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Added by The Mighty Celestial on 18 Aug 2013 06:20
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20 From 77: My Favorite Films Of 1977

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Decade: Rating: List Type:
People who added this item 114 Average listal rating (73 ratings) 6.9 IMDB Rating 6.6
Oh, God! (1977)
You know,
there have been alot of movies about senior citizens.
But when it comes to old people,
let's face it....
they don't come any older than This Guy.
When it comes to the phrase "He's older than dirt",
the lead character in this film literally means it.

While the explosion of the uber-hit, Saturday Night Fever, helped to fuel the disco craze to nuclear level proportions,
Looking For Mr. Goodbar help to enlighten audiences to the seedier side of the late 70's night life.
Based on a true life story of a school teacher found murdered in her apartment, this movie follows the life of person who's basically a good person, but trapped in a shell of insecurities and of her deep-seated desire to escape from the mundaneness of her own life.
While this had the potential to be a better movie than it was (IMO anyways), in the end it was still a pretty solid effort with a very good performance from the always reliable Diane Keaton.

People who added this item 1836 Average listal rating (1040 ratings) 7.5 IMDB Rating 7.4
Eraserhead (1977)
The King of WTF films starts off with a surrealistic bang.
Although I had heard of this movie for quite a while, despite being a David Lynch fan, it took a long time before I got around to watching it. After I finally did, even though I did feel that Eraserhead succeeded like no other film in capturing the a dark wandering atmosphere of a nightmare,
I must say, in the end I was still a bit disappointed. I guess it was b'cuz, as a comicbook nerd, I was kinda hoping that the story was going to be more along the lines of a masked crusader who gets his powers as a result of being bitten by a radioactive eraser....

The Mighty Celestial's rating:
People who added this item 1228 Average listal rating (770 ratings) 7.8 IMDB Rating 7.3
A young woman travels from the States to Germany so that she can enroll into a prestigious academy of dance. And soon finds that, instead of the graceful gallop of ballet, her instructors are more focused on the mystic moves that come from dancing with the devil.



No matter what decade of cinema it is, past or present, most movies that have a dark themed story-line about dark magic try to convey their dark feeling of darkness by monochromatically limiting the color schemes to one or two dark colors. However, Suspiria jumps to the other side of the spectrum and emphasizes vibrant colors in order to convey the blackness of the stygian magicks that are brewing in it's plot.
People who added this item 335 Average listal rating (243 ratings) 6.7 IMDB Rating 7
This is a perfect example of how selling out with a buncha crumby sequels can ruin a franchise.
Within the fast car genre, Smokey And The Bandit was a real quality film that was pretty cool (I mean, y'know, for it's time) and just packed a tank full of pure dust-eating, escapist fun.
It was only after a multitude of sub-quality follow-ups and sequels, that this type of movie became the joke that it is usually considered now.

People who added this item 152 Average listal rating (71 ratings) 7.6 IMDB Rating 7.2
I don't know why this site has this movie listed as a film from 1978 (although, when I firsted posted this list, it had as a film from 1979). Even though, as a result of soundtrack copyrights, it took decades for Killer Of Sheep to be finally released officially, it's pretty well known that this is a 1977 production. That date is even shown in the beginning credits.
But, whatever. I'm putting it on this list.



After the first half of the 70's exploded with the over-the-top stick-it-to the-man antics of the blaxploitation films,
the second half of the decade, cinema that was centered the plight of urban life started to smooth out the anger in an effort to portray the American black experience in a more down-to-earth, more realistic manner, hopefully without sacrificing any of the edge of it's hard-hitting message.
One of the films most successful at this was Killer Of Sheep. Using a cinematic style akin to what movie experts refer to as Italian neorealism, KoS has a semi-documentary feel to it that, alongside it's vignette method of story telling, gives viewers a sense that they're peering into a non-fictionalized world that, at the the time, still felt somewhat foreign despite being right in our own backyard.
People who added this item 146 Average listal rating (76 ratings) 7.3 IMDB Rating 6.9
What do you get when you put a returning Vietnam war-torn soldier into a situation where he must exact revenge for his slain family from the local town thugs?
Two words:
"rolling thunder".
Or "the punisher*".
But that's another movie altogether.
So we'll just stick to "rolling thunder".




