'70s Actors (American)

According to IMDB (and eliminating any TV films):

De Niro, 14 films (Bloody Mama -- The Swap)
Hackman, 19 films (I Never Sang for My Father -- Superman)
Hoffman, 11 films (Little Big Man -- Kramer vs. Kramer)
Nicholson, 15 films (The Rebel Rousers -- Goin' South)
Pacino, 8 films (Panic in Needle Park -- ...And Justice for All)

The Swap? I haven't yet decided who to vote for.

I went with Nicholson. It's hard to sort out the plusses and minuses when you take each body of work as a whole, but for a top three, Five Easy Pieces/Chinatown/Cuckoo's Nest is tough to beat.

I'd replace FEP with The Last Detail, though.

no, it's Cuckoo's Nest -- the beginning of the near-fatal Jack Persona -- that needs replacing.

I'd replace Hoffman with Warren Oates.

Waiting for the distaff version.

Here, I'll give you your nominees:

Fonda
Schygulla
Ullman
Keaton
Burstyn

I'd throw Spacek in if there was room.

Warren Oates for Hoffman? Oates is fantastic in Two-Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter, and I'm going to include him in a second-tier poll I'm going to put up. But I just can't see him as belonging in the same group with Pacino, De Niro, Nicholson, and Hackman. He was a great character actor, and a great lead if the film was small enough, like Cockfighter or Dillinger. But he just wasn't--well, whatever word you want to use for "star." And just on the basis of Straw Dogs/President's Men/Straight Time, Hoffman could hold his own with anybody during the '70s.

Hoffman is nice in AtPM, but it's not really a knockout lead role -- he's a twin investigative machine w/ Redford's Woodward. I haven't seen any of his roles btwn The Graduate and Tootsie that approach those two. (I've still not gotten to Straight Time.) Don't find him anywhere in Jack's league in this decade.

Straight Time is fantastic (my favorite Hoffman film) but agree that Nicholson was just incredibly consistent in the 70s. One of the greatest sustained acting runs.

Apparently I've seen Scarecrow (with both Hoffman and Pacino) and liked it, but I can't remember it very well.

Straight Time is so great--anyone who hasn't seen it, seek it out immediately. Kael was never a big Hoffman fan, but she always singled it out as his greatest performance. Harry Dean Stanton delivers one of the funniest lines ever, and the film's final line stands with Sterling Hayden's "What's the difference?" in The Killing as the bleakest finish I can think of.

Scarecrow's Hackman and Pacino: great cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond), nice '70s feel, and if you can live with some overacting from the two leads (at times; mostly they're fine), definitely worth seeing.