Underrated '70s Movies You Need To Watch

Perhaps no director personified the iconoclastic, rabble-rousing attitude of the 1970s better than Robert Altman, who kicked off the decade with "M*A*S*H" and followed it up with "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "The Long Goodbye," "Nashville," and "3 Women." The prolific filmmaker churned out a hefty number of classics (both major and minor) during that time (he directed 13 films between 1970-1979), including this surrealistic comedy that was released the same year as "M*A*S*H" and was largely overshadowed by the latter's success.

Bud Cort stars as Brewster McCloud, an eccentric loner living in the Houston Astrodome who dreams of taking flight — not with an airplane, but with large bird wings he's been constructing in his secret apartment high above the baseball field (in real life, the Eighth Wonder of the World did have private accommodations). His trench coat-clad (sometimes with nothing underneath) guardian angel (Sally Kellerman) guides him on his quest, covering for him when his enemies start turning up dead, covered in bird crap. Michael Murphy costars as a "Bullitt"-skewering detective investigating the murders, while Shelley Duvall made her film debut as a quirky girl who catches young Brewster's eye and an off-the-wall Rene Auberjnois is a lecturer/narrator who seems to be ... turning into a bird?

Given the rousing reception greeted "M*A*S*H" earlier that year, critics at the time were a bit disappointed in the strange, circuitous "McCloud," which Vincent Canby of The New York Times called "dim, pretentious, and more than a little cruel." Even the more positive Roger Ebert, who found its freewheeling, absurdist narrative "more complex and difficult than 'M*A*S*H,'" conceded, "I'm not sure it's about anything." Yet critical assessment has only grown stronger as the film has attained cult status, making it essential viewing for any Altman fan — and if nothing else, it has one of the all-time great closing credits. 

Considering what a breakthrough "The Godfather" was for Al Pacino, it might surprise people to learn his first leading role was actually in this verite-style addiction drama. Directed by photographer-turned-filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg, it centers on Bobby (Pacino), a heroin addict who frequents the Manhattan junkie hangout known as "Needle Park." He falls in love with a homeless girl named Helen (Kitty Wynn) and quickly gets her hooked on drugs. As their addiction grows, their love story spirals into tragedy.

The 1970s gave rise to a new kind of movie star, one more closely resembling your neighborhood butcher than a matinee idol. Most of them cut their teeth on the New York stage, and what they lacked in conventional leading man good looks they made up for in acting talent (Gene Hackman, Elliott Gould, Dustin Hoffman). Pacino, who shot to stardom after "The Godfather," was an example of this. He was helped by a change in audience tastes: for a brief period, countercultural moviegoers were more interested in stories resembling their real lives instead of fantasy, which allowed a film like "Panic" to be produced at a major studio like 20th Century Fox as opposed to independently, like it would be today.

"The Panic in Needle Park" was greeted with widespread critical praise. Roger Ebert called it "a special and sometimes extraordinary movie." Rather than laud "the sensational elements" the studio emphasized in the ads, he zeroed in on the love story, which he found to be "a carefully observed portrait of two human beings."

The New Hollywood of the 1970s came to fruition thanks in part to BBS Productions, a company run by novice producers Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson, and Steve Blauner. After creating the TV music group The Monkees, they set their sights on Hollywood, understanding that younger audiences wanted movies by them and for them. They produced seven films between 1968-1972, including "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," and "The Last Picture Show," finally coming to an end with this polarizing character study.

"The King of Marvin Gardens" was Rafelson's directorial followup to "Five Easy Pieces," and re-teams him with BBS's favorite movie star, Jack Nicholson. He plays against type as David Staebler, a depressed late night radio host who reconnects with his estranged brother, manic conman Jason (Bruce Dern). Living in Atlantic City with his girlfriend, Sally (Ellen Burstyn), and her stepdaughter, Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson), Jason tries to rope his brother into a real estate scam, leading to tragic consequences.

Reviews at the time were decidedly mixed. Ebert called it "an original, individual, and often frustrating movie that takes a lot of chances and wins on about sixty percent of them." Roger Greenspun of The New York Times, on the other hand, panned it, saying that Rafelson's "kind of poetic realism," which came across well in "Five Easy Pieces," now felt like "the most pretentious of tired cliches." Yet this oddball odyssey has only grown in stature as an example of the defiant, unique films BBS churned out during its all-too-brief heyday.

An unofficial subgenre of '70s cinema is the New York City movie, in which the Big Apple becomes more than just a setting, but almost like another character. One of the best examples of this is Joseph Sargent's "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," which holds up even better than the 2009 Denzel Washington/John Travolta remake, and whose villainous aliases might clue in "Reservoir Dogs" fans to a source of Tarantino's inspiration.

Walter Matthau stars as Zachary Garber, a world-weary transit policeman whose daily routine is interrupted by a subway car hijacking. The leader of the hijackers, "Mr. Blue" (Robert Shaw), threatens to shoot one hostage per minute if one million dollars in cash isn't delivered within an hour. Zachary must juggle negotiations with Mr. Blue, the bed-ridden NYC mayor (Lee Wallace), and the trigger-happy police to deliver the ransom before any hostages are killed.

