100 Best Movies of 1975 Ranked (Dog Day AFternoon)
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(Photo by Everett Collection)
100 Best Movies of 1975 Ranked (Dog Day Afternoon)
1975 was a landmark year for the movie biz, with Jaws(directed by a 27-year-old Steven Spielberg) creating the summer blockbuster as we know it, where audiences lined up around the block to escape the heat and pick up some aquaphobia along the way.
As you’ll witness in our guide to the 100 best movies of 1975, Jaws was that rare beast that not only made all the money (it was the highest-grossing movie ever, beating 1972’s The Godfather, and to be bested by Star Warsin 1977), but also had critics putting up gone-fishin’ signs, while scooping up Academy Award nominations.
The list of 100 movies begin with Certified Fresh films, all of which were nominated for what might be the strongest Best Picture Oscar class ever. There’s Jaws, acting powerhouse showcase (and ultimate winner) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Robert Altman’s wandering music opus Nashville, Stanley Kubrick cult fave Barry Lyndon, and progressive drama Dog Day Afternoon.
Critics Consensus: Compelling, well-crafted storytelling and a judicious sense of terror ensure Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has remained a benchmark in the art of delivering modern blockbuster thrills.
Synopsis: When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, [More]
Critics Consensus: Framed by great work from director Sidney Lumet and fueled by a gripping performance from Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon offers a finely detailed snapshot of people in crisis with tension-soaked drama shaded in black humor.
Synopsis: When inexperienced criminal Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) leads a bank robbery in Brooklyn, things quickly go wrong, and a hostage [More]
Critics Consensus:Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles offers a lingering, unvarnished, and ultimately mesmerizing look at one woman’s existence.
Synopsis: Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig), the widowed mother of a teenage son, Sylvain (Jan Decorte), ekes out a drab, repetitive existence [More]
Critics Consensus: Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher are worthy adversaries in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Miloš Forman’s more grounded and morally ambiguous approach to Ken Kesey’s surrealistic novel yielding a film of outsized power.
Synopsis: When Randle Patrick McMurphy gets transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution, he assumes it will [More]
Critics Consensus: Visually mesmerizing, Picnic at Hanging Rock is moody, unsettling, and enigmatic — a masterpiece of Australian cinema and a major early triumph for director Peter Weir.
Synopsis: In the early 1900s, Miranda (Anne Lambert) attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine’s Day, the school’s typically [More]
Critics Consensus: A cult classic as gut-bustingly hilarious as it is blithely ridiculous, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has lost none of its exceedingly silly charm.
Synopsis: A comedic send-up of the grim circumstances of the Middle Ages as told through the story of King Arthur and [More]
Critics Consensus: Robert Altman captures the bravado and cynicism of the American dream in Nashville, a sprawling epic bursting with vivid performances and an unforgettable soundtrack.
Synopsis: In this acclaimed Robert Altman drama, the lives of numerous people in the Tennessee capital intersect in unpredictable ways. Delbert [More]
Critics Consensus: Antonioni’s classic, a tale of lonely, estranged characters on a journey though the mysterious landscapes of identity, shimmers with beauty and uncertainty.
Synopsis: David Locke (Jack Nicholson) is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, [More]
Critics Consensus: This post-Watergate thriller captures the paranoid tenor of the times, thanks to Syndey Pollack’s taut direction and excellent performances from Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
Synopsis: On a seemingly ordinary day, Joe Turner (Robert Redford), a quiet CIA codebreaker, walks into his workplace and finds that [More]
Critics Consensus:Escape to Witch Mountain makes up for its lack of high stakes with a charming sense of adventure and excitement.
Synopsis: Tony (Ike Eisenmann) and Tia Malone (Kim Richards) are two orphaned siblings with extraordinary psychic powers. When their abilities attract [More]
Critics Consensus:Rocky Horror Picture Show brings its quirky characters in tight, but it’s the narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps ’em doing the time warp again.
Synopsis: In this cult classic, sweethearts Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon), stuck with a flat tire during a storm, [More]
Critics Consensus: Visually astonishing and placid as a pond in the English countryside, Stanley Kubrick’s maddening and masterful Barry Lyndon renders a hollow life with painterly poise.
Synopsis: How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century English nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) the answer [More]
Critics Consensus:Shampoo trains a darkly comic lens on post-Nixon America, aiming at — and often hitting — an array of timely targets.