*(For those of you who might not get the Punisher reference.... Marvel Comics' The Punisher is a character who is a Vietnam vet who became a vigilante after his family was murdered....which is basically the same plotline of this movie....)
People who added this item 17 Average listal rating (4 ratings) 6.5 IMDB Rating 6.2
Dead of Night (1977)
Ah, I have a real soft spot in my heart for horror movies that were made for the TV back during the seventies.
But because of the countless batch that were spawned during this decade, most were crafted from writers who seemed to have gotten their "writer's license" right out of the seventh grade. Therefore, there are only a rare few that I consider to be worthy enough to include my lists of favorite fright flicks.
One of those is Dead of Night, a trilogy of terror, of which the third tale is the one that was responsible for scaring me outta my superhero-themed underoos as a kid. It was a short story called "Bobby", and it involved a distraught mother who recently lost her son and eventually resorts to supernatural means in order to bring him "back".
And I'm sure that anyone reading with even the most rudimentary of mathematical skillz can put two and two together to realize where this type of situation is going to go wrong.
And while the idea was simple enough,
the execution of the story led to an ending that contributed quite substantially to the trauma that I probably still suffer from today.
I mean, after reading some of the description boxes on my movies lists, I'm sure some of you must have noticed by now that I ain't completely right in the head.

People who added this item 123 Average listal rating (85 ratings) 7.1 IMDB Rating 6.2
The Deep (1977)
Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the ocean again,
that one crusty dude from Jaws is out in a boat again. But this time, instead of a Great White, he's out on the hunt for some Spanish gold, some medicinal morphine and some Jacqueline Bisset.
Three things that when discovered underwater, can be considered to be quite valuable treasures indeed.



A sea diving adventure off the coast of Bermuda that provides a decent dose of 70's style escapism despite the fact that it's plot really isn't all that deep.
People who added this item 281 Average listal rating (197 ratings) 7.1 IMDB Rating 7.3
An aging hockey player comes realize that he is at a point in which his life, inside and outside of the rink, have both become seriously stalled.
So he decides to take on a triad of brothers/new rogue players and tries to find a way to fold 'em into the rest of the team.
After utilizing and capitalizing on the base and brutish tactics of the three new members, the Charlestown Chiefs soon find their game and their attendance has been rejuvenated.



With it's humor relying heavily on the raw and raunch that has made this film famous, this is the kind of story that is best to watch unedited. So if you're ever flipping through the channels on your TV set, and come across this hockey "classic", keep surfing, and make a mental note to watch it on DVD or on on-demand. Because watching Slap Shot is a lot like going to an actual NHL game: win or lose, the game is always more entertaining when either a fight breaks out between two players or when someone ends up getting a puck in their mouth.
People who added this item 237 Average listal rating (138 ratings) 7.9 IMDB Rating 7.7
Sorcerer (1977)
Now here is a movie that's famous for not being famous. Debuting a month after Star Wars first smashed onto theater screens, the film quickly became lost within the barrage of Jedimania. However, as big of a fan as I was of the first chapter of "The Trilogy", I still went to see this film. Heck, by that point in time, I had seen Star Wars five times, and I was ready to see something else.
To be honest, I think that Sorcerer did follow all the rules that made a quality blockbuster at the time, it's just that George Lucas' film had suddenly changed the landscape in the field of box office hits.
And despite it's disappointing turn-out, at the end of the day, I found Sorcerer to be a pretty good movie. Good enough that if I ever had to come up with a list of my favorite 20 films of 1977, I knew would it be included on it. As a matter of fact, the only thing that disappointed me about this flick was that it wasn't actually about an actual sorcerer. But since '77 was also the year that released Suspiria, with it's dark-magic themed story-line, I was able to quickly get over that relatively easy.

People who added this item 218 Average listal rating (149 ratings) 6.3 IMDB Rating 6.4
The Gauntlet (1977)
The gauntlet has been thrown down and Dirty Harry has accepted the challenge.
Even if the only way of getting there means he has to take a bus.



