The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) 70s Thrillers

The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) ’70s Thrillers

With American cynicism at a fever pitch in the 1970s, Hollywood responded with game-changing thrillers like Taxi Driver. But the genre had some duds.

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In the 1970s, a fog of paranoia clouded America as President Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and resigned during his impeachment hearings. Amid a frightening time of uncertainty, the U.S. public didn’t trust their government, and Hollywood responded with a string of paranoid thrillers, some of which stand among the greatest movies ever made.

Of course, as with any Hollywood trend, there are a handful that fell by the wayside, failed to connect with an audience, and now stand among the worst movies ever made. Whether a thriller from the ‘70s was unbearably bad or a cinematic masterpiece, the contemporary political climate could be seen all over it.

10 Best: The Conversation (1974)

In response to the uncertain political climate following the Watergate scandal, Francis Ford Coppola made an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up about a surveillance expert who hears something he wasn’t supposed to.

As he’s drawn into a widespread conspiracy, he begins to fear for his life. Coppola deftly delivers edge-of-your-seat thrills, while Gene Hackman plays the lead role beautifully.

9 Worst: The Killer Elite (1975)

A violent thriller directed by The Wild Bunch’s Sam Peckinpah and starring Robert Duvall and James Caan, both hot off The Godfather, sounds like a rollicking movie on paper.

Unfortunately, in execution, The Killer Elite is a dull, mindless re-tread of much better shady CIA thrillers of the Watergate era.

8 Best: Klute (1971)

Alan J. Pakula directed a “paranoia trilogy” after Nixon’s resignation led the American populous to lose faith in the U.S. government. This trilogy consisted of All the President’s Men, The Parallax View, and Klute. These are all top-tier thrillers, but Klute is arguably the best.

This neo-noir thrill-ride is anchored by a riveting Oscar-winning performance by Jane Fonda as a high-end prostitute who assists a detective in a missing persons investigation.

7 Worst: The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

With a star-studded ensemble cast and an original premise, The Cassandra Crossing could’ve been a lot of fun. It’s about a terrorist with a new strand of plague who infects a train full of passengers as it heads to a dilapidated bridge.

Sophia Loren was miscast by her husband, producer Carlo Ponti, and the best efforts of Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, and Burt Lancaster couldn’t salvage an interminably weak script.

6 Best: The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Quentin Tarantino got the idea to color-code the characters in Reservoir Dogs from this movie. In The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a subway train is taken hostage by four goons named Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Brown, who hold New York City to ransom.

The mayoral office’s failure to take the situation seriously feeds into the cynical anti-government tone of post-Watergate American thrillers, while Walter Matthau makes for a compelling lead as a heroic Transit Authority police lieutenant.

5 Worst: Bloodline (1979)

After helming some of the great early Bond films with Sean Connery, Terence Young tarnished his own reputation with Bloodline, a thriller that should’ve reveled in B-movie thrills, but instead vanishes into its own conceit.

Not even the likes of Audrey Hepburn can save this film. She plays the heiress to a murdered pharmaceutical tycoon who becomes the killer’s next target.

4 Best: The French Connection (1971)

Gene Hackman had a good decade for thrillers in the ‘70s. In addition to playing put-upon surveillance expert Harry Caul in The Conversation, he played tough-as-nails cop “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s crime thriller, The French Connection.

Doyle’s relentless quest to bring down an international drug baron filling the streets of New York with heroin is one of the most thrilling movies ever made. It has one of the greatest car chases of all time and its ambiguous ending has kept viewers guessing for decades.

3 Worst: Walking Tall: Final Chapter (1977)

The Walking Tall franchise had been pretty much exhausted by its third installment. The first one is a delightfully grisly vigilante thriller that should’ve been left alone, but Hollywood decided to squeeze every ounce of life out of the premise.

Where Bo Svenson once brought real life to Buford Pusser, he just looks bored here. Thankfully, the film kept the promise of its title and the franchise ended there.

2 Best: Taxi Driver (1976)

Helmed by an angry young Martin Scorsese as a bitter response to the state of New York City, Taxi Driver is one of the most essential psychological thrillers ever made. Robert De Niro gives the performance of his career as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam veteran who returns from war with insomnia, takes a 24-hour job as a cabbie, witnesses the crime flooding the streets around him, and decides to take the law into his own hands.

Despite being a gun-toting vigilante who kills people he deems worthy of death, Travis is relatable, because the movie is ultimately about isolation and struggling to fit in, which we can all relate to.

1 Worst: The Domino Principle (1977)

After starring in two of the greatest thrillers of the ‘70s (of all time, really), Gene Hackman appeared in one of the worst before the decade was out. The Domino Principle has an interesting premise: an imprisoned Vietnam veteran is offered a reduced sentence if he takes a contract killing job.

The source novel by Adam Kennedy, who also curiously wrote the screenplay adaptation, was an exciting read, but the movie failed to capture that. In fact, director Stanley Kramer later regretted making it.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-worst-seventies-thrillers-taxi-driver/

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