New Bracket Challenge: Greatest American Film Of The 1970s
We begin our new bracket challenge in a quest to crown the greatest American film of the 1970s.
Well my friends, it is time once again for another bracket challenge. This time around, we’ll be tackling the title of Greatest American Film of the 1970s. The Seventies were a vaunted period in American cinema. The decade fully welcomed in the denizens of the new Hollywood like Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Ashby and others. Themes and subjects that had once been anathema were now being tackled head-on by mainstream cinema. America was in the midst of a colossal change and Hollywood was there to both lead the way and to capture the shift as it happened.
The decade is chock full of iconic performances, brilliant direction, and remarkable storytelling. However, there is an issue that needs to be addressed at the top. There are thirty two films in this list all directed by men, and these are films told almost exclusively from a male point of view. This is both an example of the misogyny rampant in Hollywood and a reminder that looking at film from a given period can provide us with only a narrow view into the world even if we see a lot of cinema.
Even with that gender imbalance, I think these films are worthy of discussion and comparison. I’m also hoping that we can find ways to incorporate more female subject matter here at WAIM, particularly as it relates to our film coverage. More to come on that front soon.
Here, my friends are the matchups as we begin the tourney. These seedings came from a combination of lists of the best films of the 1970s. I made it a point to limit my scope to solely American films as that will help to level the playing field as many folks are less avid viewers of foreign films and it could skew those results unfairly. Secondly, I stuck solely to narrative films. There are any number of great documentaries from the decade, but in trimming this to 32 contestants, it made sense to stick to conventional narrative features for the bracket challenge.
For the first two rounds, we will be featuring a series of four matchups each Saturday morning. You’ll have three days to vote for the films of your choice. As the rounds progress, you’ll be provided with fewer matchups and a longer period of time to make your decisions. Eventually, we’ll crown one grand winner of the contest.
Below you will find the first four matchups of the tournament. Heavy favorite, The Godfather starts things off against the terrific but likely overmatched Last Picture Show. In our second contest, we get a pair of brilliant sports films as Breaking Away squares off against Rocky.
Jack Nicholson and the rest of the mental ward of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest face off against the brilliant hilarity of Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein. And in our final matchup, Paul Newman meets up with old pal Robert Redford as All The President’s Men and Slap Shot duke it out for the next round.
Voting ends at 6:00 am on Tuesday morning, so get to those polling stations right away. And be sure to share with the cinephile and film lover in your life.
Cheers,
Matty C
Give that the 1970s were essentially America's second golden era (after the 1930s) picking just one from these is an absolute nightmare, and there are many others you could have included in the tournament. :)
I can't believe you put Godfather and Last Picture Show against each other. That's just wrong. Personally, LPS was way more influential to me, and a film I would watch way more often than Godfather. Come on, peeps! Don't let this end up being Star Wars vs. Godfather! (I'm also mad that you have Annie Hall against Star Wars coming soon....)