5 Movies From 1974 That Are Even Better Today

The 1970s was an explosive decade for film. It spawned the modern action-adventure blockbuster in the form of 1977's "Star Wars" and produced some of the most long-lasting sci-fi in modern history thanks to 1979's "Alien." It generated landmark films like 1972's "The Godfather," 1973's "The Exorcist," and 1979's "Apocalypse Now." It saw the rise of filmmaker legends like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola. Of course, for all the very well-remembered and widely discussed masterworks, plenty of more worthy films got lost in the shuffle (here are the best '70s movies you've never seen). But even within the decade, certain years stand out, like 1974.

In general, the '70s marked the end of what's called the "Golden Age of Hollywood," which more or less lasted from the 1930s to 1960s. This era was marked by the rise of bankable Hollywood celebrities and giant filmmaking studios that produced loads of monumental classics like "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), "The Ten Commandments" (1956), and so forth. By the time the '70s rolled around, though, societal and economic changes fostered new storytelling priorities, and a new breed of filmmaker focused on inventiveness, creative boldness, and strong, singular visions. Enter "New Hollywood" — the age of the auteur.

The years from 1970 through 1973 had already seen some lasting films come and go, like "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), "Deliverance" (1972), and "American Graffiti" (1973). But really, it's 1974 that saw a slew of explosive (in one case literally) films hit theaters — films that are so well-made as to be even better nowadays, if in very different ways. Specifically, we mean "Blazing Saddles," "The Godfather Part II," "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," "The Towering Inferno," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." 

Let's be clear: Those with a low tolerance for certain vocabulary will likely have a not-too-pleasant knee-jerk reaction to "Blazing Saddles." But, that's exactly the movie's point and exactly why it perseveres as a one-of-a-kind comedic treasure. "Blazing Saddles" embodies the era that it came out of — 10 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed — and also serves as a supreme palate cleanser for modern, sticky racial issues. That is, if you grok creator Mel Brooks' particular way of making fun of something by exposing it to light. While Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" came out that same year and also featured Gene Wilder, it's "Blazing Saddles" that cemented Brooks as a god-tier satirist armed with razor-sharp cleverness and insight.

Structurally, "Blazing Saddles" is a sequence of comedic bits stuck end-on-end that eventually compose a plot, Monty Python-style. Bits often veer into absurdist or anachronistic territory, like riflemen wearing pointy World War I helmets (the German Pickelhaube) during a saloon performance in the movie's post-Civil War, Wild West setting. Narratively, "Blazing Saddles" is about a town of Johnsons (the last name, with an allusion to the other thing) coming to accept their new Black sheriff, Bart. The character is played superbly by Cleavon Little, and the movie ends by spilling out into the real world. It's absolutely audacious, ludicrous, and hysterical, and it has far more chutzpah than anything made today — a word Brooks would no doubt approve as a description of the flick.

There's good reason why "Blazing Saddles" keeps getting mentioned in the annals of comedic movie history and why a whole new generation of YouTube reactors has taken to watching it. Its approach to tackling taboo topics makes it even better now than when it first came out.

Folks who've seen "The Godfather" (1972) typically fall into one of two camps: 1) It's the greatest movie ever made, or 2) It's one of the greatest movies ever made. Then, they see "The Godfather Part II" (1974). And to think, Francis Ford Coppola almost cut Al Pacino from the film franchise. We're talking Pacino at his restrained, about-to-burst best, rather than the bombastic "She's got a great ass!" persona from a film like "Heat" (1995). And it's Pacino's performance as Michael Corleone, paired with Robert De Niro's as a young Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando in the first film) and some excellent nuts-and-bolts scriptwriting, that elevates "The Godfather Part II" to masterpiece status. It nabbed a flotilla of awards, including best picture at the Oscars, marking the first time a sequel ever earned one.

The plot of "The Godfather Part II" is byzantine — it's difficult to recall off the top of the head — but it's this precise story that makes "The Godfather Part II" shine. In short, nothing about the film feels incidental or forced. Sequels are often pushed to be produced and turn out sub-par because writers have nowhere for a story to go. "The Godfather Part II" brilliantly deepens the Corleone tale of the first film as it juxtaposes Michael's grip on power in the present with the chain of events that drove younger Vito's rise to power. While other films might lean into the dual chronology as a gimmick or crutch, it makes perfect sense for the story that "The Godfather Part II" is trying to tell, a tale about the destructive emptiness of power. The potency of such themes, the storytelling, and the film's performances only got better with time.

At this point, the name "Martin Scorsese" is practically a byword for "mafia and/or violent movies." With films like "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Goodfellas" (1990), "Casino" (1995), and "Gangs of New York" (2002) under his belt, Scorsese is the go-to filmmaker when you want heavy drama stirred with brutal violence, all the way to his return-to-form, "The Irishman" (2019). But before all these films existed, we got a vastly overlooked 1974 movie that Scorsese pulls off with such effortless expertise that no one would realize it was him at the head of the film or its on-screen romance: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." 

