1973's Best Movies: 50 Years Later

In keeping with previous polls, I've gone with the contenders in the top 2,000 films, but they now offer the entire starting spreadsheet. Here are the titles that carry through through the top 5,000 films ever.

2002	2379	Mattei Affair, The	Rosi, Francesco	1973	Italy	116
2049	3605	Emperor of the North Pole	Aldrich, Robert	1973	USA	118
2068	2494	Turkish Delight	Verhoeven, Paul	1973	Netherlands	108
2108	1960	Serpico	Lumet, Sidney	1973	USA	129
2117	1784	My Ain Folk	Douglas, Bill	1973	UK	55
2141	3307	We Can't Go Home Again	Ray, Nicholas	1973	USA	93
2155	2335	Hourglass Sanatorium, The	Has, Wojciech	1973	Poland	124
2184	1741	Pelican, The	Blain, Gérard	1973	France	90
2533	2757	Sanrizuka: Heta Village	Ogawa, Shinsuke	1973	Japan	146
2710	1677	Sleeper	Allen, Woody	1973	USA	88
2712	2157	Day of the Jackal, The	Zinnemann, Fred	1973	France	141
2715	4694	Sylvie [TV]	Lemke, Klaus	1973	West Germany	86
2724	10671	Juan Moreira	Favio, Leonardo	1973	Argentina	102
2737	3739	Fate of Lee Khan, The	Hu, King	1973	Hong Kong	105
2762	1936	Sisters	De Palma, Brian	1973	USA	93
2768	4608	Friends of Eddie Coyle, The	Yates, Peter	1973	USA	102
2819	2901	Palomita blanca	Ruiz, Raúl	1973	Chile	125
2837	18483	Love and Anarchy	Wertmüller, Lina	1973	Italy	108
2877	5100	World on a Wire [TV]	Fassbinder, Rainer Werner	1973	West Germany	212
2954	2459	Way We Were, The	Pollack, Sydney	1973	USA	118
3020	3299	Simple Event, A	Saless, Sohrab Shahid	1973	Iran	80
3088	2479	Bigger Splash, A	Hazan, Jack	1973	UK	106
3169	2311	Theatre of Blood	Hickox, Douglas	1973	UK	104
3215	2636	Electra Glide in Blue	Guercio, James William	1973	USA	113
3426	5265	Flesh for Frankenstein	Morrissey, Paul	1973	USA	95
3447	3426	Distant Thunder	Ray, Satyajit	1973	India	100
3631	9654	Spook Who Sat By the Door, The	Dixon, Ivan	1973	USA	102
3875	5224	Age of Medici, The [TV]	Rossellini, Roberto	1973	Italy	252
3966	3712	Juvenile Court	Wiseman, Frederick	1973	USA	144
4006	3079	Coffy	Hill, Jack	1973	USA	91
4008	3310	Geburt der Nation, Die	Wyborny, Klaus	1973	West Germany	70
4046	---	Revolver	Sollima, Sergio	1973	Italy	111
4091	5889	Reel Time	Nicolson, Annabel	1973	---	---
4158	3592	Society of the Spectacle, The	Debord, Guy	1973	France	88
4239	3536	Kashima Paradise	Deswarte, Benie Yann Le Masson	1973	France	110
4255	6920	Castle of Purity, The	Ripstein, Arturo	1973	Mexico	110
4333	3575	Papillon	Schaffner, Franklin J.	1973	USA	151
4349	4750	Lovers Are Wet	Kumashiro, Tatsumi	1973	Japan	76
4463	6488	Jesus Christ Superstar	Jewison, Norman	1973	USA	103
4482	3326	Soylent Green	Fleischer, Richard	1973	USA	97
4492	5311	Lady Snowblood	Fujita, Toshiya	1973	Japan	97
4535	4564	Anna and the Wolves	Saura, Carlos	1973	Spain	100
4565	3510	Wanderers, The	Ichikawa, Kon	1973	Japan	96
4619	3559	Robin Hood	Reitherman, Wolfgang	1973	USA	83
4665	---	Belladonna of Sadness	Yamamoto, Eiichi	1973	Japan	86
4758	4625	Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Cinematic Scene	Straub, Jean-Marie	1973	West Germany	17
4830	10221	Last of Sheila, The	Ross, Herbert	1973	USA	120
4839	3172	Legend of Hell House, The	Hough, John	1973	UK	95
4871	8822	Last House on Dead End Street, The	Watkins, Roger Michael	1973	USA	78

what a year! favorite 5 of the ones I’ve seen:

