My top ten films for each year of the 2010s. These are always up for revision as I watch more films, revisit ones I’ve seen before, and think about them over time. I don’t really believe in top “ten” lists, despite using the common nomenclature for the title of this page, nor do I hold fast to the order, though it’s generally from films I liked better to films I liked less well. This is going to be my top several films of each year, down to whatever point I feel is right. Might be eight one year, might be twenty-three another.

1979

  • Manhattan
  • All That Jazz
  • The Black Stallion
  • The Muppet Movie
  • Alien
  • Stalker

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Nosferatu the Vampyre
The Tin Drum
The Marriage of Maria Braun

1978

  • Grease
  • The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
  • The Driver
  • Days of Heaven
  • Interiors
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • Autumn Sonata
  • Halloween
  • Remember My Name
  • Watership Down

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Last Waltz
Drunken Master
The Deer Hunter

1977

  • Annie Hall
  • Star Wars
  • Suspiria
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • Capricorn One
  • Smokey and the Bandit
  • House
  • 21 Up
  • 3 Women
  • Jesus of Nazareth

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
New York, New York
Saturday Night Fever
Stroszek

1976

  • Taxi Driver
  • All the President’s Men
  • Rocky
  • Carrie
  • Small Change
  • Network
  • That’s Entertainment! Part II
  • The Outlaw Josey Wales

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Cria Cuervos
Assault on Precinct 13
The Mirror

1975

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  • Nashville
  • Jaws
  • Dog Day Afternoon
  • Deep Red
  • Love and Death
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Barry Lyndon
The Passenger
Graveyard of Honor
The Traveling Players

1974

  • Chinatown
  • Young Frankenstein
  • The Godfather Part II
  • The Conversation
  • That’s Entertainment!
  • The Sting
  • Celine and Julie Go Boating
  • A Woman Under the Influence
  • The Four Musketeers
  • Lacombe Lucien
  • Amarcord
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • Foxy Brown

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Black Christmas
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

1973

  • The Long Goodbye
  • Mean Streets
  • The Spirit of the Beehive
  • Paper Moon
  • Jesus Christ Superstar
  • American Graffiti
  • Serpico
  • Enter the Dragon
  • The Wicker Man
  • Badlands
  • The Three Musketeers
  • Don’t Look Now
  • F For Fake
  • Robin Hood
  • Day for Night
  • The Exorcist
  • Charlotte’s Web

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
High Plains Drifter
Lady Snowblood
The Mother and the Whore
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Day of the Jackal

1972

  • Cabaret
  • Love in the Afternoon
  • Cries and Whispers
  • The Godfather
  • Solaris
  • What’s Up, Doc?
  • Sleuth
  • Junior Bonner

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Un Flic
The Chinese Connection
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

1971

  • The Last Picture Show
  • McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  • Two-Lane Blacktop
  • Trafic
  • The French Connection
  • Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Dirty Harry
  • Klute
  • Shaft
  • Taking Off
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Duel
Walkabout
The Panic in Needle Park
W.R.: The Mysteries of the Organism
Death in Venice

1970

  • Le cercle rouge
  • Woodstock
  • Gimme Shelter
  • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
  • MASH
  • Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
  • The Fruits of Paradise
  • Five Easy Pieces
  • Patton
  • 7 Plus Seven
  • The Conformist

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Zabriski Point
The Spider’s Stratagem