1974'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.

2131	2069	Thunderbolt and Lightfoot	Cimino, Michael	1974	USA	114
2373	2323	Vincent, François, Paul and the Others	Sautet, Claude	1974	France	118
2461	2381	Paloma, La	Schmid, Daniel	1974	Switzerland	104
2545	2466	Front Page, The	Wilder, Billy	1974	USA	105
2656	2609	Garm Hava	Sathyu, M.S.	1974	India	146
2695	2624	Going Places	Blier, Bertrand	1974	France	117
2699	2673	Towering Inferno, The	Guillermin, John	1974	USA	165
2737	2658	Film About a Woman Who...	Rainer, Yvonne	1974	USA	90
2773	2688	'Rameau's Nephew' by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen	Snow, Michael	1974	Canada	255
2806	2716	Dyketactics	Hammer, Barbara	1974	USA	4
2861	2769	Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974	Hara, Kazuo	1974	Japan	98
2927	2850	At Home Among Strangers, Stranger at Home	Mikhalkov, Nikita	1974	USSR	97
2931	2854	Primate	Wiseman, Frederick	1974	USA	105
2947	2995	Effi Briest	Fassbinder, Rainer Werner	1974	West Germany	135
2978	3209	Dark Star	Carpenter, John	1974	USA	83
3035	3032	Behindert [TV]	Dwoskin, Stephen	1974	West Germany	96
3068	3042	Stavisky	Resnais, Alain	1974	France	120
3085	2907	Ruskin	Beavers, Robert	1974	USA	39
3140	3578	Black Christmas	Clark, Bob	1974	Canada	98
3189	3290	Parade	Tati, Jacques	1974	France	85
3276	3152	Cockfighter	Hellman, Monte	1974	USA	83
3350	3232	Successive Slidings of Pleasure	Robbe-Grillet, Alain	1974	France	105
3449	3340	Cocorico Monsieur Poulet	Rouch, Jean	1974	France	93
3561	3448	Longest Yard, The	Aldrich, Robert	1974	USA	121
3582	3777	Lenny	Fosse, Bob	1974	USA	112
3654	3533	Sugarland Express, The	Spielberg, Steven	1974	USA	109
3683	3554	Clockmaker, The	Tavernier, Bertrand	1974	France	105
3784	3675	That's Entertainment!	Haley Jr, Jack	1974	USA	132
3845	3723	Penda's Fen [TV]	Clarke, Alan	1974	UK	90
3951	3836	Scent of a Woman	Risi, Dino	1974	Italy	104
4008	4007	Aerial	Tait, Margaret	1974	UK	4
4105	4112	Zardoz	Boorman, John	1974	UK	105
4111	3967	Phase IV	Bass, Saul	1974	UK	84
4146	4082	China Behind	Tong Shu Shuen	1974	Hong Kong	110
4287	4780	Ankur	Benegal, Shyam	1974	India	131
4297	4172	Electra, My Love	Jancsó, Miklós	1974	Hungary	70
4340	4213	Fortune, The	Nichols, Mike	1974	USA	88
4402	4265	Mahler	Russell, Ken	1974	UK	115
4529	4396	Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, The	Grau, Jorge	1974	Spain	95
4550	4629	Man Who Sleeps, The	Queysanne, Bernard	1974	France	77
4661	4519	Thieves Like Us	Altman, Robert	1974	USA	123
4709	4567	Bitterness of Youth	Kumashiro, Tatsumi	1974	Japan	85
4721	4578	Heron and the Crane, The	Norshteyn, Yuriy	1974	USSR	10
4794	5432	Ordres, Les	Brault, Michel	1974	Canada	109
4853	4722	And Now My Love	Lelouch, Claude	1974	France	121
4957	4831	Cartesius [TV]	Rossellini, Roberto	1974	Italy	152
4968	5321	Traveller, The	Kiarostami, Abbas	1974	Iran	83
4972	4846	Bobby	Kapoor, Raj	1974	India	168

Rivette's one of my very favorite filmmakers. Voted for Céline and Julie.

I haven't watched all of Phantom of the Paradise, but I'm feeling it. Still, up against Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles?

pelham 123 vs california split

A great year for film.

