IndieWire’s 100 Best Films of the ’70s List is More Branding Than Canon

IndieWire dropped their “100 Best Films of the 1970s” list this week, a piece of provocation designed less to canonize than to rile up online hounds. Mission accomplished. Some are losing it over the outlet’s attempt to rewrite history on a decade many consider the very peak of Hollywood filmmaking.

The list is topped by Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz.” A masterpiece, no doubt, but hardly the defining film of the ‘70s—a decade synonymous with the radical charge of New Hollywood. It’s certainly ballsy of them to have Pasolini’s “Saló” at #2, one of the most controversial films ever made, an infamous allegory of fascist power, depicting elites subjecting youths to extreme abuse and degradation— a total transgressive shocker.

And what to make of the total and utter reappraisal of Chantal Akerman’s ‘Jeanne Dielman,’ recent Sight and Sound poll winner, the ultimate film for feminist film theory graduates, and in truth, a revolutionary statement in minimalist style and “slow cinema.”

I’ve seen a lot of what’s listed in the top 100, minus a few obscure docs, barely-seen micro-indies, and hard-to-find foreign imports, especially from the Middle East and India. Clearly there’s an effort to diversify, to stretch the canon as far as possible. Commendable in spirit, but let’s be real, this isn’t consensus-building criticism. It’s branding. If you’re going to be that audacious, don’t call it a “Best of” list. The word “Best” implies cultural agreement. This is not that.

Then there are the omissions. You had 100 slots to play with, and somehow these films didn’t make the cut?

“A Clockwork Orange,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Network,” “The French Connection,” “Mean Streets,” “Badlands,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Last Tango in Paris,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Annie Hall,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Serpico,” “The Passenger,” “Carrie,” “3 Women,” “Being There,” “American Graffiti,” “Day For Night,” “Le Cercle Rouge,” “Amarcord,” “Harold and Maude,” “Straw Dogs,” “A New Leaf,” “Dirty Harry,” “Duel,” “Deliverance,” “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Sting,” “Paper Moon,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Three Days of Condor,” “California Split,” “Marathon Man,” “The American Friend,” “The Deer Hunter,” “Midnight Express,” “Halloween,” “Straight Time,” “Rocky”

The IndieWire list is more branding than canon. If you actually want canon, then it’s hard to beat the 1970s poll I conducted, with over 150 critics lists tabulated, more than three years ago.

I’ll save you the click by posting IndieWire’s top 100.

1. “All that Jazz” (Bob Fosse)
2 “Saló”(Pier Paolo Pasolini)
3 “Jeanne Dielman” (Chantal Akerman)
4 “The Godfather” (Francis Ford Coppola)
5. “The Godfather Part II” (Francis Ford Coppola)
6. “Alien” (Ridley Scott)
7. “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (Werner Herzog)
8. In the Realm of the Senses” (Ōshima)
9. “Nashville” (Robert Altman)
10. “F for Fake” (Orson Welles)

11. “Touki Bouki” (Djibril Diop Mambety)
12.“ Barry Lyndon” (Stanley Kubrick)
13. “World on a Wire” (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
14 “Chinatown” (Roman Polanski)
15. “A Woman Under the Influence” (John Cassavetes)
16. “Sholay’ (Ramesh Sippy)
17. “Wanda” (Barbara Loden)
18. “Don’t Look Now” (Nicolas Roeg)
19. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (Tobe Hooper)
20. “Days of Heaven” (Terrence Malick)

21. “Solaris” (Andrei Tarkovsky)
22. “The Spirit of the Beehive” (Victor Erice)
23. “The Parallax View” (Alan J. Pakula)
24. “The Mother and the Whore” (Jean Eustache)
25 “Taxi Driver” (Martin Scorsese)
26. “Killer of Sheep” (Charles Burnet)
27. “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (Robert Altman)
28. “(nostalgia)” (Hollis Frampton)
29. “Apocalypse Now” (Francis Ford Coppola)
30. “The Battle of Chile” (Patricio Guzman)

