Your Guide To Binge-Watching The Oscar-Winning Best Pictures: Part Three, The 1970s

One of the great, fun things about Oscar season is that it puts everybody in the mood for a project. Some kind of regimented viewing plan to get them some damn culture already. Sure, 11 months out of the year, you’re vegging out to Southern Charm and old seasons of Friends, but for one month a year, it’s time to watch some FILMS, damn it! Some people like to make a point to see all the current year’s Best Picture nominees. Other lunatics (hello!) try to see every movie nominated in any category that year. But you? We’re banking on you looking to the past for your project.

Taking a tour through the Academy Award winners for Best Picture is like using a Cliff’s Notes guide through Hollywood history. You won’t get the whole story, and you’ll miss out on a lot of great details along the way, but it’s an economical way to get caught up quickly. Of course, with 90 years of Oscar history to work with, it’s still daunting. Which is why we’re here to guide you through. Which Best Picture winners to prioritize? Which can you skip? Which are easier to stream than others?

Previously:
Part 1: The 1950s
Part 1: The 1960s

Today we’re tackling the 1970s. This was the big sea change in Hollywood, where the studios started producing much edgier, more challenging, more ambitious work from the New Hollywood auteurs. This was the decade that gave birth to Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Milos Forman, not to mention the foreign auteurs who fond popularity in American art-houses this decade.

That the decade rang in with the more traditionally Hollywood Patton and ended with the morally ambiguous, decidedly modern Kramer vs. Kramer really sums up the decade. The Best Picture winners of the ’70s got darker, more decidedly anti-authoritarian, and — with one notable exception — very male. After the very musicals-focused 1960s, the one bummer about the great leaps forward in the ’70s is that the Oscars got reach macho, real fast.

Still, it’s a decade where the Best Picture category was uncommonly strong, year after year, with stone-cold classics nominated every year, and some of the best movies of all time in the winners’ circle.

The One You Cannot Miss

The Godfather
Year: 1972
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Why it’s essential: The temptation is to place The Godfather low on this list of priorities because … it’s The Godfather. It’s part of the American cultural tapestry. Who hasn’t seen The Godfather? But that’s kind of the point. This is a 45-year-old movie, and a long one besides. Maybe you’ve only seen parts of the movie but not the whole thing. Do yourselves a favor, sit down and watch the whole thing, from “I believe in America” to Michael Corleone closing the door on his wife, Kay. It’s a movie that’s actually more than the sum of its parts.
Movies that it beat that you should also watch: Cabaret is another movie that’s seeped into the cultural fabric, though probably to a lesser extent. It’s one of the great American movie musicals, though, and Bob Fosse actually bested Coppola to the Best Director award that year.

Where to stream The Godfather

The Ones You Might Have a Subscription For

The Godfather, Part II
Year: 1974
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Talia Shire
Why it’s essential: All the same reasons as the above-listed ones to watch The Godfather, plus the fact that this is the one sequel that actually manages to be even better than the original. Which is no slight on the original. But Part II deepens the darkness around Michael Corleone, plus gives you a parallel storyline with Robert De Niro as the young Vito Corleone.
Where it’s streaming: The entire Godfather saga is streaming on Netflix.

Where to stream The Godfather, Part II

The French Connection
Year: 1971
Directed by: William Friedkin
Starring: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider
Why it’s essential: One of the defining cop movies of a decade that really did well with cop movies. Friedkin was just ramping up to being one of the most exciting directors of the ’70s — The Exorcist was on the horizon —and the car chases in this movie alone make it essential.
Where it’s streaming: If you have a Cinemax subscription with Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free.

Where to stream The French Connection

The Deer Hunter
Year: 1978
Directed by: Michael Cimino
Starring: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Cazale
Why it’s essential: The Vietnam War shown through the perspective of a group of friends from coal-mining Pennsylvania, The Deer Hunter is the kind of movie you watch and realize how much other movies have borrowed from it. It’s one of Meryl Streep’s first movies (trivia alert: this was her first Oscar nomination), and it’s John Cazale’s last. It’s both harrowing and elegiac, and it really holds up.
Where it’s streaming: If you have a Cinemax subscription with Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free..

Where to stream The Deer Hunter

Rocky
Year: 1976
Directed by: John G. Avildsen
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith, Carl Weathers, Burt Young
Why it’s essential: Odds are you’ve seen this one a billion times too, but it’s just so satisfying! This time around, marvel at the fact that Talia Shire starred in three Best Picture nominees this decade, and they’re probably the three most-watched Best Picture winners of all time.
Where it’s streaming: It’s currently available on Showtime.

Where to stream Rocky

In Descending Order Of Essential-ness

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Year: 1975
Directed by: Milos Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd
Why it’s essential: This might be perhaps the definitive Jack Nicholson performance — or at least this one and Five Easy Pieces in tandem — and it marks the first of his three Oscars for acting. The suffocating and frustrating asylum environment turns into a battle of wills between McMurphy (Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched (Fletcher), and the result is yet another all-time classic ’70s BP winner.

Where to stream One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Kramer vs. Kramer
Year: 1979
Directed by: Robert Benton
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry, Jane Alexander
Why it’s essential: There’s a bit of a pall over this movie now, after the revelations about Dustin Hoffman’s terrible on-set behavior towards Meryl Streep. But the success of this movie — besides being an Oscar winner it was huge at the box office — is a precious artifact of the days that a family drama about divorce could be legit mass entertainment.

Where to stream kramer vs. Kramer

Annie Hall
Year: 1977
Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Diane Keaton, Woody Allen
Why it’s essential: Another movie with a pall cast over it, due to the avalanche of crap surrounding Woody Allen. Annie Hall isn’t as bad as Manhattan or Husbands and Wives when it comes to Allen movies that actively deal with his predilection towards younger women/girls, which is the film’s saving grace. It also features a sparkling comedic performance from Diane Keaton, and the fact that a pure comedy like this took Best Picture is still a rarity.

Where to stream Annie Hall

If You Don’t Have Time to Watch Them, At Least Learn About Them For Trivia

Patton
Year: 1970
Directed by: Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring: George C. Scott
Notable Oscar Trivia: George C. Scott was the first actor winner to refuse the Academy Award he won for Best Actor, on the grounds that he disagreed with the entire concept of artistic performances being in competition with one another. It started a trend of sorts in the ’70s, with Marlon Brando refusing Best Actor two years later when he won for The Godfather, and then when Dustin Hoffman won for Kramer vs. Kramer, he made a big deal of echoing Scott’s distaste for judging acting performances against one another.

Where to stream Patton

The Sting
Year: 1973
Directed by: George Roy Hill
Starring: Robert Redford, Paul Newman
Notable Oscar Trivia: Did you know Robert Redford was only ever nominated for one Oscar for acting? It was for his performance in The Sting, which also holds the distinction of being the movie to win Best Picture in between the two Godfather movies. Stylistic whiplash at work.

Where to stream The Sting