The Lists: Must See Movies, 1970-1979

Taxi Driver. Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Boldfaced titles with asterisk (*) indicate top 10 of the decade.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970, Russ Meyer)
The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Deep End (1970, Jerzy Skolimowski)
El Topo (1970, Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970, Werner Herzog)
Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970, Vittorio De Sica)
Gimme Shelter (1970, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin)
Little Big Man (1970, Arthur Penn)
M.A.S.H. (1970, Robert Altman)
Patton (1970, Franklin J. Schaffner)
Performance (1970, Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell)
Tristana (1970, Luis Bunuel)
Woodstock (1970, Michael Wadleigh)
Zabriskie Point (1970, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Carnal Knowledge (1971, Mike Nichols)
Claire's Knee (1971, Eric Rohmer)
A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick) *
Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel)
Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971, Floyd Mutrux)
The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin)
Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby)
Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula)
The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bogdanovich)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Robert Altman)
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971, John Cassavetes)
Murmur of the Heart (1971, Louis Malle)
Out 1 (1971, Jacques Rivette)
Play Misty for Me (1971, Clint Eastwood)
Punishment Park (1971, Peter Watkins)
Shaft (1971, Gordon Parks)
The Sorrow and the Pity (1971, Marcel Ophuls)
Straw Dogs (1971, Sam Peckinpah)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971, John Schlesinger)
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971, Melvin Van Peebles)
Two English Girls (1971, Francois Truffaut)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman)
Wake in Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff)
Walkabout (1971, Nicolas Roeg)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971, Mel Stuart)
WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971, Dusan Makavejev)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972, Werner Herzog)
Cabaret (1972, Bob Fosse)
Cries and Whispers (1972, Ingmar Bergman)
Deliverance (1972, John Boorman)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Bunuel)
The Emigrants (1972, Jan Troell)
Fists of Fury (1972, Wei Lo)
Frenzy (1972, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) *
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972, Bob Rafelson)
Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Pink Flamingos (1972, John Waters)
Sleuth (1972, Joseph Mankiewicz)
Solaris (1972, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Super Fly (1972, Gordon Parks Jr.)
American Graffiti (1973, George Lucas) *
Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick)
Day for Night (1973, Francois Truffaut)
Don't Look Now (1973, Nicolas Roeg)
The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin)
Lady Snowblood (1973, Toshiya Fujita)
The Last Detail (1973, Hal Ashby)
The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman)
Love and Anarchy (1973, Lina Wertmuller)
Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
The Mother and the Whore (1973, Jean Eustache)
Paper Moon (1973, Peter Bogdanovich)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973, Sam Peckinpah)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)
Serpico (1973, Sidney Lumet)
Sleeper (1973, Woody Allen)
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Victor Erice)
The Sting (1973, George Roy Hill)
Turkish Delight (1973, Paul Verhoeven)
The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy)
World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Amarcord (1974, Federico Fellini) *
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Sam Peckinpah)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski) *
The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Effi Briest (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Kidnapped (1974, Mario Bava)
Lacombe, Lucien (1974, Louis Malle)
Lenny (1974, Bob Fosse)
The Mirror (1974, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Phase IV (1974, Saul Bass)
Swept Away... by an Unusual Destiny on the Sea of August (1974, Lina Wertmuller)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John Cassavetes)
Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks)
Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick)
Dersu Uzala (1975, Akira Kurosawa)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1975, Werner Herzog)
Fox and His Friends (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
India Song (1975, Marguerite Duras)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman)
Kings of the Road (1975, Wim Wenders)
Manila in the Claws of Brightness (1975, Lino Brocka)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975, John Huston)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman) *
Night Moves (1975, Arthur Penn)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975, Milos Forman)
Overlord (1975, Stuart Cooper)
The Passenger (1975, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, Peter Weir)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, Jim Sharman)
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Xala (1975, Ousmane Sembene)
1900 (1976, Bernardo Bertolucci)
All the President's Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)
The Ascent (1976, Larisa Shepitko)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, John Carpenter)
Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma)
Cria Cuervos (1976, Carlos Saura)
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976, Barbara Kopple)
Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976, Alain Tanner)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Nicolas Roeg)
Martin (1976, George Romero)
Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
Rocky (1976, John G. Avildsen)
Seven Beauties (1976, Lina Wertmuller)
Small Change (1976, Francois Truffaut)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese) *
Who Can Kill a Child? (1976, Narciso Ibanez Serrador)
3 Women (1977, Robert Altman)
Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen) *
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg)
Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch)
House (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Killer of Sheep (1977, Charles Burnett)
Man of Marble (1977, Andrzej Wajda)
Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham)
Soldier of Orange (1977, Paul Verhoeven)
Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)
Star Wars (1977, George Lucas) *
Stroszek (1977, Werner Herzog)
Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento)
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977, Luis Bunuel)
Blue Collar (1978, Paul Schrader)
Coming Home (1978, Hal Ashby)
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)
Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)
Midnight Express (1978, Alan Parker)
Shaolin Master Killer (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) (1978, Chia-Liang Liu)
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978, Ermanno Olmi)
Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) *
Being There (1979, Hal Ashby)
Breaking Away (1979, Peter Yates)
The Brood (1979, David Cronenberg)
The China Syndrome (1979, James Bridges)
Dawn of the Dead (1979, George Romero)
Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979, Robert Benton)
Mad Max (1979, George Miller)
Manhattan (1979, Woody Allen)
Norma Rae (1979, Martin Ritt)
Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night (1979, Werner Herzog)
Siberiade (1979, Andrey Konchalovskiy)
Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)
The Warriors (1979, Walter Hill)