Widely regarded to be the greatest decade in the history of American cinema, the 1970s brought a wave of auteur directors who pioneered the “New Hollywood” movement with rule-breaking low-budget masterpieces that blew the art of filmmaking wide open and changed the studio system forever.
Some of the best movies of the ‘70s were genre fare, like the gangster epic The Godfather or the planet-hopping space opera Star Wars, but a lot of them just tapped into the human condition with heartfelt dramatic material. Still, for all the masterfully crafted dramas that came along in the ‘70s, there were also plenty of crummy ones.
Best: Rocky (1976)
Throughout Academy Award history, three people have been nominated for writing and starring in the same movie: Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, and Sylvester Stallone. Anyone who Rocky was.
It created the template for it’s a touching love story at heart.
Worst: The Boy In The Plastic Bubble (1976)
This made-for-TV movie starring John Travolta was the inspiration for the classic Seinfeld episode “The Bubble Boy,” which should provide a good idea of how much artistic merit it has.
The medical content of the story is wildly inaccurate. And while medical accuracy isn’t strictly necessary, in a movie specifically about struggling with a medical condition, blatant errors are a little distracting.
Best: The Last Picture Show (1971)
Peter Bogdanovich’s coming-of-age masterpiece The Last Picture Show tells the story of two long-time best friends at the end of their high school careers and the beginning of their adult lives.
Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms give terrific performances in the lead roles, while the black-and-white film expertly captures the early-‘50s setting.
Worst: Old Boyfriends (1979)
In Old Boyfriends, a woman in a failing marriage embarks on a road trip to reconnect with a handful of her ex-boyfriends and see what she can learn about herself from the encounters.
Movie fans familiar with such classics as Taxi Driver and The Godfather would expect better from screenwriter Paul Schrader and actor Talia Shire. Sadly, this movie falls far short of their reputations.
Best: 3 Women (1977)
Taken straight from a dream that writer-director Robert Altman had one night, 3 Women tells the story of two roommates and co-workers, played by Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek, who share an increasingly bizarre relationship.
Across half a century and dozens of movies, Altman crafted some of cinema’s near-perfect masterpieces. 3 Women is one of his most avant-garde works.
Worst: Bobby Deerfield (1977)
After getting his big break in The Panic in Needle Park, Al Pacino starred in some of the greatest movies ever made throughout the 1970s, from the first two Godfather movies to Dog Day Afternoon to ...And Justice for All. to Serpico. However, he did star in one '70s stinker: Sydney Pollack’s Bobby Deerfield.
The plot trudges along through melodramatic territory with over-the-top characters and situations. It sets itself up as a racing movie, but falls into the trappings of a clichéd love story. There are reports that contemporary moviegoers laughed at some of the dramatic scenes.
Best: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Al Pacino gave tries to rob a bank to pay for his lover’s gender confirmation surgery. Not too long into the heist, Sonny realizes he’s in way over his head.
Pacino shares fantastic on-screen chemistry with his Godfather co-star and fellow former struggling New York actor, John Cazale.
Worst: The Betsy (1978)
Despite featuring such greats as Laurence Olivier and Robert Duvall, The Betsy is a pretty trashy movie about the aging founder of an automobile empire coming out of retirement to design a new fuel-efficient car.
The movie wants to be about a lot of different topics, but it devolves into tepid melodrama pretty quickly. It has about as much dramatic substance as a soap opera.
Best: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
The epitome of the anti-establishment tone of ‘70s cinema, Miloš Forman’s one of cinema’s all-time greatest villains, played by Louise Fletcher.
One of three movies to win the “Big Five” Oscars, Cuckoo’s Nest is a true masterpiece, with startlingly real characters and increasingly heartbreaking plot turns.
Worst: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)
The Richard Bach novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull was popular among readers and received warm reviews from critics. However, the film adaptation was widely panned and barely managed to recoup its budget at the box office.
It’s about as exciting as a movie about a seagull looking to shake up his life sounds like it’ll be. It was a ion project for writer-director-producer Hall Bartlett, but one has to wonder why.
