The Best of 1974
by riverman211179 | created - 10 Dec 2010 | updated - 3 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Scent of a Woman (1974)
R | 103 min | Comedy, Drama
A young private is assigned to accompany a blind captain. It soon becomes clear that they are both complex personalities.
Director: Dino Risi | Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Alessandro Momo, Agostina Belli, Moira Orfei
Votes: 5,156
2. Swept Away (1974)
R | 114 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A trip into the Mediterranean sea becomes a trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the rich and poor are delicate and temporary.
Director: Lina Wertmüller | Stars: Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Riccardo Salvino, Isa Danieli
Votes: 6,782
3. The Godfather Part II (1974)
R | 202 min | Crime, Drama
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Votes: 1,363,826 | Gross: $57.30M
4. Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A disfigured composer sells his soul for the woman he loves so that she will perform his music. However, an evil record tycoon betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Paul Williams, William Finley, Jessica Harper, Gerrit Graham
Votes: 22,388 | Gross: $0.16M
5. The Yakuza (1974)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Drama
American private-eye Harry Kilmer returns to Japan to rescue a friend's kidnapped daughter from the clutches of the Yakuza.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Eiji Okada, Herb Edelman
Votes: 10,445
6. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An American barroom pianist and his prostitute girlfriend go on a trip through the Mexican underworld to collect the bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young
Votes: 21,523 | Gross: $0.58M
7. The Conversation (1974)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 121,823 | Gross: $4.42M
8. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
PG | 112 min | Drama, Romance
A recently widowed woman is on the road with her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Mia Bendixsen, Alfred Lutter III
Votes: 27,468 | Gross: $18.60M
9. A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
R | 155 min | Drama, Romance
Although wife and mother Mabel is loved by her husband Nick, her mental illness places a strain on the marriage.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands
Votes: 28,699 | Gross: $13.34M
10. The Phantom of Liberty (1974)
R | 104 min | Comedy
A series of surreal sequences that critique morality and society in a stream of consciousness style.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Jean-Claude Brialy, Adolfo Celi, Michel Piccoli, Monica Vitti
Votes: 17,188 | Gross: $0.01M
11. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 349,756
12. Young Frankenstein (1974)
PG | 106 min | Comedy
An American grandson of the infamous scientist, struggling to prove that his grandfather was not as insane as people believe, is invited to Transylvania, where he discovers the process that reanimates a dead body.
Director: Mel Brooks | Stars: Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle
Votes: 168,871 | Gross: $86.30M
13. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
PG | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In December 1935, when his transcontinental luxury train is stranded by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before, with a multitude of suspects.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery
Votes: 69,128 | Gross: $0.07M
14. Going Places (1974)
R | 117 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
Two thugs harass assault, steal, murder, Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor, on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.
Director: Bertrand Blier | Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Patrick Dewaere, Christian Alers
Votes: 9,950 | Gross: $0.77M
15. Lenny (1974)
R | 111 min | Biography, Drama
The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the Establishment as too obscene for the public.
Director: Bob Fosse | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, Jan Miner, Stanley Beck
Votes: 17,540 | Gross: $8.43M
16. The Night Porter (1974)
R | 118 min | Drama
A concentration camp survivor rekindles her sadomasochistic relationship with her lover, a former SS officer - now working as a night porter at a Vienna hotel - but his former Nazi associates begin stalking them.
Director: Liliana Cavani | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti
Votes: 14,713 | Gross: $0.63M
17. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
R | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
With the help of an irreverent young sidekick, a bank robber gets his old gang back together to organize a daring new heist.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis
Votes: 28,708 | Gross: $25.00M
18. Blood for Dracula (1974)
R | 106 min | Horror
An ailing vampire count travels to Italy with his servant to find a bride.
Director: Paul Morrissey | Stars: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Vittorio De Sica, Maxime McKendry
Votes: 6,579 | Gross: $0.28M
19. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
PG | 125 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
James Bond is targeted by the world's most expensive assassin, while he attempts to recover sensitive solar cell technology that is being sold to the highest bidder.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams
Votes: 113,058 | Gross: $20.97M
20. Arabian Nights (1974)
X | 130 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In ancient Arabia, a beautiful slave girl chooses a youth to be her new master, then she is kidnapped and they must search for each other. Stories are told within stories: love, travel and the whims of destiny.
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini | Stars: Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, Franco Merli, Tessa Bouché
Votes: 9,045
21. The Parallax View (1974)
R | 102 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An ambitious reporter gets in way-over-his-head trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Walter McGinn
Votes: 21,766 | Gross: $2.15M
22. Steppenwolf (1974)
R | 107 min | Drama
In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and ... See full summary »
Director: Fred Haines | Stars: Max von Sydow, Dominique Sanda, Pierre Clémenti, Carla Romanelli
Votes: 1,310 | Gross: $0.05M
23. Himiko (1974)
100 min | Drama, Fantasy, History
A freestyle, imagined telling of the life of shaman queen Himiko, who falls in love with her half-brother, making her powers weaken thus putting her position to risk.
Director: Masahiro Shinoda | Stars: Shima Iwashita, Masao Kusakari, Rie Yokoyama, Chôichirô Kawarasaki
Votes: 734
24. The Castle of Sand (1974)
143 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Detectives investigate the murder of an old man found in a Tokyo rail yard.
Director: Yoshitarô Nomura | Stars: Tetsurô Tanba, Gô Katô, Kensaku Morita, Yôko Shimada
Votes: 1,534
25. Sweet Movie (1974)
Not Rated | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
After winning the "most virgin" contest, Miss Canada is married to a rich milk tycoon. But she quickly flees the marriage to experience the world around her, full of sweetness and anarchy.
