By John H. Foote 29. MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON (1984) This gentle love story between two people, countries and their ways of life as they integrate into America was directed by Paul Mazursky, who gave audiences the superb An Unmarried Woman (1978) and eventually Enemies – A Love Story (1989). For me, Mazursky knocked it…
By John H. Foote 30. TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985) Fourteen years before the release of this exciting thriller, director William Friedkin won the Academy Award for his film The French Connection, the Academy Award winning Best Picture of 1971. Two years later he was back with the blockbuster horror film The Exorcist…
By John H. Foote THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) And here we are, at number one. After going through the seventies, listing and writing about the 29 best films of the decade, we arrive at number one, Francis Ford Coppola’s greatest work, The Godfather Part II. Not only do I believe this is the finest…
By John H. Foote 2. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) “The horror, the horror …” – Kurtz (Marlon Brando), Apocalypse Now The lights went down, the curtains opened, and we found ourselves staring at a lush, thick jungle, filled with green palm trees and foliage. Far off, it seemed in the distance, music began as the trees…
By John H. Foote 3. THE GODFATHER (1972) “I believe in America…” – Bonasera to Don Corleone in The Godfather The masterful film The Godfather is about so much more than an Italian family and their worldwide Mafia operation. Francis Ford Coppola, the visionary director of the film, saw so much in the film when…
By John H. Foote 4. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) Breathtaking. That word best describes the purity of Jack Nicholson’s mesmerizing performance as R. P. McMurphy in Milos Foreman’s superb film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, adapted from the Ken Kesey novel. Nicholson was never better, and let’s be clear he has…
By John H. Foote 5. TAXI DRIVER (1976) Something changed in me forever after seeing Martin Scorsese’s seething Taxi Driver for the first time. I was 17, an avid movie goer, I saw everything and was reading everything about cinema I could get my hands on. Discovering the film book section at the library was…
By John H. Foote 6. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) To be clear, Warner Brothers, an American company, produced and distributed this film as they would all the films directed by Stanley Kubrick until his final work, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). That is why the movie is included here in the seventies, because it is at…
By John H. Foote 7. NETWORK (1976) Sidney Lumet’s lacerating black comedy Network, which is also a cautionary film about the power of television, seemed to see far into the future with blistering clarity, exploring how reality programming took over television. The fictitious UBS Network rests firmly behind ABC, CBS and NBC and struggles to…
By John H. Foote 7. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) and NETWORK (1976) Yes, a tie. I agonized over both, but in the end had to tie them. It is not cheating, I do it again in 2012, it does happen. In 1976 both films were topical and foreshadowed or dealt with history honestly and…