- Director: François Truffaut
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes

"The Story of Adele H." centers on the daughter of Victor Hugo, whose obsessive, unrequited love for a military officer leads to her downfall. Based partially on the turn-of-the-century diaries of the real Adele Hugo, the film was met with critical acclaim and award nominations, including an Oscar nod for lead actor Isabelle Adjani.

- Director: Walter Hill
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 69
- Runtime: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Marking Walter Hill's directorial debut, "Hard Times" is a sports drama about a freight hopper who becomes a boxing legend. Set during the Great Depression, the movie is stripped back and spare, but lead actors Charles Bronson and James Coburn's perfectly measured performances make it a gripping watch, per Roger Ebert.

- Directors: Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 46 minutes

In this German-language film, a young woman's reputation is called into question after she spends the night with a terrorist. A commentary on both the role of the state and the press, experts say the movie perfectly encapsulates both the anxiety in mid-1970s Western Germany as well as themes relevant to many contemporary American viewers.

- Director: Ingmar Bergman
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Originally intended to be a TV special, this adaptation of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" was such a hit that it earned a theatrical release in the latter half of 1975. Presented as an imagined theatrical performance (complete with shots of a staged audience), Bergman recreated the beautiful Baroque theater of Drottningholm Palace to serve as a backdrop for the fantastical story. The result is, as the Criterion Collection puts it, "among the most exquisite opera films ever made."

- Director: Peter Weir
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 1 hour, 55 minutes

The Guardian called "Picnic at Hanging Rock" "an Australian fever dream," and a more accurate description simply doesn't exist. Adapting Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel, the movie tells the story of the disappearance of some school girls and one of their teachers during a field trip on Valentine's Day 1900. Viewers who require answers to mysteries may not be satisfied with the movie's conclusion, but those who enjoy the journey as much as the destination are likely to appreciate this one.

- Director: Sydney Pollack
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 63
- Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes

A bookish CIA agent returns from lunch one afternoon to find his colleagues murdered and goes on the run to outwit his faceless enemies in this action-packed thriller. Starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow, "Three Days of the Condor" perfectly encapsulates the paranoid, conspiracy-fueled attitudes of a post-Watergate America.

- Director: Jim Sharman
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 65
- Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Crowned "the ultimate cult movie" by BBC Features Correspondent Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" has such a massive and devoted fan base that there are official fan websites and dedicated how-to guides for audience participation. The independent film was a complete flop when it was first released in 1975. Audiences didn't initially connect with its unconventional style of the B-movie throwback musical, which follows a couple who seek refuge in the home of the leather-clad Dr. Frank-N-Furter after their car breaks down. As of 2025, however, the movie is the longest continually running release ever.

- Director: Robert Enrico
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes

"The Old Gun" ("Le vieux fusil" in its original French) follows a pacifist surgeon who ruthlessly takes down an SS squad after they decimate his childhood village. A co-production between France and West Germany, the film was nominated for nine Cesar Awards (given by the French Film Academy) and took home three for Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Music.

- Directors: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 83
- Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Two cousins of Jackie Onassis, both named Edith Beale, are the subjects of this intimate documentary. The film follows the mother-daughter pair, who call themselves Big Edie and Little Edie, through their daily lives in a crumbling mansion in the wealthy enclave of East Hampton, New York. "Grey Gardens" is so iconic and enduring that it inspired additional documentaries (2006's "The Beales of Grey Gardens" and 2017's "That Summer") and a 2006 musical and 2009 TV movie, both called "Grey Gardens."

- Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes

Jack Nicholson stars in this drama about a journalist working in Chad who gets into trouble when he begins impersonating a dead man, unaware that the man was an arms dealer with nefarious connections. Described by critics at Roger Ebert and The Guardian as empty and alienating (but in a good way), respectively, the film contains a palpable sense of disillusionment. But despite how highly it ranks on this list, watching "The Passenger" has proven exceptionally difficult. Owing to protracted legal disputes, it was only intermittently accessible until 2005, when Sony Pictures issued an anniversary rerelease.

- Director: Dario Argento
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 2 hours, 7 minutes

An Italian giallo horror film, "Deep Red" (or "Profondo rosso") is about a jazz musician who gets sucked into the web of a vicious murderer. Director Dario Argento's approach to filmmaking has been described as "an acquired taste." But his appreciation for violence, captivating camera work, and stunning art direction have inspired many a modern-day great like Quentin Tarantino.

- Director: Robert Altman
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 2 hours, 40 minutes

With 24 main characters, dozens of storylines, and an hour's worth of musical numbers, the scope of "Nashville" is one of the film's most impressive aspects. The nearly three-hour film follows a host of folks involved in the music industry as they prepare for a political gala concert. The enormous cast of performers improvised much of the script and its scenarios, a directorial approach that paid off when the movie was nominated for five Academy Awards and 11 Golden Globes.