One of the film's great qualities isn't just its feel for locations, but its casting of leathery-faced character actors in the leading roles (including Jerry Stiller as Zachary's fellow MTA officer and Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, and Earl Hindman as Mssrs. Green, Grey and Brown, respectively). As Ebert pointed out, the movie's appeal "doesn't depend on the plan or on the easily foreseeable plot," but "instead on a nice feel for New York City and some fine, detailed performances." He adds, "This sense of unforced realism extends even to the passengers being held hostage," which are "handled convincingly." It's a sentiment that was shared by the vast majority of critics, who praised its gritty naturalism and breezy suspense.

The New Hollywood revolution of the 1970s began in the late '60s, when the studio system collapsed and younger filmmakers were handed the keys to the kingdom in the hopes of bringing in countercultural audiences. Among the films that kicked this into high gear was 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde," a violent gangster film that made stars of Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Gene Hackman. Hackman reunited with director Arthur Penn for "Night Moves," and it's a sign of how quickly things changed that their previous collaboration was a box office and Oscar success while their next was largely overlooked.

Hackman plays Los Angeles private eye Harold Moseby, immersed in a missing persons case to distract himself from the dissolution of his marriage. At the behest of aging B-movie star Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), he travels down to the Florida Keys in search of her runaway daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith, in her acting debut). Harry finds Delly living with her stepfather Tom (John Crawford) and his girlfriend Paula (Jennifer Warren), with whom he quickly begins an ill-fated affair.

Despite near unanimous praise, "Night Moves" fell prey to the great white circling the box office that summer: Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." In one fell swoop, "Jaws" fundamentally changed the kinds of films studios prioritized, as small scale character studies were scrapped in favor of blockbusters. Yet "Night Moves," which Roger Ebert declared was "one of the best psychological thrillers in a long time," has lived on as "a no-exit comment on the post-1968, post-Watergate times." 

In the 1970s, the director was given free rein, as crumbling studios looked to fresh talent for insight into what audiences wanted. That came to an end when their modestly produced films began to balloon in budget, leading to some high profile flops. One of the most famous examples of this was "Sorcerer," a gloomy remake of "The Wages of Fear" that had the misfortune of opening the same summer as "Star Wars."

Hot off his Oscar-winning hits "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist," director William Friedkin exercised absolute control in telling this story of four men transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across treacherous terrain in the South American jungle. Shooting took place primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, which presented several production problems that caused the budget to skyrocket to a then-staggering $22 million. Its financial failure, alongside Francis Ford Coppola's "One from the Heart," Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York," and particularly Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," hastened the demise of the New Hollywood. The massive success of "Star Wars" also marked a decisive shift in the sort of films studios would greenlight from then on out.

Yet, Sorcerer" has enjoyed a critical reevaluation in recent years, with director Quentin Tarantino naming it one of the ten greatest films of all time in a recent Sight & Sound poll. On the occasion of a 2014 restoration, Friedkin declared it was "the best film I've made," a sentiment shared by a growing number of viewers.

You can see the influence of Claudia Weill's "Girlfriends" on just about any film that hopes to portray female friendship, from "Bridesmaids" to "Frances Ha" to the HBO series "Girls" (which Weill directed an episode of in 2013). What began initially as a 30-minute short funded by the American Film Institute morphed into an independently financed feature, one so impressive that Warner Bros. picked it up for distribution.

Melanie Mayron stars as Susan Weinblatt, a wannabe photographer making her living shooting bar mitzvahs and weddings. She shares an apartment in New York City with her best friend, aspiring writer Anne Munroe (Anita Skinner). Susan's life is thrown into turmoil when Anne decides to move out and get married, forcing her to face life on her own for the first time. Things are further complicated when she falls in love with a married rabbi (Eli Wallach) before finding her own boyfriend (Bob Balaban).

In an essay penned for the film's Criterion release, Molly Haskell wrote about what a landmark "Girlfriends" was in regards to stories of female friendships. Prior to that, "the buddies in conventional buddy films were invariably male. Women were still thought to be congenital rivals, incapable of bonding." And yet, "working outside the constraints of systematized storytelling, Weill recognized and captured the ways in which women's friendships were both similar to and different from love affairs, yet certainly every bit as complex — and probably more so." Critics praised the film, which Variety called, "a warm, emotional and at times wise picture about friendship."

As the 1970s came to a close, Hollywood studios began taking fewer and fewer chances on risky projects, opting instead for reliable concepts and carbon copies of previous hits. Directors with eccentric visions had to make their own way, leading to the independent cinema boon of the '80s and '90s. One talent who slipped into the business just in time was Albert Brooks, a standup comedian whose neurotic, self-effacing humor had made him a name via a series of short films  (some for "Saturday Night Live"), leading to his directorial debut, the Paramount Pictures-produced "Real Life."

Brooks writes, directs, and stars in the film as — who else? — Albert Brooks, a comedian directing a documentary about an ordinary American family in Phoenix, Arizona. He follows the Yeager family — headed by veterinarian Warren (Charles Grodin) and his wife, Jeannette (Frances Lee McCain) — 24 hours a day, seven days a week with cameramen who are equipped with filming devices that resemble robotic diving helmets. But Brooks can't help but interfere with the Yeagers' lives in the hopes of creating a greater "reality," leading to hilarious consequences. In the decades since, many have credited the film (which was spoofing the landmark PBS docuseries "An American Family") with foreseeing reality TV long before it would proliferate American airwaves.

Critics at the time were rapturous, save for Roger Ebert, who called it "a great idea" which "fails so miserably that it lets its audience down." Yet Janet Maslin of The New York Times declared it an "often very witty assault on manners, moviemaking, an allegedly typical American family and everything its members hold dear."