And, yeah, I know that technically speaking, this isn't a Dirty Harry flick.
But c'mon....
Clint Eastwood as a cop who gets himself in more trouble than a whole squadron of police officers can handle....?
As far as I can tell, the only difference between this movie and all the other Callahan films is the name that's on the badge.
People who added this item 2239 Average listal rating (1416 ratings) 8 IMDB Rating 8
Annie Hall (1977)
Though I respect Woody Allen and his achievements, I've never really been all that able to connect with most of his works.
However, I'd heard how Annie Hall is one of his most highly regarded works, so I decided to give it a chance.
Because this is considered the first of the style of filmmaking that he has become famous for, for me, there is a freshness here in his melding of witty humor, intelligence, pockets of seriousness & improvisational dialogue. Enough so that, this movie does comes off energetic in it's sublime performances and wry script, even for someone like me who usually doesn't get into Woody's standard method of storytelling.
A brain-specific comedy in the usually not-so-brain-specific realm of romance films.



Here's a movie that is remembered not just as probably the best foreign film of the year 1977, but also as a movie where two actresses alternatively play the same female lead character. Her name is Chica, a woman who happens to be a Sevillian flamenco dancer and at the same, an off-and-on temperamental tease. And when you think about it, two ladies making up one woman of that particular make up, it leads to a very profound and philosophical question;
is there any object of desire more obscure than that?

People who added this item 29 Average listal rating (19 ratings) 8.4 IMDB Rating 8.2
21 Up (1977)
The Up Series is a continual set of documentary films that literally lasts a life time. Started in 1964, it documents the lifespans of a select group of individuals, starting at the age of seven and constantly returning to their respective lives every seven years to update their progress in this journey that we all share.
Therefore, there's an updated installment released after the seventh year of the previous film, each titled after the age of the subjects involved in this long-running project.
By the time of 1977, they're up to the age of 21.



Personally, I found it almost spooky and universally telling on the kind of perspective that arises from being a spectator of some else's life other than my own.
After every incarnation of this series, I can't help but ask those deep kinds of questions that are much easier to ask from the outside looking in.
For example, taking the film segments of the various people of this project when they were just children and watching 'em up against the segments of them as adults, I found myself genuinely wondering at what point in life do most of us, as humans, lose the zest and free-spiritedness that naturally comes with being a child, and then have it replaced by the more restrained walking representative of a crushed spirit that we have as adults?
And I can't remember when was the last time any film had the ability to make me get that introspective.
People who added this item 249 Average listal rating (135 ratings) 7.8 IMDB Rating 7.7


3 Women is the tale of three women that the director, Robert Altman, had a dream about and decided to try and work it into a full length movie. However, at first glance, it may seem like the story is more about just two women than it is about three. But that's because this is basically one one of those works of cinema that you gotta look into it's premise a bit more deeply in order to get the metaphysical meaning of the title.
Although, to be honest, even if you're not one of those people that likes to look past what it is being captured in front of the camera, there's still enough in it's surreal-singed story-line to keep any typical movie viewer interested. Altman's signature direction teamed-up the "mystic" auras that Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall each seem to possess no matter what film they're starring in, is what makes the drama of 3 Women work. It's a combo that allows the strange relationship between to the two lead characters, Pinky Rose and Millie Lammoreaux, to unfold from it's emergence to it's final conclusion, with an equal amount of independent film style abstract with that of mainstream surface level drama.
It is an alluring and suspicious process of development that helps to make 3 Women the kind of allegory worth analyzing, no matter at what level your skill in dream-therapy may lay.
People who added this item 88 Average listal rating (60 ratings) 7.1 IMDB Rating 6.8
Black Sunday (1977)
1977 proved to be a rough year for movies that had the potential to be blockbusters. Two years earlier, in the summer of 1975, Jaws had begun the age of the movie blockbuster. In '77, two sci-fi flicks breakout hits, Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, raised the bar and showed that the face of the box office champions was changing. High tech special effects were becoming the new order of the day.
As a result, certain films that were predicted to initially make it "big", tended to underperform.
William Friedkin's Sorcerer (mentioned earlier in this list) and John Frankenheimer's Black Sunday were two of the most well-known casualities, despite having the bankabilty of two actors who were holdovers from Spielberg's great white hope, Rob Scheider and Robert Shaw.
However, that doesn't take away that both of these films are very solid pieces of cinema (BS being my favorite of the two) and are still very much worth the effort of looking up today.

