This is a Holy Sh*t year for sure. The top 5 in this year, pound for pound, is as good as any 5 best films in any movie year. 3 of these are career bests from great directors, and 2 are best of the decade material from all time directors. Oh to have been alive when these were all coming out!
No time for Honorable Mentions, let’s just get to it.
This is the one mediocre film in this list. The one reason to watch is Barbara Streisand, who proves why she’s not only an awesome singer, but a movie star as well.
At this point, Clint Eastwood could do the cowboy movie in his sleep. This one sees him on an avenging crusade post Civil War, seeking revenge for horrors of his past and doing it with style, great one liners, and beautiful imagery soaked in tension.
Another great entry into the “creepy children” horror genre. Gregory Peck is a diplomat living a perfect life with his wife and his son Damian, until all of a sudden, strange, awful things start happening around the quiet child. This movie soaks you in dread, awaiting in horror as the truth slowly gets unveiled for Peck and the audience.
The plot’s convoluted, but the movie as a whole is pretty terrifying and intense, as you’d expect from the great William Goldman. Dustin Hoffman plays an innocent runner drawn into the spy game for reasons out of his control. Laurence Olivier’s character is fascinating to watch, especially in one of the most terrifying interrogations in movie history.
The boys in this sports movie would spit in the face of any other sports movie. Walter Matthau is at his heartless best playing the drunk, disinterested Buttermaker, coach of the most foul mouthed, bad sportsmans that ever played baseball. This movie is one of the greats because it mocks sports movie conventions while still ending up a great sports movie.
Brian De Palma personifies the horrors of puberty and being a teenage girl in the most terrifying way possible. Sissy Spacek became a legend playing the sweet Christian girl who learns she has powers, which take a dark, dark turn at what should be a great night for her. You’ll curl up in a ball, but peek out from under your covered face because of how well De Palma adapts Stephen King’s novel.
Are you talkin to me? Martin Scorcese defined a generation of Vietnam War Vets with this classic about male anxiety. Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle is an icon in movie history, a man who can’t connect with anyone in the world anymore, and because of that slowly turns toward his darkest, most radical thoughts while the world doesn’t care.
Sylvester Stallone was frustrated he wasn’t getting movie roles, so he up and wrote a movie for himself to directed and star in. What he created is stuff of sports movie legend: a nothing boxer gets a shot at the heavyweight championship. Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, also a cinema icon, gets his edge from his Philadelphia setting as he works harder then ever to live up to this once chance he has to be great. Cue the montage…
Sydney Lumet’s masterpiece remains perennially prescient. Any normal person would take Howard Beale’s (Peter Finch) threat to murder himself on live TV as a serious situation to help a disturbed man. Corporate/Network TV executives? They care about the ratings boost Beale gave him. What follows is one of the most darkly cynical yet shockingly close to reality portrayals of lust for greed, power, and ratings. Or website hits. Or subscriptions. See? Perennially prescient.
Investigative Journalism, as noble and necessary a profession as it is, isn’t inherently exciting, because it’s usually just interviews and typing. But then Alan Pakula’s movie came along and blew that out of the water. Pakula turns Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein’s (Dustin Hoffman) story about the Watergate break in into a political thriller, with all sorts of terror surrounding these two as they slowly uncover Richard Nixon’s conspiracy and scandal to maintain power. Follow the money, forever and ever.