1) the long goodbye
2) F for fake
3) mean streets
4) badlands
5) charley varrick

It blows away 1956, that’s for sure, at least on the Hollywood side

is Battles Without Honour the "best" of these? probably not
could i vote for it anyway? yep

not in my top5 Fukasaku tbh. great ending line tho.

it is not the best movie by any stretch on this list, but a personal favorite, and I can't not vote for a movie where a Jesus freak gets burned alive in a gigantic Wicker man

mad props for Mean Streets as well, naturally. the end of the film hits a level of intensity that it didn't seem like it was throttling towards, and masterful Keitel and DeNiro performances. and Enter the Dragon, which isn't Lee's best, but was about as great a mainstream crossover as Lee could have possibly hoped to make.

it's not fair to do this, but I have lost a bit of my appreciation for the Exorcist because of the awful subgenre of imitators it's spawned that seems to not be slowing down at all. even though this movie definitely did it better.

still need to see The Sting, loved Butch Cassidy though.

I perpetually have the feeling that Mean Streets is underrated bc there’s always a more recent, trendier Scorsese film that people rep for

I brought it to a dude's house who loved Scorsese and films of this genre, neither of us had seen it. Weirdly enough, we didn't finish it because he found it 'boring' and made me turn it off.

I guess he wanted it to be more like Goodfellas.

eventually I finished it on my own years later, obv

It’s full of magical, astonishing sequences

I've only seen a dozen and of those one of them I've watched 10+ times so "bullshit mr han man, man you come straight out of a comic book" wins.

this was the year I graduated from high school

for me it is between Amarcord, which is pure nostalgia, and The Spirit of the Beehive, which I watched for the first time recently and which is a quiet, haunting, and incredibly beautiful film.

I’m guessing I will vote for Amarcord since nobody else here will countenance a Fellini film, but I hope a lot of you vote for The Spirit of the Beehive. I’ve read that Victor Erice has a new film which might be entered into competition in this year’s Cannes Film Festival

I also really like a lot of these - Day For Night, Don’t Look Now, The Exorcist, The Long Goodbye, Mean Streets, Paper Moon (which surprised me), Scenes From a Marriage, and The Sting (the movie my straight high school boyfriend loved the most), among others

I'll deliver that Spirit of the Beehive vote.

although's k3vin's top 5 are all worthy and tempting

One of the choices in coming-of-age films my students have to write about tonight is Amarcord; The 400 Blows, Pather Panchali, Y tu mama tambien, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire are the others.

I voted for The Long Goodbye. Finalists in descending order:

F for Fake
The Spirit of the Beehive
Mean Streets
Badlands
Charlie Varrick
Amarcord
The Last Detail

xp That sounds like a good assignment

I'm going to start over again with Terrence Malick. I don't think I've seen Badlands since shortly after it came out

American Graffiti and Mean Streets are about even for me, depends on mood, also like The Exorcist, The Last Detail, The Long Goodbye (a little overrated now, I'd say), and The Wicker Man. Purely for nostalgia, The Paper Chase, too. Hated F for Fake the one time I saw it. Juvenile Court's very good.

I'll deliver that Spirit of the Beehive vote.

And I, another.

The Circumstance by Olmi and Arcand's Réjeanne Padovani are two worthy 1973 films that didn't make this ranking.

Voting F for Fake, but best wishes to Touki Bouki and The Long Goodbye.

the long goodbye ahead of the sting, the exorcist, badlands, charley varrick

will be non ironically fping anyone declaring that they will vote for something because of how they expect others to vote, as per standard

love ye really tho

Love and Anarchy is the best film from either list. But, of the poll options, I think I'll have to go with Badlands.

looking at the extended list, I remember liking Serpico, Sleeper, and Sisters

As a teenager I also liked The Way We Were and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Recently watched Juvenile Court, which is pretty good like all Wiseman films.

Most of the other films on the extended list I haven’t seen

Watched Touki Bouki last year or the year before and it was quite fun, not the most coherent but I guess it was arty. Pretty hip though.

was trying to think if I had seen F for Fake through or not. Know what it is but not sure if I saw it.