People who added this item 1189 Average listal rating (709 ratings) 6.5 IMDB Rating 6.8
Mann....
remember back when polyester clothes and high platform shoes were the shit?



John Travolta graduates from being a sweat-hog to become a disco-hopping, drug-popping hardcore dance machine.
And the biggest megastar of the 70's.


"Teh nehhh
teh neh neh nehh nehhhhh
teh neh neh nehh nehhhhh
teh neh neh nehhhhhhhh
teh nehhh
teh neh neh nehh nehhhhh
teh neh neh nehh nehhhhh
teh neh neh nehhhhhhhh...."


The theme song that not only changed the way sci-fi movies would be approached for the future, but also changed the lives of many a hardcore nerd (not to mention, their ability to get laid), including myself.
Upon initial viewing, even the most ardent non-fan can sense that when it comes to changing the face of modern pop culture, the force is strong in this one.
The Mighty Celestial's rating:
   Close Encounters of the Third Kind is not just my favorite movie of 1977, but it's also one of my favorite movies of all time (number 3 as a matter of fact, after The Godfather and Superman: The Movie). Not to mention that it ranks at number one  when it comes to my favorite in the genre of science fiction cinema.
    As far as I'm concerned, this is Steven Spielberg's best film, even though I know that for most people, Jaws is the one that would fit that category. I won't agrue the point since I believe that Jaws is indeed one of the greatest films of all time (and I also believe that it is fitting that it's the movie that began the whole "summer blockbuster" thing), but since science fiction has always been my favorite of all the film genres out there, Close Encounters edges the shark movie out by just a nose.

 

  In this particular early Spielberg classic, the aliens have made contact.
 And while at first, that makes us humans afraid, when we finally come face to face with 'em, we realize that the fear we felt was based more on own insecurities than it was on these bug-eyed long-fingered lil' grey angels from space. Although, you do have to admit, the fact that they have a knack of kidnapping a few of our jet-fighters, not to mention a kid or two, and then instill mental images of their landing site in own minds, urging us to ruin a plateful of perfectly good mash potatoes, doesn't do too much to help to quell our apprehension of the little big-eyed buggers.



  Up until to the point in time that Close Encounters was first released in theaters, for me, this was the story that represented the most realistic and logistical handling of what would really happen if humans did make contact with aliens beings. The manner in which the extraordinary events are portrayed in the plot, act as the premise that most likely inspired later films such as Contact, Signs, and Arrival, all of which tried admirably to emulate the "validity" of how this 3rd level of encounters would most likley occur. So convincing was the portrayal of this first contact, that upon my first viewing lo those many years ago, it made it almost believable for me that the idea of extra-terrestrials could actually be a reality. Also, it was done with such a sense of awe-inspiring hope and beauty, that even now, at my spirit-hardened age, it almost makes me wish that aliens do indeed exist (and maybe they do exist, but that's an entirely different website, altogether).
  To this day, even with jaded eyes overwhelmed with modern CGI gimmicktry , the special effects in Close Encounters, combined with their elegant integration to the story's premise,
this film still leaves me with a sense of awe after each viewing.
  The kind of awe that I used to feel as kid whenever I would look up all the stars in the sky on clear summer night, and wonder at all of the possibilities that must've been up there.

  Mannnn....I wish a UFO would come down and fly me away into the limitless potential of space.

  Sans anal-probes, of course.



Voters of this movie list - View all
Kyle EllisBAMFJPHOLTthe giraffe
My fave films from 1977. A year in film that included a movie from one of my favorite directors, David Lynch's Eraserhead. I almost didn't included it on this list because that sh#t really gave me some nightmares.
However, that was eventually offset, with the release of Star Wars & Close Encounters. Two alien-crammed epics that finally made all of my sci-fi dreams come troo.




