ILX Best Films of the 1970s

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)

I don't actually know if these will make my 20, but worth mentioning:

In the Realm of the Senses
Over the Edge
The Sugarland Express
Across 110th Street

20. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
19. Fantasy Mission Force
18. Smokey and the Bandit
17. Apocalypse Now
16. Star Wars
15. Walkabout
14. Young Frankenstein
13. The Woman With Red Boots
12. National Lampoon's Animal House
11. The Story of Adele H.
10. That Obscure Object of Desire
9. Monty Python's Life of Brian
8. The Offence
7. Eraserhead
6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
5. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
4. The Wicker Man
3. Network
2. The Harder They Come
1. Two-Lane Blacktop

That's it. I think that's all I can name now.

(god my list is boring)

but add:
the spirit of the beehive
lucifer rising
sweet movie
valentin de las sierras

i'm having trouble coming up with my own list; i'm a bit bored of the usual crop of classics from this decade (coppola, scorsese, altman blah blah blah) but i can't exactly dismiss them either. a few i like:

f for fake
duel
taxi driver
alien
being there
quadrophenia

I'm a bit bored of them in theory, but whenever I actually see most of them I get unbored again.

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...