sour taste for the way it was marketed -- with the subtitle 'Salute to a Rebel" to pander to the Groovy People -- and the way the film hedges against the bloodthirsty SOB's mania throughout, finding his desire to start WW3 before II was over kinda cute. It was also Dick Nixon's most-screened movie in the White House, and inspired him to illegally bomb Cambodia (I'll exempt Schaffner and Coppola from direct responsibility).

The only minor downside is that the film shies away from making the two main characters members of the Nazi party (they both explicitly state that they aren't): that would've emphasized the idea that those on the "bad guys'" side weren't necessary that bad, just ordinary people caught in the midst of political currents far bigger than them.

so even if they *were* nazi party members, you're saying, they were powerless amid the 'currents' of politics?

Never has another film made Devon seem so haunting. The whole film has a disquieting, slow pace, and evokes the madness and serenity in 'Englishness' better than many films by English directors. Bates (infinitely disturbing) and Hurt are great, too; what a shame we didn't see more of them in British cinema in the following decades.

"Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and The Getaway are among my all-time favourites. Past the hard-as-steel protagonists and the "balletic" action there really is an incredible economy of storytelling, visually these films are excellent. There is always a degree of tension wrung from every scene, and it's never over or underplayed, just on the surface. I actually find that a lot of directors/films that owe something to Peckinpah (Christopher McQuarries Way Of The Gun, Tarantino) skip over a lot of the qualities I have just mentioned."-Nordicskillz

"i got shit to say about the hows and whyfors but i absolutely love the wild bunch, straw dogs, ...alfredo garcia, and the getaway. i bought a toy shotgun last year and wrapped it in brown paper so i could emulate steve mcqueen while i watched the latter flick.
err...i mean nothing." -brian badword

As for me, I think the film has little more than diddleyshit to do with the book. That doesn't stop it from being one of McQueen's best, and one of Peckinpah's most entertaining. Not to mention a key part of Sally Struthers secret history (the other being Five Easy Pieces). Besides Alfredo Garcia was a fair stab at great pseaudo-Jim Thompson.

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93. Day for Night
François Truffaut, 1973

Points: 28
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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92a. Days of Heaven
Terrence Malick, 1978

Points: 29
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Amateurist: the rhythms are very strange. the sound design is strange. the pervasive quiet is very strange.

(i have to say i find the lead actress really unappealing. but the little girl is the strangest and most fascinating of all the film's elements.)

it's interesting to think of this film and "badlands" (and i guess "the thin red line") coming out the revisionist cycle of films that kicked off with "the chase" and "bonnie & clyde" etc. and they *are* revisionist readings of american history, albeit very unorthodox compared to the likes of "soldier blue" or even "heaven's gate."

sam shepard talks in this movie just like terrence malick!! it's weird.

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92b. The Tenant
Roman Polanski, 1976

Points: 29
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Jay Vee: I love when Polanski's character comes back from his wacky shopping spree, takes his new shoes out of their bag and does that little, high pitched "What lovely shoes! Wherever did you get them?" conversation with himself.

Polanski does "slowly unhinging" really, really well.

Fields of Salmon: the first time i saw this film i was stone cold sober, yet it unnerved me to such a degree that i actually shut it off (i think at the point where he starts screaming "they're trying to turn me into her!") ... and yet after staring at the darkened t.v. screen for about a minute i found myself unable to not finish the film.

Fabrice: One of my faves ever. The filming angles are also key in giving it that subtly nauseating feel, eg. when going to the bathroom and seeing the mummy there. Classic scene, Polanski in full garb in a darkened room staring at the window, with this head bouncing in the courtyard..

I didn't vote so feel free to disregard above.

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90a. All the President's Men
Alan J. Pakula, 1976

Points: 29
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 9909

Comments?

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90b. Up in Smoke
Lou Adler, Tommy Chong, 1978

Points: 29
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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88. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
Werner Herzog, 1975

Points: 31
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

mm: It's so sad at the beginning of 'the enigma of kaspar hauser' when it says 'every man for himself and god against all

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87. Monty Python's Life of Brian
Terry Jones, 1979

Points: 31
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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86. Gates of Heaven
Errol Morris, 1978

Points: 31
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Sherm: best scene in Gates of Heaven is when the rock dude has his amp set up outside overlooking the cemetary and surrounding valley and is just jamming away.

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85. Picnic at Hanging Rock
Peter Weir, 1979

Points: 32
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Alex in NYC: Every single instant in "Picnic at Hanging Rock" wherein the pan-flute theme is heard, ominously unfurling itself like a beautiful poisonous flower.

jewelly: I loved this film too. One of the many ideas I had about it was that it was sort of symbolically illustrating a shift from the Victorian era to the twentieth century (I think the story is set on Valentine's Day of 1901, yes?) ... And then I went out and rented a bunch of Peter Weir's movies and decided "Picnic" was the rare case of a director perfectly suited to the material

Kyria: One of my all-time favorites, this is not a movie for just everybody. Those who are willing to see no more then the "outward" picture- Victorian schoolgirls, repressed sexuality, menacing landscape and outstanding camera work- will probably lable the movie as "slow," or "old fashioned". But those who exert themselves a little, to become immersed in the picture, will discover the reasons why "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is such a masterpiece. From the story behind Venus (the picture of a "Botticelli angel") to the significance of the clocks pictured everywhere, the thousand and one pieces of a mystery that does not add up to an explanation; Put simply, every shot in the film is symbolic. And every shot in the film is fantastic.

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84. California Split
Robert Altman, 1974

Points: 32
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 1

Jams Murphy: california split i loved, even though i can hardly remember a single scene. just hypnotic and typical greatness from segal and gould. you'd love it, adam

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83a. Up!
Russ Meyer, 1976

Points: 32
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

SexyDancer: Meyer's film "Up!" remains as good as The Bible.

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83b. Stroszek
Werner Herzog, 1977

Points: 32
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

steveo: 'Stroszek' - alienated outsider musician (Bruno S. brilliant) released from prison leaves for US with hopes of new life in new world with prostitute girlfriend, but ends up in desolate Railroad Flats, Wisconsin. Curtis was about to leave on Joy Division's first US tour at the time.

Jeff-PTTL: C'mon, you know any film is classic if it ends with the line "We've got a truck on fire, can't find the switch to turn the ski lift off, and can't stop the dancing chicken. Send an electrician." Plus the first time I watched the film, I had the vaugest recollection that I had been there before, and I had! At least to the Cherokee tourist trap at the end, it's in the mountains of NC.

