Best 1970s dramas

The Godfather Part II▲ Rising

Coppola doubled down and somehow topped himself, braiding young Vito's immigrant origin story with Michael's total moral collapse in Cuba and Lake Tahoe. The Senate hearing intercut with Fredo's betrayal, ending on that frozen, dead-eyed stare, is one of cinema's great character studies of a soul hollowing out. It's the sequel that proved sequels could be art, and arguably the more devastating half of the saga.

Release Year: 1974Director: Francis Ford CoppolaIMDb Rating: 9/10Rotten Tomatoes Score: 9.6/10Box Office (Domestic, $M): $48Oscar Wins: 6Based on a Novel: ✓

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The Godfather▲ Rising

Coppola opens with a wedding and closes with a door shutting on Kay's face, and in between reinvents the gangster picture as American tragedy. Brando's whisper and Pacino's slow curdle from war hero to don rewired how movies depict power, and every 'I'm not a businessman, I'm a businessman' line reading owes it a debt. It tops this list because it's the rare film that's both the populist blockbuster and the arthouse masterpiece of its decade.

Release Year: 1972Director: Francis Ford CoppolaIMDb Rating: 9.2/10Rotten Tomatoes Score: 9.7/10Box Office (Domestic, $M): $134Oscar Wins: 3Based on a Novel: ✓

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Taxi Driver▼ Falling

Scorsese and Schrader turned New York's grime into a psychological pressure cooker, with De Niro's Travis Bickle mumbling 'You talkin' to me?' into a mirror before erupting into one of the most notorious bloodbaths of 70s cinema. It's less a plot than a slow-motion breakdown, Bernard Herrmann's last score aching underneath every empty street. Its influence on isolation, vigilante myth, and antihero cinema is so total that it still unsettles decades later.

Release Year: 1976Director: Martin ScorseseIMDb Rating: 8.2/10Rotten Tomatoes Score: 9.6/10Box Office (Domestic, $M): $28Oscar Wins: 0Based on a Novel: —

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Rocky▼ Falling

A broke, unknown Stallone wrote himself an underdog fairy tale, and the montage of a Philly nobody chasing chickens and running up museum steps became the template for every sports movie since. It won Best Picture on pure heart, Adrian's whispered 'I love you' landing harder than any punch thrown in the ring. It belongs here as the era's proof that drama could be uplifting instead of nihilistic and still hit just as deep.

Release Year: 1976Director: John G. AvildsenIMDb Rating: 8.1/10Rotten Tomatoes Score: 9.2/10Box Office (Domestic, $M): $117Oscar Wins: 3Based on a Novel: —

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