31. “The Conformist” (Bernardo Bertolucci)
32. “Phantom of the Paradise” (Brian De Palma)
33. “Chess of the Wind” (Mohammad Reza Aslani)
34. “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (Peter Weir)
35 “Celine and Julie Go Boating” (Jacques Rivette)
36 “Jaws” (Steven Spielberg)
37. “West Indies” (Med Hondo)
38. “Dawn of the Dead” (George Romero)
39. “Cries and Whispers” (Ingmar Bergman)
40. “Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (Luis Buñuel, 1972)

41. “Suspiria” (Dario Argento)
42. “Chronicle of the Years of Fire” (Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina)
43. “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (Clint Eastwood)
44. “Duelle” (Jacques Rivette)
45. “The Conversation” (Francis Ford Coppola)
46. “Gimme Shelter” (David & Albert Maysles)
47. “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)
48. “Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song” (Melvin van Peebles)
49. “The Exorcist” (William Friedkin)
50. “The Tree of Wooden Clogs” (Ermanno Olmi)

51. “Star Wars” (George Lucas, 1977)
52 “Mikey and Nicky” (Elaine May)
53. “Not a Pretty Picture” (Martha Coolidge)
54. “Harlan County, USA” (Barbara Kopple)
55. “Eraserhead” (David Lynch)
56. “Five Easy Pieces” (Bob Rafelson)
57. “Manhattan” (Woody Allen)
58. “All the President’s Men” (Alan Pakula)
59. “Welfare” (Frederick Wiseman)
60. “Pakeezah” (Kamal Amrohi)

61. “A Touch of Zen” (King Hu)
62. “Sorcerer” (William Friedkin)
63. “News from Home” (Chantal Akerman)
64. “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (Martin Scorsese)
65. “Stalker” (Andrei Tarkovsky)
66. “Ganja & Hess” (Bill Gunn)
67. “Seven Beauties” (Lina Wertmüller)
68. “Chilly Scenes of Winter” (Joan Micklin Silver)
69. “Lady Snowblood” (Toshiya Fujita)
70. “Klute” (Alan Pakula)

71. “The Devils” (Ken Russell)
72. “The Castle of Cagliostro” (Hayao Miyazaki)
73. “Girlfriends” (Claudia Weill)
74 “The Harder They Come” (Perry Henzell)
75. “Deep End” (Jerzy Skolimowski)
76. “The Castle of Purity” (Arturo Ripstein)
77. “Gates of Heaven” (Errol Morris)
78. “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
79. “Claire’s Knee” (dir. Eric Rohmer, 1970)
80. “Ceddo” (Ousmane Sembene)

81. “Heroes of the East” (Lau Kar-Leung)
82. “The Heartbreak Kid” (Elaine May)
83. “Canoa: A Shameful Memory” (Felipe Cazals)
84. “Death in Venice” (Luchino Visconti)
85. “Dersu Uzala” (Akira Kurosawa)
86. “General Idi Amin Dada” (Barbet Schroeder)
87. “This Transient Life” (Akio Jissoji)
88. “Walkabout” (Nicolas Roeg)
89. “Dog Day Afternoon” (Sidney Lumet)
90. “Four Nights of a Dreamer” (Robert Bresson)

91. “Scarecrow” (Jerry Schatzberg)
92. “Belladonna of Sadness” (dir. Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973)
93. “Manila in the Claws of Light” (Lino Brocka)
94. “Grin Without a Cat” (Chris Marker)
95. “O Lucky Man!” (Lindsay Anderson)
96. “From the Clouds to the Resistance” (Straub & Huillet)
97. “An Unmarried Woman” (Paul Mazursky)
98. “Jeremiah Johnson” (Sydney Pollack)
99. “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t” (Agnès Varda)
100. “The Sugarland Express” (Steven Spielberg)