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81a. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Sam Peckinpah, 1973

Points: 33
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

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81b. The Mirror
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974

Points: 33
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Jeff-PTTL: I actually remember very little of this film, except that it was a complete mindfuck and gave me a raging headache. I loved it.

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79. The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich, 1971

Points: 33
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

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78. Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music
Michael Wadleigh, 1970

Points: 33
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

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77. The Warriors
Walter Hill, 1979

Points: 34
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

nickalicious: Warriors for the bottle-clanking 'come-out-to-play-ee-ay', for featuring a gang whose get-up was vests-with-no-shirts-and-ascots, and basically just for being DA SHIT and entertaining me on many a drunken not-getting-any-tonight-why-not-turn-on-USA-network?-night.

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76. Papillion
Franklin J. Schaffner, 1973

Points: 35
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

crosspost

I just saw "Gates of Heaven" for the first time, and it's a solid piece of work, but I don't get any greatness. Morris' more recent films have more depth (except war criminal McNamara's semi-apologia).

*Albeit from the standpoint of "We're not making art, but that's better than making nothing at all."

California Split: My #1. I can't believe Murphy can hardly remember a single scene. Nearly ever sequence is classic in one way or another. OTM about it being hypnotic. Why #1? I just liked it better than the other 19.

Pat Garrett:I've only seen the short version, which is more like a sketch for a great movie than actually being a great movie. Still, Coburn's fucking awesome in it, as is Kris.

I think I agree, too. It's in Ebert's top 10 of all time, which I've never understood.

Have I mentioned that I knew Orsen Welles?

*Albeit from the standpoint of "We're not making art, but that's better than making nothing at all."

Agreed! This was in my top 10. It's as madcap as Soapdish (remember that one?), but also very reflective, and kind of inspiring.

Ah... I remember when I wanted to direct.

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75a. The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie
Luis Buñuel, 1972

Points: 36
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

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75b. The Sting
George Roy Hill, 1973

Points: 36
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

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73a. The Deer Hunter
Michael Cimino, 1978

Points: 37
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

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73b. Celine and Julie Go Boating
Jacques Rivette, 1974

Points: 37
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

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71. Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks, 1974

Points: 37
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Stew: Blazing Saddles is comedy gold. Of course it's scattershot, but the vast majority of gags hit. It's sublimely silly, but nevertheless is one of the best films about racism ever made, thanks, in part to Pryor's briliant gags, such as Cleavon Little taunting the Klansmen, "Where the white women at?". Lily Von Stup is great too. The schnitzengruber! Hedley Lamarr and his linguistic flights!

Andrew L: 'Blazing Saddles' was the first film I went to see at the cinema where I was underage (it was a UK 'AA' - you had to be at least 14, and I was 13, not much diff, I know, but still quite exciting.) This was in 1979 (oh god) - a revival double bill w/ 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' at our local fleapit - just before the home video market killed off such things. I'd never seen anything as outrageous as the classic campfire/farting scene before...

It's basically a farce about the misbehaviour of the more respected class. This has been done badly so many times that no one would bother based on this description, and yet it's more than that -- it's Bunuel. Ebert is fond of saying that a movie is not about what it's about, but about how it's about it, and this is a prime example. This movie does not date, not because the lampooned people here still exist in any meaningful way, but because Bunuel makes it about more than them. It's a brilliant fucking film.

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70. In the Realm of the Senses

Nagisa Oshima, 1977

Points: 38
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

James Blount: the first time I saw In The Realm of the Senses it was in the library when I was 16; I kept looking over my shoulder.

Peter Scholtes: Fuck Young Frankenstein, this is Mel Brooks's best. Now would you like another schnitzengruben?

xpost: oooo, In the Realm of the Senses. I actually just saw this in time to put it on my ballot. What a sumptuously crazy movie. I happened to see it within a week or so of seeing The Piano Teacher, and I thought it was so much better because there was actually some kind of deeply felt love and desire driving the whole tortuous relationship, not just loathing. Even the big, um, coup de grace (or coup de groin) works as an act of love, both in the giving and the taking. Also, it helped me understand a little where Miike comes from.

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69a. Breaking Away
Peter Yates, 1979

Points: 39
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Peter Scholtes: What I remember most are the dives into the quary lake, the quiet breeze of the earliest bike race, and Jackie Earle Haley taking his girl down to the judge to get married. That moment is so sweet, but so natural and offhanded. It's just like the movie's humor. (Watch it with the comparably arty and talky Spring Forward and you'll see similar class themes, too.) Maybe the camera seems too indifferent to be considered great "film," but sometimes art happens casually, and I think it does here.

xhuxk: *Breaking Away* was the John Cougar (without the Mellencamp) of movies.

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69b. Get Carter
Mike Hodges, 1971

Points: 39
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Alex in NYC: Michael Caine is one cool motherfucker.

A lot of movies are punching above thier weight here, in various people's opinion. Who's the douche that put Pappillon in their top five? You know it was just one guy who got that crap on the list.

Then again, we're totally in that part of the list.

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67a. Play it Again Sam
Herbert Ross, 1972

Points: 42
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Jimmy the Mod: An oddity in the Woody Allen Cannon and a forgotten masterpiece. And odd, really, with Ross' trendy San Franciscoization of it all.

Jedidah: The most consistently, side-splittingly funny comedy of the last thirty years

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67b. Shampoo
Hal Ashby, 1975

Points: 42
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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67c. The Exorcist
William Friedkin, 1973

Points: 42
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Rat: I saw the Exorcist for the first time by myself alone on T.V. late at night. "Parental control" did not exist then. I was scarred for life. By far the scariest movie I've ever seen.

Joe: As a total film, though, I would say The Exorcist (the version WITHOUT all the extra scenes, that is; the 'Version You've Never Seen' ending is total crap) is still the best of the three. Jason Miller's performance as Father Karras is totally underrated...he really drives the film, along with Ellen Burstyn. And Lee J. Cobb (in his last high-profile movie) is always a pleasure to watch. Best scenes: "You're gonna die up there", the dream sequence with Karras' mother and the semi-subliminal cut of the demon face, and of course the actual exorcism.

That makes no sense. I think we all saw ONE herzog film. It's real high up. You'll see.

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64. Amacord

Federico Fellini, 1974

Points: 42
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 1

Jedidiah - Fellini's last masterpiece, and my vote for the best overall film of the 70s

H: Amarcord does hold a special place in my heart though for the um, interpretive dance by (maddalena?) the kids go to witness.

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64. Amacord

Federico Fellini, 1974

Points: 42
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 1

Jedidiah - Fellini's last masterpiece, and my vote for the best overall film of the 70s

H: Amarcord does hold a special place in my heart though for the um, interpretive dance by (maddalena?) the kids go to witness.

