Tag: 1977

Director: George Roy Hill
Stars: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Strother Martin
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sport
Country: USA

A failing ice hockey team finds success with outrageously violent hockey goonery.

Director: Howard Smith
Stars: Milt Moss
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
Country: USA

Compilation of man inventing strange contraptions in the 30’s through 50’s.

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Stars: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.

Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Jennifer O’Neill, Gabriele Ferzetti, Marc Porel
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Italy

A clairvoyant woman discovers a skeleton in a wall in her husband’s house, and seeks to find the truth about what happened to the victim.

Director: Dino Risi
Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Catherine Deneuve, Danilo Mattei
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Country: Italy | France

Bizarre events keep occurring in an old mansion in Venezia, and it’s soon obvious that something mysterious is up in the attic.

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Keith Carradine, Harvey Keitel, Albert Finney
Genre: Drama, War
Country: UK

France, 1801. Due to a minor, perceived slight mild-mannered Lieutenant d’Hubert is forced into a duel with the hot-headed, irrational Lieutenant Feraud. The disagreement ultimately results in scores of duels, spanning several years.

Director: James Benning
Stars: Serafina Bathrick, Ted Brady, Barbara Frankel
Genre: Drama
Country: USA | Canada

One of the most widely praised American avant-garde films in recent years, James Benning’s 1977 feature is a laconic mosaic of single-shot sequences, each offering some sort of image/sound pun or paradox. At once a crypto-narrative with an abstract, peekaboo storyline and a fractured, painterly study of the American midwestern landscape, 11×14 points toward the creation of a new, non-literary but populist cinema.

Director: Georgiy Daneliya
Stars: Vakhtang Kikabidze, Mher Mkrtchyan, Elena Proklova
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy | Canada

Local Georgian pilot Mimino dreams of flying airplanes for major international airlines. To realize his aspirations, he goes to Moscow where he encounters a fellow comrade from the Caucasus, the Armenian Rubik. Many misadventures ensue.

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, John Vernon
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | Canada

Two neighbors, a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife, meet during Hitler’s visit to Italy in May 1938.

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Werner Herzog
Genre: Documentary, Short, Biography
Country: West Germany

Herzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave. Herzog catches the eeriness of an abandoned city, with stop lights cycling over an empty intersection.

Director: Terry Gilliam
Stars: Michael Palin, Harry H. Corbett, John Le Mesurier
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: UK

A young peasant, with no interest in adventure or fortune, is mistaken as the kingdom’s only hope when a horrible monster threatens the countryside.

Director: Carlos Saura
Stars: Fernando Rey, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabel Mestres
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain

Elisa has not seen her father Luis for nine years, but she receives a telegram from her sister Isabel in a moment of crisis of her marriage with Antonio telling that her father is ill and she decides to travel to the countryside of Madrid with Isabel and her brother-in-law Julián and their two children to visit Luis for his birthday. Elisa decides to stay with his father when her sister returns to Madrid with her family and she gets closer to Luis, understanding why he left her mother years ago. Later she tells him that Antonio cheated her with her best friend Sophie and their relationship has ended. When Antonio unexpectedly arrives in the house, Elisa takes a decision about her life.

Director: Damiano Damiani
Stars: Gian Maria Volontè, Erland Josephson, Mario Adorf
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Italy

Journey into the fears of the escort agent Graziano, guilty of knowing too much.

Director: Richard Benner
Stars: Craig Russell, Hollis McLaren, Richert Easley
Genre: Comedy
Country: Canada

A story about a female impersonator who rooms with a pregnant schizophrenic.

Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Stars: Piotr Garlicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Christine Paul
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Poland

A group of students are spending the summer vacation at a university camp studying the science of linguistics. One of the camp directors, Jaroslaw, is a young professor who prefers the straightforward, intimate approach to students. He is opposed in his liberal views by Jakub, who likes to manipulate people. There is a confrontation from the beginning when Jaroslaw allows to attend the seminar a student who presents the views not according to the official line.