Director: Dusan Makavejev | Stars: Carole Laure, Pierre Clémenti, Anna Prucnal, Sami Frey
Votes: 6,447
26. The Towering Inferno (1974)
PG | 165 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
At the opening party of a colossal, but poorly constructed, office building, a massive fire breaks out that threatens to destroy the tower and everyone in it.
Director: John Guillermin | Stars: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway
Votes: 48,239 | Gross: $116.00M
27. Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)
104 min | Drama, Fantasy
A young boys' coming of age tale set in a strange, carnivalesque village becomes the recreation of a memory that the director has twenty years later.
Director: Shûji Terayama | Stars: Kaoru Yachigusa, Keiko Niitaka, Masumi Harukawa, Kan Mikami
Votes: 2,408
28. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Romance
A lonely widow meets a much younger Moroccan worker in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love, to their own surprise and to the outright shock of their families, colleagues, and drinking buddies.
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann
Votes: 23,845
29. Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
R | 138 min | Drama, War
In 1944, an 18-year-old boy from small-town France collaborates with the Gestapo and subsequently falls in love with a Jewish girl.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clément, Holger Löwenadler, Therese Giehse
Votes: 7,711
30. The Clockmaker (1974)
105 min | Crime, Drama
A Watchmaker finds out one day that his son has become a murderer. He tries to understand for whom and why.
Director: Bertrand Tavernier | Stars: Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jacques Denis, Yves Afonso
Votes: 2,834
31. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Unrated | 193 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives preempted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.
Director: Jacques Rivette | Stars: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier
Votes: 6,354 | Gross: $0.03M
32. Dead of Night (1974)
PG | 88 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A young soldier killed in the Vietnam War inexplicably shows up at his family home on the night of his death.
Director: Bob Clark | Stars: John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Richard Backus, Henderson Forsythe
Votes: 6,002 | Gross: $0.03M
33. Lancelot of the Lake (1974)
85 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
King Arthur learns that his wife, Queen Guinevere, has been having an affair with Lancelot, who at the same time remains loyal to the king, particularly after Arthur's traitorous nephew Mordred commits an attempt on his life.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: Luc Simon, Laura Duke Condominas, Humbert Balsan, Vladimir Antolek-Oresek
Votes: 4,241
34. My Little Loves (1974)
123 min | Drama
A boy is left to his own devices when his mother refuses to pay for his schooling.
Director: Jean Eustache | Stars: Martin Loeb, Jacqueline Dufranne, Jacques Romain, Ingrid Caven
Votes: 1,406
35. California Split (1974)
R | 108 min | Comedy, Drama
When a casual gambler (George Segal as Bill) befriends a professional one (Elliott Gould as Charlie), he begins to mirror his life, sending both deeper into the sleazy gambling world where the stakes keep getting bigger.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: George Segal, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss, Gwen Welles
Votes: 8,415 | Gross: $10.90M
36. Scenes from a Marriage (1974)
PG | 169 min | Drama
Scenes from a Marriage chronicles the many years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) through matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partners.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom
Votes: 8,670 | Gross: $0.68M
37. Effi Briest (1974)
Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, History
In the nineteenth century, seventeen year old Effi Briest is married to the older Baron von Instetten and moves into a house, that she believes has a ghost, in a small isolated Baltic town.... See full summary »
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Hanna Schygulla, Wolfgang Schenck, Ulli Lommel, Karlheinz Böhm
Votes: 2,695
38. Zardoz (1974)
R | 105 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
In the late 23rd century, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton
Votes: 24,557 | Gross: $0.07M
39. The Man Who Sleeps (1974)
77 min | Drama
A 25-year-old male student in Paris becomes indifferent to the world around him, and subsequently feels a strong sense of alienation and hopelessness.
Director: Bernard Queysanne | Stars: Jacques Spiesser, Ludmila Mikaël
Votes: 4,649
40. Alice in the Cities (1974)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama
A German journalist is saddled with a nine-year-old girl after encountering her mother at a New York airport.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Yella Rottländer, Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer, Edda Köchl
Votes: 13,230
41. The Front Page (1974)
PG | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A ruthless editor tries to get his top reporter to cover one more crime story before retirement.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon, Vincent Gardenia
Votes: 15,294 | Gross: $17.30M
42. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
Four armed men hijack a New York City subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. The city's police are faced with a conundrum: Even if it's paid, how could they get away?
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo
Votes: 35,709 | Gross: $2.49M
43. We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
124 min | Comedy, Drama
Three partisans bound by a strong friendship return home after the war, but the clash with everyday reality puts a strain on their bond.
Director: Ettore Scola | Stars: Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrelli, Stefano Satta Flores
Votes: 7,280
44. Bird on a Wire (1974)
95 min | Documentary, Music
The gravel-voiced songsmith moodily strolls through the byways of various European venues and is seen in concert performing.
Director: Tony Palmer | Stars: Leonard Cohen, Donna Washburn, Ron Cornelius, Peter Marshal
Votes: 401
45. I'm Losing My Temper (1974)
PG | 92 min | Comedy
Pierre Durois, a teacher at a girls' boarding school, does journalism in his spare time. When a movie crew arrives in town, he writes a venomous note about an American movie star, the volcanic Jackie Logan.
Director: Claude Zidi | Stars: Pierre Richard, Jane Birkin, Claude Piéplu, Jean Martin
Votes: 1,526
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