The Best Films of the 1970s Decade
The greatest films of the 1970s, from the American New Wave to Europe’s bleak surrealism.
The Passenger (1975)
Stealing a dead man’s identity seems like the perfect opportunity for television journalist David Locke to escape his unfulfilling life in The Passenger, though as Michelangelo Antonioni drifts him through a perplexing labyrinth of his own making, we are implicated in his confrontation with life’s empty, senseless banality.
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Two English Girls (1971)
By casting himself as the omniscient narrator of Two English Girls, François Truffaut imbues the love triangle between one aspiring Parisian writer and the two sisters he deeply loves with a tender, literary quality, playfully savouring every romantic and sexual encounter over nine years of their young lives.
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My Little Loves (1974)
The coming-of-age vignettes that make up My Little Loves do not depict particularly momentous occasions, yet it is in the mundane minutia of Daniel’s year away from home that his self-discovery unfolds, as Jean Eustache tenderly captures the whiplash of a lonely, confusing, yet stimulating adolescence.
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The Mother and the Whore (1973)
The infamous Madonna-whore complex is baked right into the title of Jean Eustache’s bleak treatise on juvenile masculinity, as The Mother and the Whore applies an intensive focus to a young narcissist’s thorny relationships with his long-term girlfriend, his secret lover, and the intellectual hypocrisy that underlies his infidelity.
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The Devils (1971)
The Devils may be set during the witch trials of 17th century France, and yet Ken Russell’s cynical condemnation of religious tyranny escapes a narrow relegation to the distant past, infusing his cautionary tale with a bitter, anachronistic timelessness.
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Fellini’s Casanova (1976)
Though based on the autobiography of the historical Venetian adventurer and his expansive voyage through 18th century Europe, Federico Fellini’s reimagining of Casanova’s life manifests with demented surrealism, trapping this lonely man in cycles of absurd carnal exploits fuelled by a profound, existential emptiness.
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