It's ]Fear Eats the Soul for me.

I like A Woman Under the Influence, The Godfather Part II and Chinatown , but don't love them. Je, Tu, Il, Elle and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are pretty great. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymoret, The Conversation, and The Enigma of Caspar Hauser are also good, and The Phantom of the Paradise is a teenage memory.

In the lower list, Frederick Wiseman's Primate is astonishing and kind of horrifying. The tagline, "which ones of these two sets of primates is the more strange?", is very apt. Spielberg's early film The Sugarland Express is better than I was expecting it to be

It's remarkable how well my students respond to Ali: Fear Eats the Soul .

I went with The Conversation, but a pretty solid year overall

wait why wasn't Sugarland Express included in the poll, blah

Actually Zardoz is probably my favorite film of the year, but I don't pretend it's the best

This is a three-way tie for me: The Conversation vs The Parallax View vs The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre a somewhat distant fourth. Probably gonna vote for TPV because it's the best looking of all of those. The long overhead shot where the presidential candidate is killed in the middle of the giant arena is incredible.

Don't think mine is too hard to predict:

1. The Conversation
2. The Godfather Part II
3. Chinatown (rep screening in a couple of weeks)
4. California Split
5. Alice in the Cities
6. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

And The Sugarland Express would have been fourth. Not big on A Woman Under the Influence or Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Yeah, this year does feel like ground zero for Why You Are The Way You Are

Contender for best year ever.

Went with Edvard Munch, which is rather astonishing.

xp I can’t front too much tho, it is a pretty fantastic year … especially if you delve into foreign films

(xpost) Thank you? (You can add a few more question marks there.)

After Coppola, Mel Brooks probably had the most successful year (Fassbinder too). I should mention that I haven't seen Primate.

Oh--Altman too. I think Kael would have had Thieves Like Us as her third favourite Altman. I've tried a couple of times; I like but don't love it.

xp yeah, '74 was pretty much peak Mel Brooks

The Wenders film is actually my favorite of all of his films.

Among the titles that didn't make the cut-off, the Resnais and Kiarostami films are great but underseen. The Kiarostami film is fortunately a very welcome bonus on the Criterion edition of Close-Up, but there's already a new restoration that looks even better. The Resnais film isn't widely available which is a shame but it's been screened around NYC recently, including at least one 35mm screening.

Pretty close between that and Kings of the Road for me.

The Criterion box set that has that whole trilogy is amazing.

I was fortunate enough to catch a screening of Kings of the Road at MoMA several years ago with Wenders doing a post-screening discussion, and of course the notorious scene came up...pretty hilarious how that came about, but Jesus was that actor in the moment or what?

I'd argue Bob Clark had a better year than either Coppola or Brooks.

Okay. This year does feel like ground zero for Why You Are The Way You Are.

(Kidding, of course!)

Touche, of course

Curious that The Parallax View isn't on your list, clem. I'd have guess that to be one of the few movies we'd be on the same page about in this decade

Pastoral: To Die in the Country is fascinating, probably not my favorite of the ones I’ve seen on this list but it’s absolutely worth seeing.

I voted for Female Trouble and I'd do it again

I think we discussed Parallax on the political-film-poll thread, Eric. I love the brainwashing scene, think Beatty gives one of his best performances, but find too much of it to be him (literally) on the run; you didn't think there was as much as that I do.

Since I've seen most of these I'll expound:

All-time Favourites: EDVARD MUNCH, Thieves Like Us

Very good: CÉLINE AND JULIE GO BOATING, THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER

Good in an "actively engaging" way: LACOMBE LUCIEN, ARABIAN NIGHTS

Good in a "reserved appreciation" way: THE CONVERSATION, LANCELOT DU LAC, Les Ordres

Good & Funny: PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE over FEMALE TROUBLE or YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

Good & contemplating death: THE MOUTH AGAPE tied with THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE over Mahler (though Edvard Munch would actually win this category)

Good road movies: ALICE IN THE CITIES over CALIFORNIA SPLIT

Good, Fassbinder corner:
MARTHA over FEAR EATS THE SOUL or Effi Briest

Good but underrated by me: THE GODFATHER PART II, CHINATOWN

Perhaps not so good but overrated by me: CONVERSATION PIECE, Electra My Love

Cerebral appeal:
JE TU IL ELLE over Film About a Woman Who... or 'Rameau's Nephew' by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen

Well-made but unlovable:
Stavisky, Going Places

Interesting failures:
SWEET MOVIE, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

Dull failures:
THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY, Parade (Tati's worst)

Hated:
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, THE NIGHT PORTER

------------------

Most want to see:
MY LITTLE LOVES

Best film on the list below the top 5,000:
Cousin Angelica, Carlos Saura

Best film that didn't make the list at all:
Les filles du roy, Anne Claire Poirier

The Mouth Agape is really good. Maurice Pialat undefeated.

I think Lacombe, Lucien is great but couldn't vote it my fave. Great double bill with Il Conformista

These polls always make me wanna (re)watch things I don't make time to get round to

Lacombe, Lucien may get my vote for being the film I'd watch now.

I haven't seen enough of the non-U.S. films to have a well-informed decision, but this was a very good year for American cinema.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is a great film, though.

Dull failures:
THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY,

otm

I'm quite a fan of Parade tho

Prince's best album on some days.

I can't bring myself to not enjoy even Luis-by-numbers

I second the recommendation for The Mouth Agape, it may be Pialat's best.

I've never been the biggest fan of Louis Malle's work, but Lacombe, Lucien is good, probably one of a handful I'd revisit. (I feel like his best work relies heavily on the vital contributions of others - William Klein in his adaptation of Zazie, Miles Davis's score for Elevator to the Gallows, John Guare's original script for Atlantic City which he wrote single-handedly on-demand, not to mention great performances from the likes of Jeanne Moreau, Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and Julianne Moore for Vanya.)

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I loved The Phantom of Liberty. I can't think of another filmmaker who finished his career in old age as brilliantly as Bunuel (with the films collected here).

I don't hold The Phantom of Liberty's eh-ness against Don Luis. I agree that his late-career bloom is the gold standard for other filmmakers.

and I don't disagree either with your characterization of Malle. I'd add his India stuff and Vanya on 42nd Street

I keep meaning to catch his Minnesota farmers doc

Yeah I don't unreservedly love Malle but his highs are very high

And unless you're auteur-pilled it's fine that his best stuff is collaborative

ptm

otm even

Ha I was trying to work out if ptm was a joke I was missing

"poop the meal" in this case

I think Salo is a couple of years later tbh

Very good film not on either list: Ted Kotcheff's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

Alfredo Garcia vs Lancelot du Lac for me. Bresson gets the nod!
Really thought The Night Porter was junk the one time I saw it.
Best of the rest: Towering Inferno, The.

I think Salo is a couple of years later tbh

Pasolini a big fan of FEMMES FEMMES and re-created a scene from it in Salo no less!

winced at not picking two of my predictable all time favourites in godfather or chinatown (of the two, tonight i pick the latter) but despite the usual elements of overbroad deliveries/jokes and overlong beats, young frankenstein hits me with moments of real visual/sonic beauty and moments if real genius in performance and script

i dont think there's anything else like it and its worth ten blazing saddles imo

of the test ive seen, a special word of personal distaste for the conversation which ive never been able to bear for more than about thirty mins despite repeated attempts. a fork on a chalkboard movie.

Good but underrated by me:

^^^ love this category btw

"the conversation" for me, big fan of the sound design, i like walter murch a lot in general

somebody tell me about "dyketactics"

from the ones deeper down the list, i like cheap movies but "dark star" is cheap in a way that's just boring imo, it goes beyond "cheap" to "ed wood", and as much as i love john carpenter nobody does ed wood like ed wood

"cockfighter" is a grossly unethical film that shouldn't have been made and i like it

"phase iv" is fucking brilliant, mostly the cut ending tho. goddamn that ending is absolutely amazing.

i haven't seen most of the rest, i don't watch a lot of movies

I saw Young Frankenstein for the first time in a very long time last night coincidentally, it's great. It's really the perfect Mel Brooks film just in terms of really looking like the genre it's parodying and having a truly perfect story structure, in addition to those performances. I love blazing saddles too, but I wouldn't say I have the same level of pure affection for it as I do YF. It's also a film that makes you realize Gene Wilder was one of the great shouters. In addition to being so beautifully sad and quiet at other moments.