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Krystyna Janda, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Tadeusz Lomnicki
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A young Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.

Director: Wolfgang Büld
Stars: Gaye Advert, Jack Airport, Arturo Bassick
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: West Germany

A contemporary documentary covering the Great British punk rock explosion of 1977.

Director: Hector Babenco
Stars: Reginaldo Faria, Ana Maria Magalhães, Milton Gonçalves
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil

History of a famous Brazilian bandit of the early seventies.

Director: Michael Cacoyannis
Stars: Irene Papas, Kostas Kazakos, Kostas Karras
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece

To appease offended gods before going to war, a commander must sacrifice his favorite daughter to them but does so under the pretext of marrying her off.

Director: Jonathan Demme
Stars: Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Bruce McGill
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

This movie interlaces the stories of several characters in a small town united by their use of CB (citizen’s band) radio. Paul LeMat is the local CB coordinator who has time for little else in his life. His father, Roberts Blossom is a sour old man who is nice on the radio. Charles Napier is a trucker hospitalized after an accident, with hilarious consequences.

Director: Jean Eustache
Stars: Michael Lonsdale, Douchka, Jean-Noël Picq
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

A group of friends listen as one man tells them a story about a time when, in a small cafe, he discovered a peephole into the ladies’ bathroom and became addicted to looking through it at female genitals. They ask him questions and come to conclusions about sex. This is a filmed, scripted version. Then, the actual person who this happened to relates the same story; this time, however, it is an unscripted documentary, in which the same things occur as in the scripted one.

Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Stars: Omero Antonutti, Saverio Marconi, Marcella Michelangeli
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Italy

The son of a shepherd embarks in the quest of emancipating himself from a tough lifestyle that his condition and his father force on him.

Director: Moshé Mizrahi
Stars: Simone Signoret, Michal Bat-Adam, Samy Ben-Youb
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she’s a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He’s a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.

Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Kurosh Afsharpanah, Mehdi Montazar
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

The life of a tax collector who is accused of taking bribes, and also has to deal with other problems at home, including the suicide attempt of his wife.

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: Poland

24 hours in the life of a hospital from the point of view of the doctors and nurses.

Director: James Dearden
Stars: Richard O’Brien, Charlotte Cornwell
Genre: Horror, Short, Thriller
Country: UK

A man toils at building an elaborate contraption. As he builds you begin to determine what exactly it is he is building. It is a mousetrap, only the mouse it would catch would have to be the same size as him. Perhaps that is the point.

Director: Charles Eames, Ray Eames
Stars: Philip Morrison
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: USA

A scientific film essay, narrated by Phil Morrison. A set of pictures of two picnickers in a park, with the area of each frame one-tenth the size of the one before. Starting from a view of the entire known universe, the camera gradually zooms in until we are viewing the subatomic particles on a man’s hand.

Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos
Stars: Vangelis Kazan, Eva Kotamanidou, Giorgos Danis
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece | France | West Germany

On New Year’s Eve, a bourgeoisie group of hunters finds the frozen body of a long dead WWII partisan fighter. They spend the night debating what to do with it, which reveals their sins from the war and leads to their symbolic punishment.

Director: Philip Saville
Stars: Louis Jourdan, Frank Finlay, Susan Penhaligon
Genre: Drama, Horror
Country: UK

The vampire count leaves his Transylvanian home to wreak havoc across the world.

Director: Raoul Ruiz
Stars: Eva Simonet, Robert Darmel, Silke Humel
Genre: Short
Country: France

A charming tale of murder, perversity and narrative echoes told through shots of barking dogs and a La jetée-like series of stills.

Director: André Cayatte
Stars: Annie Girardot, Hardy Krüger, Bernard Fresson
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: France | West Germany

A mother discovers that, after the worst (her daughter is kidnapped, then killed), there can be something even worse.

Director: Masahiro Shinoda
Stars: Shima Iwashita, Yoshio Harada, