Directed by Alan J. Pakula • 1974 • United States
Starring Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels

Perhaps no director tapped into the pervasive sense of dread and mistrust that defined the 1970s more effectively than Alan J. Pakula, who, in the second installment of his celebrated Paranoia ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1975 • United States
Starring Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Shelley Duvall

This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman is a panoramic view of the country’s political and cultural landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital. NASHVILLE weaves the...

Directed by William Friedkin • 1977 • United States
Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal

A hallucinatory journey into the heart of darkness, William Friedkin’s pulse-pounding reimagining of the suspense classic THE WAGES OF FEAR was dismissed upon its release, only to be recogniz...

Directed by Alan J. Pakula • 1976 • United States
Starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden

At once a taut, deeply engrossing political thriller and one of the most fascinating films ever made about the inner workings of the press, the final installment in director Alan J. Pakula’s Pa...

Directed by David Fincher • 2002 • United States
Starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker

Relentlessly roving camera work heightens the sense of claustrophobic dread in this typically stylish tour de force of tension from director David Fincher. Newly divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Fo...

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson • 1999 • United States
Starring Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Altmanesque portrait of a day in the crisscrossing lives of various San Fernando Valley residents—including a sleazy pickup artist (Tom Cruise); a distraugh...

Directed by Alan J. Pakula • 1971 • United States
Starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland

With her Oscar-winning turn in KLUTE, Jane Fonda reinvented herself as a new kind of movie star. Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels—a call girl and aspiring actor wh...

Directed by Robert Altman • 2001 • United Kingdom, United States, Italy
Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren

Robert Altman blends the incisive, upstairs-downstairs class study of Jean Renoir’s THE RULES OF THE GAME with an Agatha Christie–style murder mystery for this delectable, ...

Directed by William Richert • 1979 • United States, West Germany
Starring Jeff Bridges, John Huston, Anthony Perkins

Among the myriad conspiracy thrillers that proliferated in the 1970s, WINTER KILLS stands out for its audacious, tonally bonkers blending of paranoia and black-comic satire as wel...

Directed by Arthur Penn • 1975 • United States
Starring Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Edward Binns

Arthur Penn’s haunting neonoir reimagines the hard-boiled detective film for the disillusioned, paranoid 1970s. In one of his greatest performances, Gene Hackman oozes world-weary cynicism as a pr...

Directed by Ken Russell • 1971 • United Kingdom
Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed

The most controversial film of the 1970s was banned across the world for its deliriously overheated, shockingly blasphemous tale of sexual frenzy and demonic possession in a seventeenth-century French convent....

Directed by Roman Polanski • 1974 • United States
Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

An Oscar-winning screenplay by Robert Towne, career-defining performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, and Roman Polanski’s atmospheric direction come together in one of the greatest fil...

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson • 2002 • United States
Starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Chaos lurks in every corner of this giddily off-kilter foray into romantic comedy by Paul Thomas Anderson. Struggling to cope with his erratic temper, novelty-toilet-plunger sales...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1973 • United States
Starring Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden

Robert Altman updates Raymond Chandler for the liberated, hedonistic 1970s in this brilliantly idiosyncratic adaptation of one of the writer’s most renowned novels. Elliott Gould brings a ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1971 • United States
Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, René Auberjonois

This unorthodox dream western by Robert Altman may be the most radically beautiful film to come out of the New American Cinema. It stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as two newcomers to ...

Directed by Abel Ferrara • 1981 • United States
Starring Zoë Lund, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto

Abel Ferrara’s exploitation-scuzz classic takes place in the cesspool of 1980s New York, where mute garment-district worker Thana (Zoë Lund, who also cowrote Ferrara’s BAD LIEUTENANT) is raped once, t...

Directed by Martin Scorsese • 1974 • United States
Starring Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Alfred Lutter

Martin Scorsese and Ellen Burstyn draw on the classic women’s melodrama, the 1970s road movie, and the burgeoning feminist movement to create a tender portrait of a New Mexico housewife w...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1980 • United States
Starring Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Paul L. Smith

Robert Altman brought his exuberantly chaotic experimental sensibility to this live-action version of the classic comic strip, featuring spot-on performances by Robin Williams and Shelley Duva...

Directed by George Armitage • 1997 • United States
Starring John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd

John Cusack’s unstoppable run as puppy-eyed Gen X heartthrob continued with this smart, wittily offbeat blend of hit-man thriller and romantic comedy. He stars as Martin Blank, a professional assa...

Directed by Martin Scorsese • 1976 • United States
Starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks

Scripted by Paul Schrader and directed by Martin Scorsese, TAXI DRIVER is a powerful study of a dangerously fractured psyche, as well as a vividly grimy portrait of New York City in the 1970s....

Directed by Andrzej Żuławski • 1981 • France, West Germany
Starring Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent

Andrzej Żuławski’s stunningly choreographed nightmare of a marriage unraveling is an experience unlike any other. Professional spy Mark (Sam Neill) returns to his West Berlin home to fin...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1974 • United States
Starring George Segal, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss

Robert Altman’s distinctive brand of loose-limbed naturalism reached sublime heights with this freewheeling buddy comedy. Elliott Gould and George Segal make for one of the most delightfully offbe...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1970 • United States
Starring Bud Cort, Shelley Duvall, Sally Kellerman

Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) lives deep underneath the Houston Astrodome, but his dreams rise much higher. He aims to fly. Not in a plane, but with strapped-on wings he’s designing—encouraged by a ...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1963 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi

Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU), the highly influential domesti...