Oh no, Shampoo at #67 with 4 votes? (Insert movie title here) was robbed!

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63. Walkabout
Nicolas Roeg, 1971

Points: 42
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

Shookout: "Walkabout" is a pervert's dream. Jennie Augger in school girl clothes. And naked!

Ian Riese-Moraine: I loved Walkabout. Not just because of Jenny Agutter either (sure, she was completely naked, but I don't think the film was very discerning about her parts if I remember right...they always appeared blurry or not in plain sight or underwater).

Ok, that wasn't fair. But Jeff, why won't you ever answer your phone?

I'm really doubting this.

if 'play it again sam' came in this high does that mean there's alot of woody allen to come?

my magic 8 ball predicts "yes".

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62. Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind

Steven Spielberg, 1977

Points: 45
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

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61. The Last Detail
Hal Ashby, 1973

Points: 46
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 0

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60. The Red Circle
Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970

Points: 47
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 1

Jedidiah: One of the greatest crime movies ever made. Alain Delon is beyond cool in this film

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59. Susperia

Dario Argento, 1977

Points: 47
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

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59. Susperia

Dario Argento, 1977

Points: 47
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

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58. Love and Death
Woody Allen, 1975

Points: 49
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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57. Pink Flamingos
John Waters, 1972

Points: 49
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Elisabeth: I like how all of the scenes he had to cut in Pink Flamingos are really short, but he left in heaps of shots of the trailor burning! I mean really I'm sure there was room for that pig latin bit.
Pink Flamingos is my favourite and I could read Shock Value over and over again, well I have.

dave q: PINK FLAMINGOS!!! "You can eat shit for all I care!", "There's two kinds of people in the world, my kind and assholes", "No one sends you a bowel movement and lives!", "Do my balls, mama!", "But WHAT if one day there's no more EGGS?!"

except xpost I love love and death so much. it's like all woody allen's earlier slapstick applied to high-cult directly insteada just being *about* high-cult. jump-cut gags with dosteyevskian dialogue! "wheat. wheat. wheat."

sigh.

at least this is the next to the last one.

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56a. Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia
Sam Peckinpah, 1974

Points: 50
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Kenan: I think the grasp on masculinity was the problem. It held onto masculinity like it was golden shit. I mean, the movie is aware of its own obsessions -- don't get me wrong. But in "Alfredo Garcia," the lead character has lost his way so profoundly that we sense him re-inventing his masculinty on his own terms, killing for his own reasons, sympathizsing with or condemning others off the top of his head, because he has nothing to lose and, once he gets all the facts about his girlfriend, nothing to gain. He becomes the poster child for inventing your own morality, which makes his actions at the end all the heavier. Nobody TOLD him to do that... no reasonable person ever would have.

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56b. Five Easy Pieces
Bob Rafelson, 1970

Points: 50
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Bryan: A masterpiece and beautiful film. Not the best film ever, but I'd say it's Nicholson's best work and Karen Black should be much more acclaimed and recognized than she is. It's one of best of those important films in a period (mid-60's to mid-70's) of cinema that is sorely neglected. The sad crop of indie-film assholes who think John Favreau is great cannot appreciate a film like Five Easy Pieces.

Andrew L: ONE OF the best movies ever made, certainly - morseo than 'Last of the Mohicans' or 'Cabaret', that's fer feckin' sure.

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56c. God Told Me To
Larry Cohen, 1976

Points: 50
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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56d. The Muppet Movie
James Frawley, 1979

Points: 50
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Deric: The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper are two of my absolute favorite movies. No shit.

kingfish: The Muppet Movie is an endless classic, mainly b/c they wrote for both the adults & the kids. The GMC had Charles Grodin & Kermit professing their love for miss piggy in a duet. MTM i saw once at the theaters in 1988, and i have yet to see a muppet flick since.

michele: Search - Muppet Movie, especially for the puns (Drinks are on the house! or If frogs couldn't hop I'd be gone with the Schwinn!) and for Dr. Teeth and the Electic Mayhem. Also, great sing along songs.

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52. The Devil, Probably

Robert Bresson, 1977

Points: 52
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

god told me to is awesome

the devil, probably is totally awesome

jeff do 10 votes get you in the top ten? what the hell ppl?

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51. Carrie
Brian De Palma, 1976

Points: 52
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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50a. Harlan County, USA
Barbara Kopple, 1976

Points: 52
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Tadeusz: Harlan County, USA (about an extremely violent coal miner's strike in West Virginia during the Seventies) is also a must-see.

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50b. The Wicker Man
Robin Hardy, 1975

Points: 52
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

C-man: The Wicker Man - which shows the cruelty humans will carry out without feelings of guilt or remorse on behalf of their faith is far scarier.

Trevor: Yes, the mundaneness of the bulk of the film is what provides the ending's impact. The viewer is made to share the victim's overwhelming sense of "NO! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!".

Andrew L.: Classic! One of the v. best English horror films evah, along w/ 'Witchfinder General'. I always find the sight of C. Lee in a dress and wig inexplicably haunting/spooky (see also Anthony Perkins at the end of 'Psycho'.) And I don't think it's a crappy movie before the ending - Lindsay Kemp is wonderful, the scenes at the school are truly creepy, and the whole 'pagan' flavah is a uniquely 'English' kind of terror, a clash between competing 'ways of praying'.

Ben Mot: A tad overrated I feel. The Britt Ekland wall-banging, arse-slapping scene (together with Woodward's sweaty reaction) is somewhat risible, but there's no denying that the climax is utterly horrifying no matter how many times you watch the film, made more so by the deliberate slow pacing leading up to it. Only the incongruity of some 70's wah-wah music at the end (clashes with the corn dolls and barley rigs folk ditties heard throughout) has dated it really. Oh, and I think Diane Cilento is excellent too.

Is your name Dr. Morbius?

>Oh no, Shampoo at #67 with 4 votes?<

I think it's overrated, but two cinema-savvy friends of mine probably think it's the best (read subtle) American political film of the '70s.

"You are a wonderful lover." "I practice a lot when I'm alone."
(NOT pillow talk btwn me and jaymc)

Blazing Saddles is the film on which Mel Brooks both found his voice and lost his soul. It all happened at once. (he got it back on loan for Young Frankenstein)

Carrie: Saw this recently, and didn't like it as much as I probably would have when I was in high school. That said, I jumped about 3 feet out of my chair when Sue dreams about the rubble.

Discreet Charm: Made top thirty for me. And you know what? I saw The Phantom of Liberty a couple of weeks ago and it's even better.

