cool movies from the 1970s
by gene_tagliabue-48-638276 | created - 24 Jul 2014 | updated - 24 Jul 2014 | Publicso many more to see
- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. All the President's Men (1976)
PG | 138 min | Drama, History, Thriller
"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam
Votes: 125,985 | Gross: $70.60M
2. The Long Goodbye (1973)
R | 112 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Private investigator Philip Marlowe helps a friend out of a jam, but in doing so gets implicated in his wife's murder.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell
Votes: 37,204 | Gross: $0.96M
3. Barry Lyndon (1975)
PG | 185 min | Adventure, Drama, War
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger
Votes: 182,982
4. The Day of the Jackal (1973)
PG | 143 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
In the aftermath of France allowing Algeria's independence, a group of resentful military veterans hire a professional assassin codenamed "Jackal" to kill President Charles de Gaulle.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Edward Fox, Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair, Alan Badel
Votes: 44,902 | Gross: $16.06M
5. The Red Circle (1970)
Not Rated | 140 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After leaving prison, master thief Corey crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic former policeman. The trio proceed to plot an elaborate heist.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volontè, Yves Montand
Votes: 28,138 | Gross: $0.37M
6. Serpico (1973)
R | 130 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
An honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Biff McGuire
Votes: 134,701 | Gross: $29.80M
7. The Conversation (1974)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 121,790 | Gross: $4.42M
8. Three Days of the Condor (1975)
R | 117 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A bookish CIA researcher in Manhattan finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Votes: 62,496 | Gross: $41.51M
9. General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait (1974)
Not Rated | 92 min | Documentary
A documentary on the military dictator of Africa's Uganda.
Director: Barbet Schroeder | Stars: Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Golda Meir
Votes: 2,018
10. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
PG | 105 min | Drama
After his wife leaves him, a work-obsessed Manhattan advertising executive is forced to learn long-neglected parenting skills, but a heated custody battle over the couple's young son deepens the wounds left by the separation.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, Justin Henry
Votes: 154,633 | Gross: $106.26M
11. Gates of Heaven (1978)
Not Rated | 85 min | Documentary
A documentary about a pet cemetery in California, and the people who have pets buried there.
Director: Errol Morris | Stars: Lucille Billingsley, Zella Graham, Cal Harberts, Dan Harberts
Votes: 6,289
12. Being There (1979)
PG | 130 min | Comedy, Drama
After the death of his employer forces him out of the only home he's ever known, a simpleminded, sheltered gardener becomes an unlikely trusted advisor to a powerful tycoon and an insider in Washington politics.
Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden
Votes: 77,624 | Gross: $30.18M
13. Annie Hall (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 278,300 | Gross: $39.20M
14. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Not Rated | 95 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
In the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Helena Rojo, Del Negro
Votes: 62,245
15. The Parallax View (1974)
R | 102 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An ambitious reporter gets in way-over-his-head trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Walter McGinn
Votes: 21,763 | Gross: $2.15M
16. Claire's Knee (1970)
GP | 105 min | Drama, Romance
On lakeside summer holiday, a conflicted older man is dared to have a flirt with two beautiful teenage half-sisters despite his betrothal to a diplomat's daughter and the fact that the girls have boyfriends.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Béatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan
Votes: 12,489 | Gross: $0.04M
17. Murmur of the Heart (1971)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama
As France is nearing the end of the first Indochina War, an open-minded teenage boy finds himself torn between a rebellious urge to discover love, and the ever-present, almost dominating affection of his beloved mother.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michael Lonsdale
Votes: 10,843 | Gross: $0.35M
18. Solaris (1972)
PG | 167 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetskiy
Votes: 98,205
19. Straw Dogs (1971)
R | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A young American and his English wife come to rural England and face increasingly vicious local harassment.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna
Votes: 64,480
20. Opening Night (1977)
PG-13 | 144 min | Drama
A renowned actress teeters on the edge of a breakdown as she counts down the days toward a big Broadway opening.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell
Votes: 12,198
21. The Tenant (1976)
R | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
A bureaucrat rents a Paris apartment where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet
Votes: 47,603 | Gross: $1.92M
22. Cries & Whispers (1972)
R | 91 min | Drama
When a woman dying of cancer in early twentieth-century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long-repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin
Votes: 36,969 | Gross: $1.74M
23. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Romance
A lonely widow meets a much younger Moroccan worker in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love, to their own surprise and to the outright shock of their families, colleagues, and drinking buddies.
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann
Votes: 23,844
24. Badlands (1973)
PG | 94 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri
Votes: 78,347
25. Taxi Driver (1976)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Votes: 920,131 | Gross: $28.26M
26. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
PG | 138 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
Roy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Votes: 216,782 | Gross: $132.09M
27. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)
PG | 103 min | Documentary
A heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
Director: Barbara Kopple | Stars: John L. Lewis, Carl Horn, Norman Yarborough, Logan Patterson
Votes: 6,625
28. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,011,265 | Gross: $134.97M
29. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,449,032 | Gross: $322.74M
30. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Fantasy
In 1940, after watching and being traumatized by the movie Frankenstein (1931), a sensitive seven year-old girl living in a small Spanish village drifts into her own fantasy world.
Director: Víctor Erice | Stars: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería
Votes: 20,658
31. Love in the Afternoon (1972)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Though he has an adoring wife, a bourgeois man is still tempted to pursue other women.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Bernard Verley, Zouzou, Françoise Verley, Daniel Ceccaldi
Votes: 9,338
32. Duel (1971 TV Movie)
PG | 90 min | Action, Thriller
A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell
Votes: 78,351
33. The Wicker Man (1973)
R | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A puritan police sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan locals claim never existed.
Director: Robin Hardy | Stars: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland
Votes: 92,217 | Gross: $0.06M
34. Welfare (1975)
167 min | Documentary
WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical... See full summary »
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Votes: 617
35. Klute (1971)
R | 114 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead: a connection with a New York prostitute.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Roy Scheider
Votes: 29,607 | Gross: $17.44M
36. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 880,981 | Gross: $6.21M
37. Suspiria (1977)
R | 92 min | Horror
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
Votes: 105,369
38. Interiors (1978)
PG | 92 min | Drama
Three sisters find their lives spinning out of control in the wake of their parents' sudden, unexpected divorce.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt
Votes: 20,926
39. Superman (1978)
PG | 143 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
An alien orphan is sent from his dying planet to Earth, where he grows up to become his adoptive home's first and greatest superhero.
Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando
Votes: 187,465 | Gross: $134.22M
40. Deep Red (1975)
R | 127 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A jazz pianist and a wisecracking journalist are pulled into a complex web of mystery after the former witnesses the brutal murder of a psychic.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril
Votes: 42,609
41. That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
R | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Recounted in flashback are the romantic perils of Mathieu, a middle-aged French sophisticate as he falls for his nineteen-year-old former chambermaid Conchita.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Ángela Molina, Julien Bertheau
Votes: 24,804 | Gross: $0.06M
42. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
G | 100 min | Family, Fantasy, Musical
A poor but hopeful boy seeks one of the five coveted golden tickets that will send him on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory.
Director: Mel Stuart | Stars: Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear
Votes: 227,205 | Gross: $4.00M
43. Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
TV-PG | 283 min | Drama
Ten years within the marriage of Marianne and Johan.
Stars: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom
Votes: 17,265
Tell Your Friends