Usually I vote like this - Celine and Julie Go Boating

No wrong choices here. Voted Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore but could have just as easily voted for Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, The Conversation, or The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three.

From the secondary list: Primate, Thieves Like Us, and Phase IV

Missing in action: Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza, Frank Perry's Man on a Swing

With Mel Brooks, I kind of wish there was a well-curated clip anthology of his best jokes. He's the only filmmaker I can think of where I'd want something like a compilation - most of his films don't work that well as coherent movies, they usually just play like a collection of jokes with some perfunctory plot or concept to hang them on. His films can be really uneven as a result, but it also means his worst films can have at least a few hilarious scenes.

yes id agree with all that, YF being his best effort as a movie but BS prob aly having the high points

Python versions of holy grail/life of brian

xp History of the World Park One more or less functions like just that, and is why I still think it's probably his best (or at least funniest) movie

I can't think of another filmmaker who finished his career in old age as brilliantly as Bunuel

Tristana was great, but the three films in that box set are genial at best. He lived and worked long enough that his formerly shocking innovations made it to pop culture, and by that point Monty Python were funnier as well.

That's not remotely OTM, but at the same time, Dreyer's final three films would like a word

I don't care at all for The Phantom of Liberty or That Obscure... but it's the vibe of those films and the much better Discreet Charm that works for me.

As an early teen watching it with my parents I did enjoy Discreet Charm... very much as a Monty Python film.

exp I actually didn't forget Dreyer, which is why I also qualified my remark with "old age." Dreyer's last three films were all a decade apart.

Fair enough, it's almost impossible for me to imagine Dreyer as a not old man

Like even directing Joan of Arc I picture him being at least 65 years old

I'd say Godard for best old director, I might say de Oliveira if I were familiar with more of the films.

Director's Final Films

(Bunuel was the first runner up in that one fwiw)

Oliveira has the craziest career - imagine if you were retiring at 60 from a career in, say, bookselling, and you told everyone, "I'm going to start a new career as a filmmaker and make twenty, no THIRTY feature-length films!" Except for the part about a bookseller, that's more or less what he did.

*had I should say

I thought of Oliveria because he made his own Don Luis-glancing late-period film, but he's not as fun.

I can't think of another filmmaker who finished his career in old age as brilliantly as Bunuel

Frederick Wiseman is 93 and is still going strong, with 4 new well-regarded films in the last 5 years!

Rohmer

Oliveira has the craziest career - imagine if you were retiring at 60 from a career in, say, bookselling, and you told everyone, "I'm going to start a new career as a filmmaker and make twenty, no THIRTY feature-length films!" Except for the part about a bookseller, that's more or less what he did.

It's not *quite* that radical - Oliveira had done some silent films in the 20's, acted in a few movies and made his first feature lenght in 1942 - but it's still very remarkable.

I've not seen his late late work but no one in Portugal has had anything positive to say about it, Belle Tujours very much included. But if we go with the conventional wisdom of the late 80's/early 90's as his career peak that still counts as late style certainly.

This is my favourite thing by De Oliveira (not that I watched lots), it's got some amazing stuff in it. Made for TV and it must've been incredibly trippy at the time.

https://www.viennale.at/en/films/amor-de-perdicao

Voted for:

STILL LIFE (Sohrab Shahid Saless; Iran)

But a shout for THE NIGHT PORTER (Liliana Cavani; Italy). Any Salo fans could vote for it.

Lots of great films.

The ones I most need to see, most having been blindspots for decades now:

CÉLINE AND JULIE GO BOATING
JE, TU, IL, ELLE
LANCELOT DU LAC
SWEET MOVIE
THE TEXT OF LIGHT
COCKFIGHTER

Voted for The Conversation

Bump

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

That's a pretty great showing by Pelham.

We’re off to a fun start!

1984's Best Movies: 40 Years Later