Le Cercle Rouge: Totally awesome. Can you fucking believe that robbery scene? Melville was a God amongst directors. Sadly, I didn't see this until after voting time. Would have top 15 or 10.

I think it's kinda funny and sad that Close Encounters will probably be the highest Truffaut-related project to place.

So we continue...

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48a. M*A*S*H
Robert Altman, 1970

Points: 55
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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48b. Barry Lyndon
Stanley Kubrick, 1975

Points: 55
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

Earl Nash: Barry Lyndon is a beautiful movie. I love how natural things look in the sequences in the castle with the candles. The battle scenes are amazing.

Dr. Morbius: There are days I think Barry Lyndon is Kubrick's second-best film (after 2001). Likely his subtlest; so smart and profoundly funny.

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46. Solaris
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972

Points: 56
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 0

Nordicskillz: Solaris is the Kid A of films. make of that what you will.

Martin Skidmore: I'm a fan, and I'll go for Solaris just ahead of Stalker, for its unique look and mood and compelling slowness. They're maybe my two favourite SF films ever (well, maybe two of three with Metropolis, I guess).

amateurist: solaris is the one tarkovsky film that has had a great emotional effect on me (much of this is due to the reorchestrated bach cantata used on the sdtk), but while i adore it i think it has patchy parts, esp. toward the beginning.

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45. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Russ Meyer, 1970

Points: 56
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

n/a: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a great, great, weird film.

emil.y: There is no way in the universe that Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls is a bad film. Yes, it has self-consciously cheesy bits, but it also has everything! you'd! ever! want! ever! in a film: it is hilarious (eminently quotable); the music is amazing; you can be a seedy lust-merchant if you really want to be; it is truly deranged and psychedelic in places; the cinematography and editing are actually very good and if not comparable to a beautiful art-piece then it's definitely above the level of most Hollywood films and it all fits perfectly into the pace, mood and context of the film; the casting and mise-en-scene creation are perfect; good lord, there is nothing wrong with it at all.

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44. Claire's Knee
Eric Rohmer, 1971

Points: 59
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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43. Straw Dogs
Sam Peckinpah, 1971

Points: 59
Total Votes: 8
First Place Votes: 0

Jedidiah: Violent, messy, bleak--I'm astounded at how long this movie stayed with me after I saw it

mark s: one of the things peckinpah does which almost no mainstream directors do is show you strongly dislikeable characters as protagonists who he wants to get you to face and understand and think about, rather than just easily side with (or against): so when calum says he found this particular aspect of this film "troubling", my guess wd be that peckinpah WANTED viewers to be troubled by this, and to look into themselves and work out the nastiness of their own feelings as well as the easyreach pat-yrself-on-the-back goodness — ie that calum saying this wd mean peckinpah wd say "hooray it worked, be troubled, you should be!!", rather than "oh no! i thought everyone agreed w.me that all women are sex-robots!"

Austin: I think the Straw Dogs essay is just tops. I really recommend it to anyone, but especially people who find the movie gross (I did, my first couple times through.)

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42. The Conformist
Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970

Points: 60
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 1

Mary: The Conformist rocks ohh those shots of architecture are nice.

Mr. Diamond: I think the reductionism in The Conformist is a little annoying, yes, but everything else about the film is so powerful and moving that I really don't care to carp too much about it. The scene where they're all dancing is amazing.

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41. That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel, 1977

Points: 62
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

Jedidiah: Bunuel does something few directors ever have: he goes out at the top of his game. This movie is damn near flawless.

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40. Don't Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1974

Points: 63
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

Play It Again Sam? Except that date scene where he tosses the record across the room, it's really stage-bound and embarassingly sexist. The Excorcist is laughable religious hokum: I've tried to watch it again, and just can't get through it. It's grindingly bad. All the President's Men is ponderous: Maybe you had to live through it to think otherwise. M*A*S*H is smugly unfunny and Straw Dogs is fascist (but still a great movie). I don't see how Blazing Saddles and Close Encounters, just by being more popular, have less soul than any of those films.

Play It Again Sam is an entertaining product of its time (Woody was considered hip and sexually progressive in '72), but again, not a serious response.... but MY GOD THIS IS JUST A LIST OF FUN MOVIES!!! sorry. anticipating.

Ha, except the "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" scene ends somewhat differently...

>morbs prefers pakula to waters, roeg to herzog.

Funny blount, I snubbed the guys I "prefer" in the poll and voted for Female Trouble and Aguirre. cold, incoherent and shitfaced is no way to go thru life suhhhh... (ya don't say the N)

Straw Dogs: Jay Cocks was on to something when he said (I paraphrase) this was the first major American film to be devoid of heroes. I know that the whole "blood shed as rite of passage" angle gets played up alot, but even Peckinpah said the theme was about coming to terms with the evil you are capable of doing.

M*A*S*H: If you think about it, this movie is notable for two rarely discussed reasons--(1) It sets up a formula for some Altman, meaning throw a diverse bunch of people into a common community situation for a set period of time (Nashville, Short Cuts, McCabe, Popeye) and devote the last act entirely to some event (the concert in Nashville, the Reno card game in California Split, the shoot-out/church fire in McCabe), and (2) This is the spiritual birth of flicks like Animal House, Stripes and such (straights vs. hip rebels with comic results etc).

Useless trivia: M*A*S*H frequently gets compared to Mike Nichols' very good take on Catch-22 (which may or may not be coming up on the list). For those who haven't seen Catch-22, or have seen it and missed it, look closely at the soldiers in line at Milo's brothel. That dazed-looking one standing in the curve of the line inside the building is Alan Alda, star of the M*A*S*H TV show.

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39. Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979

Points: 67
Total Votes: 5
First Place Votes: 1

Pashmina: I think the best part of "Stalker" is the whole sequence from where the protagonists enter the zone in their land-rover, up to where they get into the zone, and you see the abandoned tanks, bodies in armoured cars etc. The part where they are on the little rail trolly, and you can see the landscape behind them changing is just phenomenally good, esp w/the newer artemiev soundtrack.

Reed Moore: - the reason I prefer Stalker is how expertly he creates the world of 'the zone' without resorting to any kind of cheap special effects, relying instead on more subtle effects of lighting and color to create that sense of foreboding. The shots of the undulating grass, the close-ups of the water with the submerged industrial detritus, the characters' physical disorientation and circular travels while in the zone, the encounter with the telephone -- all add up to one of the more eerie and unsettling films where nothing really overtly *scary* ever happens.

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38. Cries & Whispers
Ingmar Bergman, 1972

Points: 69
Total Votes: 4
First Place Votes: 2

Jedidiah: Harrowing. Bergman and Sven Nykvist's use of color is highly effective and astonishing.