Synopsis: Against the backdrop of Nixon’s election to office, Beverly Hills hairdresser and notorious rake George Roundy (Warren Beatty) runs into [More]
Synopsis: Using a nonlinear structure interlaced with dreams and flashbacks, director Andrei Tarkovsky creates a stream-of-consciousness meditation on war, memory and [More]
Critics Consensus: Woody Allen plunks his neurotic persona into a Tolstoy pastiche and yields one of his funniest films, brimming with slapstick ingenuity and a literary inquiry into subjects as momentous as Love and Death.
Synopsis: In Woody Allen’s comic take on 19th-century Russian philosophical novels and the Soviet-era epic films made from them, Boris (Woody [More]
Synopsis: The time has come for the annual Young American Miss Pageant in California. Executive producer Brenda (Barbara Feldon) focuses maniacally [More]
Synopsis: A man’s (Pierre Oudrey) family consists of a dissatisfied housewife (Sandrine Battistella), aging grandparents and two curious children. [More]
Critics Consensus: Edith and Edie Beale are eccentric subjects who offer a generous amount of themselves in Grey Gardens, an inquisitive and nonjudgmental exploration of the isolated socialites’ lifestyle.
Synopsis: This film explores the daily lives of two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Edie Bouvier Beale and her [More]
Critics Consensus: The kinetic camerawork and brutal over-the-top gore that made Dario Argento famous is on full display, but the addition of a compelling, complex story makes Deep Red a masterpiece.
Synopsis: A psychic medium (Macha Méril) is brutally murdered, and musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) feels a need to solve the [More]
Critics Consensus: Fleet and joyous, Ingmar Bergman’s filmed staging of Mozart’s The Magic Flute captures the opera’s mirth and satire with Scandinavian flair.
Synopsis: The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino (Josef Köstlinger) to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess [More]
Synopsis: During the Great Depression, Chaney (Charles Bronson) bare-knuckle boxes to survive. Speed (James Coburn), an avid gambler, recognizes his talent [More]
Critics Consensus:Cooley High crackles with vibrant energy and authenticity, elevated by an impressively natural cast and Michael Schultz’s effortless direction.
Synopsis: Richard “Cochise” Morris (Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs), a local basketball hero, and Leroy “Preach” Jackson (Glynn Turman), who dreams of a career [More]
Critics Consensus:Shivers uses elementally effective basic ingredients to brilliant effect – and lays the profoundly unsettling foundation for director David Cronenberg’s career to follow.
Synopsis: After a scientist living in a posh apartment complex slaughters a teen girl and kills himself, investigators discover that the [More]
Critics Consensus: A neo-noir that favors rich psychological depth and mood over suspense, Night Moves is elevated by Arthur Penn’s introspective direction and Gene Hackman’s brooding performance.
Synopsis: Hard-nosed private investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), to distract himself from a rapidly deteriorating marriage, takes a case from an [More]
Critics Consensus:Trilogy of Terror delivers a twisty anthology of macabre stories driven by Karen Black’s captivating multi-character performance and whirlwind visuals.
Synopsis: The same woman (Karen Black) appears in three tales as a blackmailed teacher, a tormented lover and opposite sisters. [More]
Critics Consensus: Flawed and more conventional than its predecessor, French Connection II still offers a wealth of dynamic action and gritty characterizations.
Synopsis: This sequel to William Friedkin’s 1971 crime drama finds Detective “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) still hot on the trail of [More]
Synopsis: Lewis (Michael Caine), an English novelist with writer’s block, suspects his wife, Elizabeth (Glenda Jackson), is having an affair when [More]
Critics Consensus:Tommy is as erratic and propulsive as a game of pinball, incorporating The Who’s songs into an irreverent odyssey with the visual imagination that only director Ken Russell can conjure.
Synopsis: After seeing his stepfather murder his father during an argument over his mother, young Tommy goes into shock, suddenly becoming [More]
Critics Consensus: Thanks to the sparkling chemistry between its stars and Herbert Ross’ gentle direction, this sweetly ambling comedy ranks among Neil Simon’s finest screen adaptations.
Synopsis: Al Lewis (George Burns) and Willy Clark (Walter Matthau) are a pair of feuding vaudeville comedians (Lewis and Clark, naturally) [More]
Critics Consensus: Its dystopia vision is presented with striking brutality and visual splendor, but Rollerball is often undermined by shallow characterizations and a script that delivers social critique without much conviction.
Synopsis: The year is 2018 in a futuristic society where corporations have replaced countries. A violent futuristic game known as Rollerball [More]
As you’ve seen, after the Certified Fresh films are movies rated Fresh on the Tomatometer. It’s no shortage of classics that haven’t reached the critics-review threshold for Certified Fresh status, including Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, giallo centerpiece Deep Red, landmark eccentric documentary Grey Gardens, and sci-fi cult comedy A Boy and His Dog.
