Top ten box-office films of 1975: 1. Jaws 2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 3. Shampoo 4. Dog Day Afternoon 5. The Return of the Pink Panther 6. Three Days of the Condor 7. Funny Lady 8. The Other Side of the Mountain 9. Tommy 10. The Apple Dumpling Gang What are your top three films for 1975? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be: 1. Barry Lyndon 2. The Mirror 3. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later? YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm
1. Jaws 2. Grey Gardens Haven’t seen the other films from this year in a long time. I didn’t love Nashville
This was another tough year. Barry Lyndon was my clear number one; depending on my mood, I may prefer it to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I haven't really fully interpreted The Mirror yet, but it has such haunting imagery. Jeanne Dielman is the pinnacle of "slow" movies, but the payoff is certainly worth it. Dog Day Afternoon and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are great, nuanced dramas for adults, the kind that is so rare nowadays. Nashville is terrific, and might have made the list on a different day. Love and Death and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are funny in very different ways. Jaws is the monolith here, and it leads to questions about how a film's cultural impact should be entered into the total assessment of a film. As just a film, it is incredible, tense, and as a young boy in Florida it was always on my mind when we went to the beach. However, it is the harbinger of doom; it and Star Wars are the ancestors of Justice League and, more literally, 11 subsequent Star Wars films. Very few of the heirs to the blockbuster film had the talent of Spielberg or (at first) Lucas. You can't really sell a Godfather lunchbox and no one wanted 2001: A Space Odyssey action figures and they aren't going to make a theme park ride about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but now the mainstream space is dominated by these tentpoles. Spielberg did not know this would happen, but it is his legacy, and when you consider circumstances like his producer credit on the puerile Transformers films, he has not done much to combat them.
Dog Day Afternoon Jaws Barry Lyndon (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is #4) Dog Day Afternoon is so, so, so good.
1. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest 2. Barry Lyndon 3. That Most Important Thing: Love Also love Dog Day Afternoon, Dersu Urzula, Master of the Flying Guillotine and Rocky Horror Picture Show. Never liked Jaws when I was younger, rewatched it recently and still didn't love it like most do but I can appreciate it a lot more now. Jeanne Dielman is one of my least favourite watching experiences ever, haha.
This is a tough one for me because while I adore Monty Python and the Holy Grail for its hilarious jokes and iconic scenes I would be lying to myself if I considered it a great film despite it being a clear favourite of mine from this decade which is complicated further by my recent love of Dario Argento with Deep Red being truly superb. Guess I will have to sacrifice Dog Day Afternoon because yes it is sensational but I haven't seen it in quite the same volume as the others I want to pick so my top three will have to be the following - 1. Jaws 2. Deep Red 3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail Others from this year I really like are; Night Moves, The Man Who Would Be King, Terror of Mechagodzilla, The Eiger Sanction, The Hindenburg, Race with the Devil, Three Days of the Condor, Breakheart Pass, and The Return of the Pink Panther.
Not a particularly great year for me here, nothing here that was a particularly obvious number one, but there's a handful of films that I like. 1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 2. Dog Day Afternoon 3. Black Magic Monty Python is consistently ridiculous - one of those films that I'll have seen dozens of times over the last twenty years, and laugh just as much at it now as I would have done when I was about 10. Just manages to find humour in all sorts of places, that take you by surprise. Dog Day Afternoon might well by my favourite Pacino performance some days, managing to be hilarious and tragic in equal measure, as they bumble through a bank robbery. Black Magic is probably not the third best movie of the year, but I thought it's worth mentioning anyway. A great proof of concept film that spawned a bunch of great black magic voodoo esque films in the subsequent years in Hong Kong. Full of brilliant 70s costumes, colour, props and music (there's a repeated synth line throughout the movie that'll get stuck in your head). While it's not as wild as unhinged as the films it inspired, as a blueprint for that little sub-genre of black magic movies, it's a great watch. A silly, silly watch, but certainly worth seeing. Big ones for me to watch from this year that I haven't seen yet are Mirror & Jeanne Dielman.
1. Fox and His Friends 2. The Passenger 3. Manila in the Claws of Night The Fassbinder is on the short list of the films that I might call my all-time favourite.
1. Jaws 2. Monty Python & The Holy Grail 3. Jeanne Dielman Jeanne Dielman is the better movie, but I watched Holy Grail hundreds of times as a kid. Jaws isn’t my favorite movie but I’ve watched it so many times it may as well be. That’s a dog day mood I like to hang around in. I put it on all the time just to chill in that world and play guitar or whatever. I have a fondness for A Boy And His Dog in that regard as well.
1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 2. Jaws 3. Barry Lyndon Honorable mentions: Death Race 2000 Dog Day Afternoon The Man Who Would Be King Nashville Overlord The Return of the Pink Panther The Stepford Wives Terror of Mechagodzilla Tommy
1. Jaws 2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 3. The Wind and The Lion Movies I really like: Dog Day Afternoon The Man Who Would Be King Nashville Love and Death Deewaar Picnic at Hanging Rock One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Three Days of the Condor The Sunshine Boys Good ones: Death Race 2000 Give 'Em Hell, Harry The Prisoner of Second Avenue Aaron Loves Angela Solid/fine: Farewell My Lovely The Return of the Pink Panther Shampoo Hedda Cousin, Cousine Manila in the Claws of Brightness The Rocky Horror Picture Show Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles Not a fan: The Day of the Locust Fox and His Friends The Hindenburg Rollerball Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom India Song Tommy The Man in the Glass Booth Woof: Once Is Not Enough
Jaws wins it with 18 votes. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was in very close with 17 votes. Jaws will move on to the bracket.