Updated Entries:

- Rolling Thunder

- The Late Show



Other lists by The Mighty Celestial:

My Top 20 Female Movie Bad-Asses
www.listal.com/list/my-top-10-female

10 Movies That Feature A Dancin' Travolta In 'Em
www.listal.com/list/my-list-9158

My Top 15 Guilty Pleasure Movies
www.listal.com/list/guilty-pleasures-thecelestial

Can't We Be Dysfunctional Like A Normal Family?
www.listal.com/list/dysfunctional-family-movies

A - Z
www.listal.com/list/ay-zee-my-favorite-films


My Favorite Movies By Genre:

WAATAAAH!! My Top 10 Favorite Martial Arts Flix!
www.listal.com/list/my-list-thecelestial

Science Fiction:
- When Aliens Attack ....Or At Least, Go Bad
www.listal.com/list/aliens-attack-at-least-go
- Aliens Who Come In Peace
www.listal.com/list/good-aliens
- Favorite Sci Fi's Of Like....Ever.
www.listal.com/list/scifi-movies

Horror:
www.listal.com/list/my-top-ten-favorite-horror
- Run For Your Lives! My 25 Fave Giant Monster Films
www.listal.com/list/my-top-10-favorite-giant

Comicbook:
- Superhero Movies
www.listal.com/list/yep-am-huge-comicbook
- Non-Superhero Movies
www.listal.com/list/my-favorite-nonsuperhero-comicbook-movies

My Top Favorite Westerns, Pard'ner
www.listal.com/list/westerns-thecelestial

Romance:
- Romantic Comedies
www.listal.com/list/my-top-30-romantic-comedies
- Straight-Up Romance
www.listal.com/list/romance-movies

Animated:
- 3D
www.listal.com/list/animate-this-my-favorite-animated
- 2D
www.listal.com/list/my-favorite-animated-movies-thecelestial

Foreign:
- From Around The World www.listal.com/list/my-top-10-favorite-foriegn

Other Fave Movies Lists By Year:
1970
www.listal.com/list/10-70-my-fave-films
1971
www.listal.com/list/15-71-my-favorite-movies
1972
www.listal.com/list/15-72-my-favorite-films
1973
www.listal.com/list/20-73-my-favorite-films
1974
www.listal.com/list/films-of-1974
1975
www.listal.com/list/20-75-my-favorite-films
1976
www.listal.com/list/20-76-my-favorite-films
1978
www.listal.com/list/20-1978-my-favorite-films
1979
www.listal.com/list/20-79-my-favorite-films
1980
www.listal.com/list/25-from-80-my-favorite
1981
www.listal.com/list/25-81-my-favorite-films
1982
www.listal.com/list/25-82-my-favorite-films
1983
www.listal.com/list/25-83-my-favorite-films
1984
www.listal.com/list/25-84-my-favorite-films
1985
www.listal.com/list/25-85-my-favorite-films
1986
www.listal.com/list/25-86-my-favorite-films
1987
www.listal.com/list/25-87-my-favorite-films
1988
www.listal.com/list/25-88-my-favorite-films
1989
www.listal.com/list/25-89-my-favorite-films
1990
www.listal.com/list/30-90-my-favorite-films
1991
www.listal.com/list/30-91-my-favorite-films
1992
www.listal.com/list/30-92-my-favorite-films
1993
www.listal.com/list/30-93-my-favorite-films
1994
www.listal.com/list/30-94-my-favorite-films
1995
www.listal.com/list/30-95-my-favorite-films
1996
www.listal.com/list/30-96-my-favorite-films
1997
www.listal.com/list/30-97-my-favorite-films
1998
www.listal.com/list/30-98-my-favorite-films
1999
www.listal.com/list/30-99-my-favorite-films
2000
www.listal.com/list/35-00-my-favorite-films
2001
www.listal.com/list/35-1-my-favorite-films
2002
www.listal.com/list/35-2-my-favorite-films
2003
www.listal.com/list/35-3-my-favorite-films

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