ILX Best Films of the 1970s

Patton
The Deer Hunter
The French Connection
Jaws
Taxi Driver
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Apocalypse Now

Nashville
The Long Goodbye
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
M*A*S*H

xpost Yes!

And please put loads of suggestions on this page as I'm positive I will forget many brilliant films.

Have we had a 1960s one yet?

Wrong Huston up there. The Man Who Would Be King.

ali: fear eats the soul is soooo good.

Robert Aldrich's Vietnam western "Ulzana's Raid"

Jeanne Dielman

Bresson's "The Devil Probably"

Mikey & Nicky

Day for Night

Five Easy Pieces

Animal House

The Conversation

Manhattan

Millhouse (Emile de Antonio)
*The power of montage!

Shaft

The Grande Bouffe (Marco Ferreri)
*A much better (and less literal) interpretation of The 120 Days of Sodom than Pasolini's crappy version. Four bored bourgeiose men decide to eat themselves to death!

Phantom of the Paradise

Don't Touch the White Woman! (Ferreri)
*What if general Custer had fought against Indians in modern Paris? Great surrealist fun.

Barry Lyndon
*Definitely underrated.

The Man Who Would Be King

Small Change (Truffaut)
*The best film about childhood ever?

The Tenant
*The weirdest, most disturbing film Polanski has ever made.

Silent Movie (Mel Brooks)

Cross of Iron (Peckinpah)

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

The Lord of the Rings (Ralph Bakshi)
*Loved it as a kid, too bad Bakshi didn't get the chance to make the second half.

The Adventures of Picasso (Tage Danielsson)
*The best post-sound silent film I've ever seen.

Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo

1941 (Spielberg)
*Spielberg's best film, also his response to Dr. Strangelove.

Life of Brian

Manhattan
*Woody Allen's best, probably, though there's plenty to choose from.

Stalker
*In my book, the best movie of the decade.

oops. some of these have alrady been mentioned. oh well.

Xala (Sembene) (now on DVD)
Killer of Sheep
The Go-Between
Blume In Love
Dog Day Afternoon
The Twelve Chairs
Wattstax
The Last Waltz
New York, New York
Real Life

(out on DVD Tuesday or today if you're me)

1. A Clockwork Orange
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
3. Aguirre the Wrath of God
4. El Topo
5. Phantom of the Paradise
6. Shampoo
7. Weekend
8. Performance
9. Up in Smoke
10. Harold & Maude
11. Satan's Brew
12. Solaris
13. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
14. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
15. The Brood
16. The Long Goodbye
17. Susperia
18. Killing of a Chinese Bookie
19. The Muppet Movie
20. Dawn of the Dead

wk, which "Weekend"? cuz the Godard film is '67.

Point being, you're making an awful lot of assumptions about people's range of curiosity and exposure based on what they put on a message-board film-poll ballot. While refusing, of course, to submit your own list for similar assessment (admiration or derision). I'd personally like to see your list, because there are probably things on it I'd like to see. Your mention of Sembene has already prompted me to add Xala to my Netflix queue. If you're actually enthusiastic about the art form rather than scoring some kind of imagined intellectual superiority points, you've got an audience here of people interested in movies who'd probably like to hear your recommendations. But that doesn't seem to be your aim. Being condescending about other people's taste and/or level of expertise is cheap and easy.

ONCE AGAIN THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING "SIGHT AND SOUND" POLL. WE'RE JUST PEOPLE ON A MESSAGE BOARD WHO LIKE MOVIES AND WANT TO SEE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE'S FAVORITE MOVIES ARE, TOO.

And just for damage control, I voted.
(on any given day I could replace 8 or 10 of these 20)

(1) Chinatown (Polanski)
(2) The Mirror (Tarkovsky)
(3) Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
(4) Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog)
(5) Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder)
(6) The Magic Flute (Bergman)
(7) Nashville (Altman)
(8) Xala (Sembene)
(9) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder)
(10) The Long Goodbye (Altman)
(11) Amarcord (Fellini)
(12) Tristana (Bunuel)
(13) The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
(14) Annie Hall (Allen)
(15) Female Trouble (Waters)
(16) Cabaret (Fosse)
(17) In a Year of 13 Moons (Fassbinder)
(18) Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson)
(19) Ulzana's Raid (Aldrich)
(20) Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman)

And Paunchy, you need to be sitting on those hands. After you wash them.

1. f for fake (welles)
2. the long goodbye (altman)
3. gates of heaven (morris)
4. news from home (akerman)
5. female trouble (waters)
6. aguirre: the wrath of god (herzog)
7. in a year of 13 moons (fassbinder)
8. texas chainsaw massacre (hooper)
9. that obscure object of desire (bunuel)
10. claire's knee (rohmer)
11. the last detail (ashby)
12. up! (meyer)
13. the devil, probably (bresson)
14. nashville (altman)
15. the conformist (bertolucci)
16. in the realm of the senses (oshima)
17. pink flamingos (waters)
18. dawn of the dead (romero)
19. shampoo (ashby)
20. animal house (landis)

1. Last Tango In Paris
2. A Woman Under the Influence
3. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
4. Network
5. Manhattan
6. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
7. Cries and Whispers
8. Badlands
9. Day for Night
10. Jaws
11. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
12. Five Easy Pieces
13. The Last Detail
14. Alien
15. Patton
16. Annie Hall
17. The Godfather, part II
18. Taxi Driver
19. Mean Streets
20. Chinatown

Aw shit. Like I said, I took that big huge list posted upthread as the nominee list. Oops.

Come to think of it, why isn't Little Big Man on more of these lists? What's the matter with you people?!?

I like the movie fine -- it probly works on me better than any other of AP's, including Bonnie & Clyde -- but there are sequences where the picaresque shtick works less well than others (the gay stay-at-home brave, Richard Mulligan as Custer). It's just not in serious contention for best 20 of the decade. Chief Dan George (in this and Josey W) is certainly one of the supporting actors of the '70s.

btw I spent maybe 15 minutes on my ballot. And am already rueing the absence of Maurice Pialat, "The Day of the Locust," etc.

haha, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is probably the first film I saw of all mentioned.

What does an ILXor think of Joe? I watched this a couple of days ago -- it certainly wasn't fun, and by the end of it I thought it was a bad movie, but it's stuck with me pretty well, and I think maybe it's a decent film without any sympathetic characters.

Man I've wanted to see that movie for so long. I was under the impression that the characters weren't meant to be unsympathetic tho?

i.e. isn't it a "fuck these lousy hippies" rant?

Nobody's cast in a very good light. Even big-eyed baby Susan Sarandon is a fairly whiny weakling with her boyfriend.

My picks!.

Cool, I've bought like five of those (which I have yet to see) in the past month, good to see my taste is in fact impeccable.

I don't think I will ever see what other people see in Suspiria, sadly.

88. Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi)

OTM; I'm slightly disappointed cadaveri eccellenti didn't do as well as possession (1982)

Maybe it's a measure of how hard it is to make a comedy that stays funny, but I note a distinct dominance of serious films in your list.

it's OK, OL, Suspiria is giallos are shit

The Driver and Apocalypse Now are both pretty funny.

Giallo directors doing poliziotteschi are the best though.

And since Morbz is here, where is The Night Porter?

ONE of Bunuel's '70s films? And it's not Tristana? Away with thee...