Critics Consensus:The Stepford Wives‘s inherent satire is ill-served by Bryan Forbes’ stately direction, but William Goldman’s script excels as a damning critique of a misogynistic society.
Synopsis: Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross) moves to the quiet town of Stepford with her husband (Peter Masterson) and children. The town [More]
Synopsis: In 1930s Italy, Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini), a low-level Sicilian thug, kills a man who disgraced his sister. Pasqualino pleads insanity [More]
Synopsis: Former government assassin Jonathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) now devotes his time to teaching and collecting paintings, but his quiet life [More]
Synopsis: John Milius fictionalizes the historical story of President Roosevelt’s attempts to deal with the kidnapping of an American citizen by [More]
Critics Consensus: Although its source material’s themes are sometimes beyond The Day of the Locust‘s grasp, this is a consistently watchable adaptation that gains its own emotional power.
Synopsis: In 1930s Los Angeles, Hollywood shines like a beacon to all the helpless people scattered across the city. In one [More]
Critics Consensus: While its script may be a bit too self-knowing and aimless at times, Rancho Deluxe offers a breezy twist on the Western that’s buoyed by effortlessly funny performances from Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston.
Synopsis: Cattle rustlers Jack McKee (Jeff Bridges) and Cecil Colson (Sam Waterston) steadily steal cows from wealthy rancher John Brown (Clifton [More]
Critics Consensus: Though it takes the occasional nosedive due to an imbalanced tone and episodic plotting, The Great Waldo Pepper takes flight thanks to its jaw-dropping aerial sequences and Robert Redford’s debonair charm.
Synopsis: Aerial tale set in the 1920s about a traveling aviator whose exaggerations look to be discovered when he begins work [More]
Synopsis: Sigerson Holmes (Gene Wilder) has something to prove as the lesser-known brother of famed detective Sherlock Holmes. When Sherlock and [More]
Critics Consensus:Report to the Commissioner presents some compelling performances and atmospherically gritty cinematography, but its central story of police corruption becomes overwrought and contrived.
Synopsis: Patty Butler (Susan Blakely) is a New York City police detective working undercover to investigate a Times Square drug-trafficking ring [More]
Critics Consensus: A jarring blend of surrealist pulp and sadistic farce, Supervixens finds Russ Meyer’s visual flair buried under waves of cartoonish, overwrought brutality.
Synopsis: A man falsely accused of killing his wife encounters one busty babe after another until he meets a super siren. [More]
Critics Consensus:Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins offers charming performances, especially from Alan Arkin, but its thin narrative and heavy-handed direction fail to deliver on the promise of its comedic potential.
Synopsis: An armed woman (Sally Kellerman) and a runaway girl (Mackenzie Phillips) force a California clerk (Alan Arkin) to drive them [More]
Critics Consensus:The Prisoner of Second Avenue falters in its translation from stage to screen, with Jack Lemmon’s strong portrayal of escalating paranoia overshadowed by forced situational humor.
Synopsis: Neurotic middle-aged New Yorker Mel Edison (Jack Lemmon) is fired from his advertising job, forcing his loving wife, Edna (Anne [More]
Critics Consensus:The Yakuza offers some rather stylish violence and an engrossing sense of place, but it’s fatally cut down by convoluted plotting and Sydney Pollack’s tepid direction.
Synopsis: When George Tanner (Brian Keith) does business with the high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his [More]
Critics Consensus:Brannigan unsuccessfully attempts to blend John Wayne’s roughhouse American persona with British crime caper flair, offering stale action and touristy London backdrops that leave it feeling more flat than fun.
Synopsis: Police Detective Jim Brannigan (John Wayne) is sent from Chicago to London to extradite a wanted American criminal, Ben Larkin [More]
Critics Consensus:Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York is a tonally confused adaptation that drains the novel’s sharp edge into a half-hearted romantic fantasy.
Synopsis: A spoiled young woman (Jeannie Berlin) tries to make it in New York and latches onto a guy (Roy Scheider) [More]
Critics Consensus: Brought down by stiff performances and clumsy direction, At Long Last Love is a visually appealing but woefully misguided tribute to 1930s musicals.
Synopsis: A bored playboy (Burt Reynolds) woos a spoiled debutante (Cybill Shepherd) in art deco 1935 New York. [More]
Critics Consensus: Barbra Streisand’s spirited performance and stylish visuals notwithstanding, Funny Lady often falters under a thin script and uninspired direction.
Synopsis: In this sequel to “Funny Girl,” Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand) is now a huge star on Broadway whose fortunes have [More]
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