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37. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman, 1975

Points: 70
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 0

Justyn: With its unreliable narrator and LSD-influenced narrative, Ken Kesey's novel is the
epitome of the unfilmable book, but it worked incredibly well taken straight, with Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher doing a lot to humanize their rather archetypal characters. A fine supporting cast, most of whom later wound up on "Taxi."

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36. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975

Points: 72
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 0

Girolamo Savonarola: I think it's exceedingly hard in Western society (especially among males) to find someone who can actually speak of this film rationally and without total bias. I know I've seen it way too often to be able to look at it at all vaguely objectively. Is my laughter to this film reflexive now, or does it remain genuine? God knows. I haven't seen it in a while anyway, but I have the movie embedded in my memory, so why bother? The director's cut sucked, by the way, not b/c they made the movie bad, but because they were the least noticeable changes a director's cut has had in a long time. On the other hand, any excuse to roll this back out into the big screens again is fine with me. I wonder, though, if MP is at risk of such cultural saturation to the point that it all sorta cancels out as humor? Or worse, if they run the risk of being so seen that they age badly (a la Mel Brooks)?

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35. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tobe Hooper, 1974

Points: 73
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 0

s1ocki: texas chainsaw massacre (the original) is truly one of the most horrifying films i have ever seen!

chaki: texas chainsaw massacre is great. it makes you feel so hot and sweaty and dirty and hillbilly

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34. Cabaret

Bob Fosse, 1972

Points: 74
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 0

anthony: A movie that i am rewatchig for the umpteenth time and realizng how economical its stagig and acting is , underplyed where it needs to be and overplayed when it needs to be , symbolic , shimmering , writhing and decadent , perhaps the best american movie to come out of the fabled auter driven 70s ?

Jonnie: I quite like the film but Liza Minelli dances like a duck.

Dirty Vicar: . I greatly admire its inventiveness and the way scenes are posed and shot. Am I right in thinking that some of the crowd scenes in the cabaret place are meant to look like actual paintings of the period?

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33. Young Frankenstein
Mel Brooks, 1974

Points: 82
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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32. Last Tango in Paris
Bernardo Bertolucci, 1973

Points: 84
Total Votes: 6
First Place Votes: 1

Nicole Graham: When I was 8, I first saw Last Tango In Paris on terrestrial TV. I thought, "What's the big deal? They're naked." Sneak-watching my first porn flick (at 11) had greater impact, though I wasn't sure why at the time.

Reed Moore: I'm recalling the scene where Maria Schneider tells Brando he's self-centered and that he doesn't take an interest in the details of her life. And he's on that ladder, and then he climbs down, and he places his harmonica on her head, and then he goes into the other room. And Maria masturbates, while he breaks down and cries. Recalling this scene, right now, I am bawling like a baby. Brando was incredible. THE BEST. I know, apres his death, us cinemaphiles are probably sick of the hosannas and so forth. But make no mistake, this man was incredible.

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31. Harold & Maude

Hal Ashby, 1971

Points: 89
Total Votes: 8
First Place Votes: 0

Comments ?

COMMENT BY RICH GIN: I am proud that my mom gave me this move when I was 12 and didn't have to wait a decade for the Anderson revivalists to take it over

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30. Alien
Ridley Scott, 1979

Points: 89
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 0

Lee G: I love the first movie above all, and am looking forward to seeing in on the big screen again after years of small-screen reruns. Having gotten the DVD last year, I was shocked to be reminded a) how great and imaginative it looks, still, retro computer interfaces notwithstanding, and b) that there is acutal stuff visible in the dark spots of the murked-out versions you get on cable. That said, Ridley Scott is not exactly a master storyteller or extravagant shooter, so I have a hard time imagining what "extra footage" he's gonna insert that hasn't already shown up on the DVD--extra footage, I might add, that I think he was right to leave out.

I'm intrigued by the "timing" complaint on YF, Jeff. Too slow? It's classic Jewish humor/vaudeville timing. Have you only seen it at home -- I'm thinking the spaces left for the audience to laugh bothers you? Also, Peter Boyle's perf is probably the most touching in Brooks' oeuvre (not to mention his priceless takes in the Hackman scene).

Brndo's great, but Play It Again Sam is far less sexist than Last Tango in Paris.

B-b-but, "Puttin' on the Ritz"!

That makes a lot of sense, so I'd just chalk it up to my strange taste. I don't like many comedies in general, and most of the ones I do are from the 90s. I do like the look though, I'd watch it with the sound off any time.

The look is from the James Whale '30s Frankensteins, which are better choices for being watched with the sound off (not that their dialogue is bad -- well, cept for Colin Clive's).

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29. Network
Sidney Lumet, 1976

Points: 90
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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28. The French Connection
William Friedkin, 1971

Points: 90
Total Votes: 8
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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27. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974

Points: 90
Total Votes: 8
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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26. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Mel Stuart, 1971

Points: 92
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 1

Jimmy the Mod: Odd how a movie with GENE WILDER from 1971 can out-dark Tim Burton.

Nikwakwa Hoogenterf: I truly believe that the Oompa Loompas are the greatest creation ever made by the movie industry, that the Oompas should be worshiped daily, and what the heck, i think they deserve there own holiday... Oompas are the bases of all that is good.. ROCK ON OOMPAS!!!!

I forgot to vote for The Long Goodbye!

There is not one single aspect of Charlie that improves on Willie. If anything there are several major missteps that make it a pale shadow of the original.

seriously, onna smokey tip, the commentary to cannonball run has to be heard to be believed...

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25. A Woman Under the Influence

John Cassavetes, 1974

Points: 106
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 0

nathalie: A film about relationships, the inability to express emotions, sufficating in suburbia, feminism, working class, the US,... Gloria is also pretty good, but WutI just blew me away.

Jeff, I'm sorry. The correct answer is Robert Mitchum.

Our third place contestants will receive Rice-a-Roni.

really? despite its unbelievable sexism?

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24. Mean Streets

Martin Scorsese, 1973

Points: 106
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 0

Peter Scholtes: Personal filmmaking, urban filmmaking, Italian-American filmmaking, action filmmaking, and musical filmmaking, all turned up to 11.

s1ocki: mean streets is a harvey keitel movie and goodfellas is not, thus there is absolutely no basis for comparison

mark s: mean streets is still scorsese's best movie by far ("the rest is bullshit and you know it!")

*rubs eyes*

What?

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23. Badlands
Terrence Malick, 1973

Points: 107
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 0

jed_: Badlands is *FUNNY*. I watched it on TV tonight and the voiceover had me cracking up several times.