- Director: Woody Allen
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Director Woody Allen has said that "Love and Death," a satire of Russian literature about two cousins who fall in love and concoct a plot to assassinate Napoleon, is one of his favorite and most personal films. Allen stars alongside Diane Keaton, and while the film didn't garner any major awards nominations or wins, Roger Ebert described it as "a good movie to watch … because it's been done with such care, love, and lunacy."

- Director: Lina Wertmüller
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 56 minutes

The story of Pasqualino Frafuso, an Italian man of questionable morals, "Seven Beauties" follows Frafuso's journey in the lead-up to WWII as he attempts to defend his sister's honor and during WWII as a prisoner in a German war camp. Lina Wertmüller (who also wrote the screenplay) became the first woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director with the project.

- Director: John Huston
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes

Adapted from an 1888 Rudyard Kipling novella, "The Man Who Would Be King" follows two ex-British soldiers who set out from British-occupied India into uncolonized parts of the Middle East, where one is taken for a god. Starring Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey, and Christopher Plummer, the movie is a "swashbuckling adventure … unabashed and thrilling and fun," according to Roger Ebert.

- Director: Georgiy Daneliya
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes

One of two Soviet films to make the list, "Afonya" is a rom-com about an alcoholic plumber who spends his days drinking and chasing women—until the emptiness of that lifestyle starts to catch up with him. A box-office hit in Soviet theaters, the film didn't enjoy as wide a release as other entries on this list. Nevertheless, its themes endure, making it an easy watch for modern-day viewers.

- Director: Luciano Salce
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 48 minutes

A parody of the Italian middle class of the 1970s, "Fantozzi" follows an unlucky accountant who always finds himself in terrible situations but maintains his happy-go-lucky outlook on life. The most famous role of Italian actor Paolo Villaggio, the character was so well loved by audiences that he appeared in nine sequels between 1976 and 1999.

- Director: Mario Monicelli
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 2 hours, 20 minutes

In "Amici miei," four friends attempt to stave off middle age by engaging in pranks and spur-of-the-moment day trips. Set in the Italian provinces, this comedy is laugh-out-loud funny, according to Vincent Canby's New York Times review, even though some of the film's underlying themes are quite bleak.

- Director: Sidney Lumet
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes

A seminal crime film based on a real-life botched bank robbery in Brooklyn in 1972, "Dog Day Afternoon," follows amateur bank robbers whose plans go awry. Starring Al Pacino in an early role alongside John Cazale, James Broderick, and Charles Durning, the movie was nominated for seven Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, and six Academy Awards, taking home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 3 hours, 5 minutes

Based on a William Makepeace Thackeray novel, "Barry Lyndon" follows an Irish rogue who woos a wealthy widow and assumes her husband's aristocratic title. Ryan O'Neal stars in what the Criterion Collection has deemed "the most sumptuously crafted film of [Stanley Kubrick's] career." Nominated for seven Academy Awards, the movie won four, for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.

- Director: Steven Spielberg
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 87
- Runtime: 2 hours, 4 minutes

It may have a relatively simple premise—a police chief and a marine biologist teaming up to rid their resort town of a man-eating shark—but "Jaws" changed the film industry forever, becoming the first big summer blockbuster and paving the way for the inescapable marketing tactics we've become accustomed to. The film was director Steven Spielberg's second feature (it was made when he was 26), and it remains one of his most difficult film shoots of all time due to the malfunctioning mechanical shark, tensions between stars, and the unpredictability of the open sea, where much of the movie was shot. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the movie won three, most notably Best Score for John Williams.

- Director: Akira Kurosawa
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 2 hours, 22 minutes

Drawing on the memoir of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, "Dersu Uzala" follows the budding friendship between a Russian cartographer and a seasoned Nanai hunter. A co-production between Japan and the Soviet Union, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and has been praised as a humanist masterwork.

- Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Written and performed by the Monty Python comedy troupe (whose members included Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin), "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is a silly spoof of Arthurian legend. The movie had an initially disappointing reception, doing poorly at the box office and earning mixed reviews. It has since become a cult classic (Forbes lists it among its 40 greatest cult classic movies of all time) and the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Spamalot."

- Director: Ivo Caprino
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 28 minutes

A stop-motion film about a car race, "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" is based on a series of books by the cartoonist and author Kjell Aukrust. A massive hit in its home country, the movie quickly became the bestselling Norwegian film of all time and is one of the few titles on the list that could be described as truly family-friendly.

- Director: Milos Forman
- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes

Known for its anti-establishment themes, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" follows a criminal who pleads insanity and is placed in a mental institution where he rallies his fellow patients against the tyrannical Nurse Ratched. Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, and Danny DeVito, the movie won all five major Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) at the 1976 ceremony, as well as a slew of BAFTAs and Golden Globes. Interestingly, the film was shot entirely in a wing of the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, exactly where the story unfolds in the Ken Kesey book on which it's based.

Story editing by Louis Peitzman. Copy editing by Meg Shields.