In a way, the opening credits to "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" tell its entire story. Its cursive font set against a blue satin backdrop and '40s love song are a callback to Golden Age romances that were bygone even by the '70s. Its red-hued farmhouse and vision of childhood are designed to look like a movie set, one that joltingly transitions to an adult life full of strained household relationships and strained dreams. It's as though "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" was Scorsese's own take on what happened when romanticized on-screen love abutted the realities of the mid-70s.

Featuring the estimable Ellen Burstyn as Alice, she hits the road with her young son to start a new life as a singer when her husband dies. She even meets late singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson in a diner after she takes up a waitressing job there. Ultimately, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" is exceptional because it doesn't shy away from its heartfelt sentiments any more than it shies away from realism. These attributes are rare commodities in a story that simply wouldn't get made today.

In an era of auteur filmmaking, instant comedic classics, and excellently portrayed interpersonal drama, one 1974 film dared to ask, "Do you like explosions?!?" Also, people falling from elevators, people on fire, defenestrated people, defenestrated people on fire, and one final solution to quench a burning building's flames: another explosion. Also, there's silly relationship drama, overwrought career drama, a rich person's gala, an uber-wealthy architect and main character (Paul Newman), pre-glove OJ Simpson, some tech stuff that amounts to a giant blip-blip light-up board with switches, and a final thesis about building design and safety served via a firefighter at the end of the film (Steve McQueen): "I'm gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until someone asks us how to build 'em."

In a very real way, "The Towering Inferno" can be summed up by the 1974 The New York Times review headline, "First-Rate Visual Spectacle." Yes, there are lots of explosions. Yes, the film's nearly three-hour runtime is in serious need of trimming. Yes, the movie was a sort of pre-modern blockbuster full of practical effects and stunts. And yes, it laid the groundwork for an entire subgenre of disaster films in the '70s and beyond, as well as "trapped in a building" films like "Die Hard."  

But none of these are reasons to avoid "The Towering Inferno" — far from it. The film's stop-and-go pacing, its attempt to interweave personal stakes with physical peril, its special effects work, and most importantly, its final message, underscore a real heart that elevates it beyond high-concept gimmickry. The film's opening dedication to firefighters says it all: "To those who give their lives so that others might live."

Even only the title "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" demonstrates the power of the film to make folks shudder, even now. From its opening camera flash sequence of a rotting corpse to its final Leatherface chase where the crazed, masked murderer races down the street brandishing a chainsaw and chasing the perpetually screaming Sally (played by Marilyn Burns), "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a beat-by-beat, perfect slasher-adjacent film in a B-film mold. 

The '70s were no stranger to horror films of the shock-and-gore variety that segued into classic '80s outings like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th." But while it's easy for such films to steer towards schticky and campy, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is legitimately harrowing. It also spawned an entire, cross-media subgenre of "terrifying rural area" horror. This includes 1977's "The Hills Have Eyes," certain entries in the "Resident Evil" game series, like "Resident Evil 4" and "Resident Evil 7," and, of course, the most infamous and once-banned episode of "The X-Files": Season 4, Episode Two, "Home," complete with an inbred family and limbless mother tucked under the bed on a pallet. 

The plot of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is just a setup for bonkers scenes, like the wheelchair-bound Grandpa Sawyer trying to hit Sally on the head with a hammer. There's a group of young kids on a road trip who come across a murderous family in the middle of Texas, and that's it. But it's this precise plausibility that makes "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" so horrific. The movie's opening text crawl and narration say that it's based on a true story, but that's not true. It was, however, inspired by real-life serial killer and skin-wearer Ed Gein, a person far more horrific than any movie villain.

While the selection of movies in this article is ultimately subjective, we chose films based on several fundamental criteria. Firstly, the themes and intent behind each story needed to be universal enough to not only speak to the past and the present but also to speak to the present in a way that a modern moviegoer might not otherwise hear. "Blazing Saddles," "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," and "The Towering Inferno" all achieve this, and they are rendered even more impactful than they might have been when they were first released. This is also how we can avoid issues related to special effects, audio production, and camerawork that will automatically make older films seem dated and less impressive.

This also means that a film's quality of writing must match its intent, if not be superb in and of itself. The craftsmanship of a film like "The Godfather Part II" outstrips many films, old and new, period. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a very different kind of film with very different goals, but it nonetheless proved immensely impactful over time. "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" isn't either widely known or widely impactful but stands on its two feet as a superb example of storytelling and acting.

Finally, we cast a wide net over types of films to cover a variety of genres from romance to comedy, action, drama, and horror. In this way, we can take each film according to its own merits, as none of the choices directly compete with each other.