Gypsy Mothra: Badlands gets away with its poetry -- visual and otherwise -- because its poetry seems somehow less affected. (And it gets help from Sheen and Spacek that the other movies don't get from Gere and Caveziel. Thin Red Line is partly ruined for me from its opening portentous voiceover.)

anthony: I think it was intended to be a comment on how tennous a paradise created by violenceis , how it can be destroyed by violence . In this way , with its innocent Sissy SPacek and the Cruel father , it becomes an almost oepedial gloss on revoluitonary politics.

xpost: Hoo-fucking-ray for that movie. And Hooray for Sissy Spacek.

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22. McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Robert Altman, 1971

Points: 109
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

ah, i came to the movie a Chandler novice, so just appreciated Gould's laconically charismatic turn for what it was...

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21. A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick, 1972

Points: 113
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 2

Tracer Hand: I watched "Clockwork Orange" with my skateboarding friends about 3,479,089 times in high school.

Sterling Clover: penetrating and harrowing examination of violence and the reprecussions of its suppression.

nathalie: Clockwork Orange is also about violence. But also how wrong it is to completely erase it. That the governement is playing with a life. You can't just take things away from said person unless you destroy him completely. I think it's a... very interesting movie. Although I don't really agree with some of the points - it feels as though Kubrick approves of violence - I do think it makes some valid points So I guess both films are more or less about the same thing (violence).

Pete: A Clockwork Orange is a film about violence but also about being a voyeur to violence and our responses to it. The excitement in the film is initially watching the violence of Alex, and then the violence of the State (ie us) against Alex. Are we excited by the rape scene, are we excited by the conditioning against him Is this what happens when we punish someone, is this why society punishes / rehabilitates via aversion therapy.

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20. Eraserhead

David Lynch, 1977

Points: 113
Total Votes: 11
First Place Votes: 0

K-reg: on Eraserhead gave sound designers a whole new box of tricks. His editing and use of sound create almost visual poetry, playing with silence and darkness, it's refined the grammar of cinema, in my opinion.

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19. Star Wars
George Lucas, 1977

Points: 114
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 2

Pete Scholtes: I was 8 years old when it came out, and it's the greatest 8-year-old-boy movie ever made. But my adult self still think Star Wars is damn funny. The overblown size and mercilessness of the Empire coming up against a few mystics and rebels, and stumbling--it's like a slapstick satire of militarism. The rebels are just joy-riders, really. They let computer-brains do the heavy lifting, and place as much emphasis on spiritual oneness as on bravery. It's as if hippies had replaced the Viet Cong.

The opening shot of the spaceships passing overhead, a satiric homage to Kubrick's similar shot in 2001: A Space Odyssey, goes on much longer, and is much faster and more visually exciting. The mechanics of how the ships are operated couldn't be more different from Star Trek, and yet it's the only other myth-franchise where I care.

I don't get the Star Wars haters. The dialogue is dumb-immortal in the same way Casablanca's is, and the rip-off from other films are inspired. Han Solo is fucking classic. And I love the junkiness of the Millenium Falcon; the fact that Chewie seems about to kill everybody; Solo trying to convince the guy on the radio that there's nothing going on in the Death Star cell block; the fact that it's called the Death Star (nice PR job!); the way all the action within the Death Star turns out to be just a ruse to let the Empire track the Falcon to the rebels (is Darth Vader controling everything psychically, or what?). I imagine a scenario in which these guys squat in the Death Star for months, stealing food from the cafeteria to survive. This movie is just fun to think about, though I haven't for years...

Jimmy the Mod: We'd better be counting the original version and not the cheapened, showy, Jabba-steppping-Han-Shoots-First version.

Justyn Dillingham: Even if it does get more undeserved attention than any other movie on this list, Star Wars is a more subtle film than most people remember, managing to suggest an enormous, awe-inspiring backstory - references to the "Clone Wars," Darth Vader's past, et al - in one quiet scene of exposition, with Alec Guinness bringing all of his considerable dignity to the role of Ben Kenobi. Unfortunately, Lucas has no faith in the imagination of his audience; hence his decision to waste nine more hours on a near-worthless second trilogy which told us nothing worth knowing that we couldn't have surmised from the first one. While its genuine quality as a film will always be overshadowed by what followed, Star Wars remains a pretty riveting experience, more eloquently and powerfully filmed than almost any blockbuster action film since.

I for one appreciate this effort, Jeff. Once and once only I had an argument with someone MY OWN AGE who maintained that Star Wars had always been called "A New Hope", and I couldn't convince them of the truth. After that I decided I had better things to do with my time than argue over things like that.

It's interesting to me that the seventies films that made the biggest impression on me are not the ones that are currently available on lovely remastered DVDs, but the ones they used to show late at night on Channel Four when it first started and telly started to carry on past midnight. There was a golden period before The Hitman and Her-style rubbish when late night babysitting meant watching something like Badlands or Freebie and the Bean at two in the morning.

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18. Dawn of the Dead

George A. Romero, 1979

Points: 114
Total Votes: 11
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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17. News From Home

Chantal Akerman, 1977

Points: 118
Total Votes: 7
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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16. Dog Day Afternoon
Sidney Lumet, 1975

Points: 118
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 0

57 7th: Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon= BEST PERFORMANCE EVER

Pete Scholtes: How many more great movies would Pacino and John Cazale (Michael and Fredo Corleone) have made together if Cazale hadn't died of bone cancer? Both are so good in Dog Day Afternoon that it doesn't even occur to you that it's the same two actors doing their dance as in The Godfather.

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15. In A Year of 13 Moons

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978

Points: 118
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 1

Comments?

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14. Jaws
Steven Spielberg, 1975

Points: 119
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 0

Pete Scholtes: Jaws gets a bad rap for inaugerating the blockbuster, but come on, it's so much better than the films it supposedly killed off. Besides being the finest use of John Williams, it's unsentimental about kids, suspicious of authority, mocking of machismo, and drawn to the visceral appeal of boats and the ocean. Oh, and it's really scary.

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13. The Long Goodbye
Robert Altman, 1973

Points: 122
Total Votes: 12
First Place Votes: 0

Nordicskillz: I love the Long Goodbye. Especially for those weird yoga girls that live next door to him. Plus it's the best film to start with a man buying cat food ever.

Theodore Fogelsanger: "The Long Goodbye." Robert Altman's 1970's take on Raymond Chandler is all sorts of messy fun. Elliot Gould, in the best performance of his I've ever seen, is detective Phillip Marlowe. I saw this a few years ago and it didn't leave much of an impression on me except seeming a bit too self conciously cynical but I'm very glad to have had a second viewing.