Think I've seen quite a few of the others.

Mambéty's later feature, Hyènes, is less wild but a more coherent picture.

saw that too, yeah pretty good. Watched the 60s US/European version of the same story in its wake and don't think it was as good

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

not a bad result

I didn't expect Mean Streets to be near the top (I guess I flipped a coin and voted for American Graffiti), but below Paper Moon and The Sting is...disconcerting.

Paper Moon is pretty great tho

My recollection from decades ago (I've stopped on scenes on TV) is that it looks good and is otherwise pretty slight, but I guess I should see it again.

we agree!

I will agree that The Sting deserved zero votes more than Mean Streets, but that’s the limit

I guess I need to watch Paper Moon, which always struck me as the bad parts of Truffaut, i.e. Truffaut going cute.

*watch again

If for no other reason than the much better of Madeline Kahn's two consecutive best supporting actress nominations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlg5InsskW4

Erice is an underrated filmmaker who is on the verge of being overexposed, his films need to sneak up on you rather than being plastered with "masterpiece" signs. Still I'm glad his film won.

Fair enough

I will agree that The Sting deserved zero votes more than Mean Streets, but that’s the limit
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.)

I just don't understand statements like this, other than as provocations. Mean Streets is the first major film by a major filmmaker. Kael's review is justifiably rapturous.

You know me, and I know you

I regard Mean Streets the same as I regard De Palma's Sisters. Must've been pretty bracing upon arrival, and very swiftly left in the dust by the respective directors' '76 efforts.

In any case, when I post the 1983: 40 years later poll today, there's where you'll find me in Scorsese's corner

We know you. We've seen you before like this. Is it over - or just beginning?

Ah, King of Comedy. Might be my #1, but I thought right away of one film that might be ahead of it

Were Lucas and Scorsese already acquainted at the time they were making their '73 films? I think it's intersting how both directors were making a semi-autobiograhical films, inspired by "I Vitelloni" and using rockin' oldies instead of a score, at approximately the same time.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be another Scorsese fight

(xpost) They're such a perfect pair from a musical standpoint; the same in terms of the ubiquity of pop music, some overlap in the actual music, completely different sensibilities. I think the California directors all knew each other, and Scorsese and De Palma knew each other, not sure about Scorsese and Lucas.

Huh, looks like they both worked on the Maysles brothers' "Gimme Shelter" - Lucas was in the camera crew, Scorsese (and Schoonmaker) on the editing team

Mean Streets is def a great one, it doesn't feel slight imo, it's obv a film that had some type of oblique influence on later '70s NYC films, maybe even on something like Saturday Night Fever. if nothing else it's probably DeNiro's loosest and maybe funniest performance, for example there's that one backroom conversation he has w/Keitel which has just great comic timing throughout. plus lots of great bit parts from actors who really hardly ever did anything else in their careers.

The Sting is entertaining but that's definitely a slight one.

Definitely true about the obscure bit players, with two prominent exceptions, both from The Sopranos (and neither of which I clued into until after finishing): David Proval (Tony) as Richie Aprile, and Richard Romanus (Michael) as Dr. Melfi's husband.

1983's Best Movies: 40 Years Later

The top 20 films at the 1973 box office: https://t.co/1xqU94sksZ pic.twitter.com/746eP5Bx2b

— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) May 4, 2023

Drew a complete blank on The World's Greatest Athlete--Disney film from when they were trying to hang on. Typically bizarre cast.

Trying to remember who was in that. Jan Michael Vincent in his debut? Kurt Russell?

Amazed that A Touch of Class was up there; must have been a “you had to be there” thing

Richard Romanus (Michael)
Didn’t know this guy was the brother of Robert Romanus, was wondering for a bit how they could be the same person.

Trying to remember who was in that. Jan Michael Vincent in his debut? Kurt Russell?

Glenda Jackson's A Touch of Class Oscar is one of my favorite WTF moments.

I havent seen A Touch Of Class since the late 1980s but I thoroughly enjoyed it when my folks got the VHS.

I'm all in for a Jackson comeback but she deserved just one Oscar (Sunday Bloody Sunday).

Agreed, with the caveat that the Oscar would have to come any other year that didn't also include Jane Fonda in Klute

Exactly.

I think she won the first time for her best role and performance, in Women In Love