The 1970s saw the nascence of the blockbuster. This is also a decade when some of the most esteemed filmmakers in history released their earliest masterworks. Long gone were the days of the studio system and old Hollywood. The most successful movies of the decade (and this is a decade known for box-office record-breaking) were films that took risks and broke rules.
Thanks as much to more relaxed censorship as to social unrest from the Vietnam War, the 1970s is likely the greatest decade ever for horror, but there's much more than that. The decade saw several now-iconic prestige dramas and crime films, and escapist fun for all audiences was taken to new heights.
1 'Jaws' (1975)
Steven Spielberg's taut creature feature from the novel by Peter Benchley survived a rocky production to become the inaugural summer blockbuster, obliterating box-office records and forever altering the industry. The thriller about a great white shark terrorizing a New England beach town was followed by numerous, increasingly lousy sequels (fourth part The Revenge belongs on any list of the worst films ever), but the original holds up as a masterpiece of slow-burn, character-rich yet explosive suspense.
Jaws held the record for highest-grossing film of its time, a record broken two years later when Star Wars took off. Jaws was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture, though Spielberg was memorably snubbed in the Best Director category. Nearly fifty later, he's now the only director to be nominated in six consecutive decades.
2 'Apocalypse Now' (1979)
Not unlike its infamous behind-the-scenes struggles, Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic is a descent into madness. Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now stars Martin Sheen as an American captain assigned to assassinate a renegade colonel presumed insane (Marlon Brando).
Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, despite screening in an unfinished cut. Roger Ebert ranked this among his list of the 10 greatest films ever made (compiled in 2012, about a year before the iconic critic passed away).
3 'Cabaret' (1972)
If it were released any other year, Bob Fosse's grounded yet electrifying musical film from the stage show (itself adapted from I Am a Camera and The Berlin Stories) would have swept the Oscars, including Best Picture. It came out the same year as The Godfather, though, and therefore had to settle for eight Oscars including Best Director, Best Actress (Liza Minelli) and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). This remains the record wins for any film not to win Best Picture.
Along with the likes of Singin' in the Rain and West Side Story (both versions, frankly), Cabaret is one of the best musicals ever made—and it's aging like wine. Set at the dawn of World War II in a Berlin nightclub, it's full of toe-tapping showstoppers—and everything is slowly gripped by talons of fear.
4 'Alien' (1979)
Along with Blade Runner, this sci-fi horror landmark is the picture that most defines Ridley Scott's legacy. Dan O'Bannon's smart script doesn't tell the most novel of stories: it's about an alien that gets loose on a spaceship and kills people—but everything aside from the premise is what makes the film standout. The characters on ordinary space truckers faced with a deeply creepy and seemingly unkillable threat.
Winner of an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Alien features possibly the scariest horror movie creature of all time, in H.R. Giger's Xenomorph appears to be little more than sex organs, slime and rows of teeth at a glance. Crucial to Alien's success is Sigourney Weaver's performance as Ellen Ripley, expanded upon in classic sequel Aliens. She's still arguably the greatest of all genre heroines.
5 'The Godfather' (1972)
Francis Ford Coppola's classic crime film improves upon Mario Puzo's pulpy page-turner. Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and Marlon Brando star in the organized crime saga centered on the Corleone family. The Godfather won three Oscars including Best Picture, and was the highest-grossing movie ever for a time.
Followed by The Godfather Part II in 1974, considered by many to be a superior sequel. 1990's third installment is the divisive, occasionally unfairly outright maligned black sheep of the series, recently re-released and re-edited as Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.
6 'The Exorcist' (1973)
From the novel by William Peter Blatty, The French Connection helmer William Friedkin's terrifying supernatural thriller used state-of-the-art visuals and sound to tell the story of a single New England mother (Ellen Burstyn) desperate to save her young daughter (Linda Blair) from the possession of a demon. The Exorcist is one of the highest-grossing films of its time, its release heaviliy publicized for attracting crowds and in-screening events like fainting, vomiting and walkouts.
Horror classic (some would even call it the ultimate horror film),The Exorcist has been restored and remastered numerous times. Notably, it was released in 2000 as an extended The Version You've Never Seen. The best way to watch it is, by a margin, in Friedkin's original, streamlined 122-minute cut.
7 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975)
Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher star, as a criminal faking insanity and a sadistic nurse in Miloš Forman's classic study of the institutional process, and more broadly, of human nature. Based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel of the same name.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a timelessly relevant classic whose greatness virtually no one has ever contested. It's one of just three films to sweep the "Big Five" categories at the Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress). The only other films to accomplish this are It Happened One Night and The Silence of the Lambs.
8 'Taxi Driver' (1976)
After attracting significant acclaim from Mean Streets and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore earlier in the decade, Martin Scorsese directed Robert De Niro as a troubled Manhattan cab driver obsessed with vigilante justice. Taxi Driver co-stars Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel and a young Jodie Foster—as a teen prostitute.
Taxi Driver is perhaps the greatest neo-noir of the decade, though its impossible not to mention Chinatown, too. Though discussing that picture comes with discussing its embattled director, Roman Polanski.
9 'Halloween' (1978)
Originally met with a meh reception that grew steadily as audiences and critics noted its merits, John Carpenter's shoestring-budgeted horror film became the slasher signpost. Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis' screen debut, as a mild-mannered babysitter confronted with faceless evil on a Midwest Halloween night, catapulted the naturalistic, intelligent and sympathetic young actress to the A-list, where she's remained ever since.
Decade after decade, sequel after sequel, Halloween's reputation only grows. It's year zero for so many young aspiring filmmakers because it gets maximum artistry and emotion from minimal materials. If you ever get the chance to see it on the big screen, especially on film, you'll fully experience Halloween as theater of the mind, and one of the greatest, most effective genre pictures ever.
10 'Star Wars' aka 'Star Wars: Episode IV— A New Hope'(1977)
Long before the prequels and sequels, the series and spinoffs, long before it became the fan base grew massive and maybe even infamous, Star Wars came from nothing. George Lucas' strange space opera about a farm boy, a princess and battling wizards was expected to be a magnificent flop. Instead, it became the highest-grossing movie ever in its time.
Star Wars has been notoriously tinkered with for decades now, but the best way to watch it is in its original, masterfully edited and streamlined theatrical cut (last released on DVD many years ago). It's everything a blockbuster should be, and the original trilogy (continued in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) presents cinema's greatest hero's journey. It's hard to overstate its power.