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12. Manhattan
Woody Allen, 1979

Points: 129
Total Votes: 13
First Place Votes: 1

Pete Scholtes: It's darker than you remember, maybe, and predicts some of Allen's downfalls. But, man, is Muriel Hemmingway good.

Jimmy the Mod: a sign of things to come in the personal life of WA and his last great film (Crimes and Misdemeanors is BORING. ADMIT IT)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0007M2234.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

11. F For Fake
Orson Welles, 1973

Points: 131
Total Votes: 9
First Place Votes: 2

Geoff: I'm watching F for Fake right now. it's really great, slurry and embarrassing and overcooked, and the art = lying conceit, well: no shit. i can't for the life of me imagine what the original venue or reception of this was supposed to be! it's like welles said: "i will make a shitty documentary that will blow minds when broadcast on the late night television of a compressed and unhappy future" it feels like it's been on for six hours; i could watch it for another twelve.

Kenan: I saw F for Fake for the first time last week, and I'm still thinking about it. The way it's edited is so goddamn brilliant. I keep remebering the sequence when the painter is denying that he ever signed a painting, and instead of just cutting to the biographer saying that he did, he lets the camera sit for a long moment on the biographers expression, purse-lipped, not even wanting to comment on a fact so obvious. "Of course they were signed."

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002RQ3LQ.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

10. Female Trouble
John Waters, 1974

Points: 132
Total Votes: 10
First Place Votes: 1

Arthur: Female Trouble covers the same ground as Natural Born Killers, only it's a million times better and it came out twenty years earlier.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305918880.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

9. Nashville
Robert Altman, 1975

Points: 198
Total Votes: 13
First Place Votes: 2

eddie hurt: I grew up in Nashville, and people here hate the film, which only proves its power as a commentary on what this town has always been--and just in the last few years has the city become self-conscious enough to see how the movie is about politics, not music. There's talk afoot of doing a 30th-anniv. thing about the movie, with the usual panel discussions, etc. As a look at the California-ization of Nashville, it fits perfectly into Altman's other work, too, and there are lots of transplanted Californians and New Yorkers here now who get the movie, too. It's lost a bit of its power for me over the years--I prefer Altman's Chandler film to "Nashville" these days--but it's still pretty great.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000022TSH.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

8. Chinatown
Roman Polanski, 1974

Points: 225
Total Votes: 16
First Place Votes: 3

Absolute Skittles: Truth is: "Chinatown" is a proud member of my DVD family, but I made the mistake of reading the script before I saw the film, and there were too many snappy lil' one-liners and comebacks that were totally left out. In the opening scene with Curly (script), after Curly mentions to Jake that he thinks he'll ice his cheatin' wife, I kinda liked how Jake said something to the effect of, "you dumb son-of-a-bitch, you think you got that kinda class? That kinda DOUGH? You gotta be rich to kill anybody in this town". Polanski probably felt it was TOO on-the-nose, though... the foreshadowing way too obvious.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00003CX9I.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

7. The Conversation
Francis Ford Coppola, 1974

Points: 227
Total Votes: 14
First Place Votes: 0

Jedidiah: “An underrated gem from Coppola, the greatest director of the 70s”

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305609705.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

5. Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola, 1979

Points: 235
Total Votes: 18
First Place Votes: 2

Pete Scholtes: America didn't get lost in the jungle, Francis; we bombed the jungle.

Jimmy the Mod: Overlong w/o restoration; indulgent and nowhere NEAR his best work. But Duvall steals the show as Comic Book Hero and infinetly quotable Kilgore. This war's gonna end someday.

Justyn Dillingham: I often feel like the only person on Earth who likes Brando's performance in this film. It's ridiculous, sure, but I can't think of another way to end it, can you?

Jedidiah: Coppola's fourth masterpiece in a row, and his last truly great film. Who cares if half of the lines have become a part of pop culture? It's well deserved.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001NBNB6.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

4. The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972

Points: 244
Total Votes: 15
First Place Votes: 3

Jimmy the Mod: Only narrowly bested by Annie Hall in ways that I can't really quantify. Classic if only for the cinematography of Gordon Willis -- daring and groundbraking even to this day.

Pete Scholtes: The Godfather's flaws are those of its deeply conflicted audience. The family is evil, but we want in. We know our leaders kill in cold blood, but isn't that the price of security? Like Apocalypse Now, the movie is about steeling yourself past the point of no return. But Coppola steels himself, too. He stacks the moral deck in favor of conformism: Michael doesn't accidentally kill an innocent bystander at the restaurant, for example. And the rival family is so bad, you find yourself thinking Carlo gets what he deserves.

Maybe the second film colors the first, so that I can enjoy The Godfather's look and pace without guilt, the changing seasons and period details, the performances (even the minor ones), the reliance on narrative, the father-son tragedy, and all the great lines. "They're animals, anyway, so let them lose their souls."

The Godfather is the opposite of Lawrence of Arabia, which sent its mystery of a character through incomprehensible world history, and didn't make sense of either. The Godfather indulges in everything that made it the defining Rated R movie, but Pacino's Michael is more modern than its sex and violence. He's probably the most realized monster in movies.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305972761.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

4. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
Werner Herzog, 1973

Points: 262
Total Votes: 19
First Place Votes: 1

Jed_: I just saw Aguirre and it's insane. watching it made me hate all those widescreen pretty-beautiful epics that are ten a penny. it's so fucking real-looking. anthony minghella please watch a Herzong film then give up or kill yourself. obviously Aguirre is astonishing to look at but makes you realise, to an extent, that most films are just cinematography and lightning with actual direction and vision and depth waaaaaaay down the list. films are too beautiful now. all surface no feeling.

Jeff-PTTL: Where to begin? I find it almost impossible to talk about my favorite film of all time. The opening shot just kills me everytime, it's the start of a constant barrage of goosebumps that don't end untill Kinski is surrounded by monkeys.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0007Y08MY.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

3. The Godfather, Part II
Francis Ford Coppola, 1974

Points: 285
Total Votes: 19
First Place Votes: 2

Pete Scholtes: The Fredo drama and the Cuban sequences redeem the lackluster killings, the romanticized De Niro Corleone, and one very shaky plot point: What exactly is Fredo's complicity in the attempt on Michael's life? Did he tell his enemies what bedroom Michael was sleeping in? Open the gate to let the gunmen in? What?

Jimmy the Mod: overlong but an appropriate end to the saga, III notwithsanding.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6304907729.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

2. Annie Hall
Woody Allen, 1977

Points: 316
Total Votes: 22
First Place Votes: 3

Pete Scholtes: I don't even want to use the phrase "romantic comedy." This is best comedy about love that I can think of. How did Allen pull it off? By remembering a great relationship. By establishing right off that his view of his life is skewed. By recognizing his foibles (he's bigoted, pseudo-intellectual, snobbish, schtick-prone, mildly self-hating, and roundly and passively hostile). By still making you care about him, and by making his great love stand in for all relationships remembered with fondness. By going about it all with the playfulness of a filmmaker just discovering what he can do, and finding he's willing to try anything.

Jimmy the Mod: makes New York the most romantic place in the world, Diane Keaton an oddball ideal, and proves that Los Angeles really DOESN'T have anything going for it. Woody never got better.

Jedidiah: Woody Allen's greatest moment. He has been both funnier and more poignant, but never in the same film

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0767830555.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.gif

1. Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese, 1976

Points: 317
Total Votes: 22
First Place Votes: 1

Pete Scholtes: It's all about the long stare into that glass of Alcaseltzer.

DG: Right at the end, after Travis drops Cybil Shephard's character off, there's this odd moment where he catches himself in the mirror, and well, it's just odd. I've always taken it to mean everything from him being dumped up till then is just some bizarre power fantasy, which would explain how he gets off scot-free for the shootings. If this is correct, this would make the second half just a 'dream', and therefore a bit of a GCSE drama project ending - and therefore dud. But I could be wrong...

Jonathan: The strange ending only adds to it's uniqueness. Robert de Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel and a sick cameo from Scorcese himself. What more could a boy want?

Michael G Breece: 'Taxi Driver': earnest portrayal (basically, based on the writer Schrader himself - is why it is earnest) of a loser/loner type in America. Sure, it goes far overboard at the end with the "cool anarchist mohawk" bullshit and the shoot-em-ups and all that jazz, but...it's a Hollywood type of thing. It should've been left to a more earnest ending, fitting to the realistic loner/loser portrayal built-up. In reality, that character (a frayed coward at hear) would have just stayed in his crappy little apartment more as he spent the rest of his time driving the taxi. Nothing less/nothing more than that, basically. Until some other little "hottie" turned his eye, then it would all go round and round again.

Joe: Actually, one of my favorite little moments in the movie is when the dispatcher asks Travis: "Education?" and Travis responds blankly, "Oh...some...here and there...", and then it cuts back to the dispatcher's reaction.

Who's doing the '60s?

The Conversation is the Garret Anderson of '70s films: most overrated
"underrated."

How did News From Home sneak in there? I don't think I've even read about it.

Apocalypse Now would have a shot at being one of the 5 best films of the decade if Coppola cut it down to a short about Kilgore and the Air Cavalry titled "Charlie Don't Surf."

>morbius = pwnd<

Happily, I am still Luddite enough to have no fuckin idea what that means.

I was Gene Hackman from The Conversation a few years ago for Halloween, so I like it enough for that.

But I rented it a few days ago and my problem with it (once again) is that it just doesn't make sense (spoilers to follow): So the Harrison Ford character hired Hackman to record a conversation Ford knew was going to happen, and which the murderers knew was going to be overheard? Why not just record the conversation without Hackman?

I love the film so much, and get so caught up in it, I've never even stopped to ponder the logic. I guess I've always assumed that while Hackman is technically hired by Ford, it's with Duvall's knowledge; we hear Duvall say "You want it to be true" to Ford, which I take to mean that Ford initiated Hackman's hiring as a way to prove to Duvall that there's a plot against him, that Duvall approved the project, and that now they're sitting around weighing the evidence. I don't think Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest were aware they were being taped. That would make Ford the really shadowy and unknowable figure--aligned with Duvall at the beginning, but keeping quiet and keeping his own proximity to the company's seat of power intact when the plot to kill the emperor succeeds and power is transferred.

I don't know, maybe that's wrong. But with The Conversation so steeped in the Watergate moment (accidentally; it's well known that Coppola wrote the script years earlier), I think a little mystery concerning the film's internal logic works well. The real-life parallel is why Nixon never burned the tapes, something that continues to puzzle everyone.

You mean "Gredo-shoots-first," right? On a related note, I also notice that the Jaws swimmer's breasts are less visible on the DVD art than they were in the original 1975 poster. These things matter.

I seem to remember Gene Wilder regreting that he made the film because it was "anti-child," but can't place the source...

But then, you know, "Looney Toons" is pretty fucked up, moralitywise, too (how many times does Bugs torture his foes in a manner of total overkill that isn't at all justified by the small infraction that they've made? That's without mentioning the times when it's entirely unprovoked), and I wouldn't want that erased from my childhood.

"Taxi Driver" is a good movie.

Of course, I could have voted.

/opening Netflix queue

They sound like utterly unremarkable films that have passed into greatness on qualities I can't ascertain.

Should I just break down and watch them?

actually, bugs usually doesn't go after ppl without a good reason (i.e. they're trying to shoot him or dig up his home or posting "rabbit season" signs all over the place). chuck jones talked about this in his autobiography, how he wanted bugs to be more sympathetic/interesting than, say, woody woodpecker. of course, daffy's another story...

"My coat! My lucky coat!"

"This pope has powerful enemies!"

OK, who was it who liked The Shout (96b)? It's showing at Lincoln Center at 4pm. Dave Kehr:

An airy allegory (from a Robert Graves story) held to earth by some scathing sexual passion. Alan Bates is the traveling madman who holds a composer (John Hurt) and his wife (Susannah York) in thrall. Sexuality triumphs over civilization through a series of small betrayals, each registered with appalling, pinpoint accuracy by Jerzy Skolimowski's camera. Though Skolimowski had backed off from his formal ambitions somewhat (he once seemed a real rival to Godard), this 1978 feature is shrewd, imaginative moviemaking, a trance thriller that beats Peter Weir on his own turf.

^this is like the most noize board movie ever (maybe crossed w/ I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX)

I used to disagree with Dr. Morbius under my actual name; now I disagree with him under a fabricated one. The world has changed so much.

has anyone seen Chilly Scenes of Winter ('79) by Joan Micklin Silver, aka Head Over Heels?

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/chilly-scenes-of-winter/

A friend was telling me about this book--not sure if I knew about it or not.

https://academic.macmillan.com/academictrade/9781632868183/openingwednesdayatatheaterordriveinnearyou

Will definitely try to track down a copy at a decent price.

I was Gene Hackman from The Conversation a few years ago for Halloween, so I like it enough for that.
― Pete Scholtes, Monday, September 12,

Still the funniest Halloween costume I've ever heard of.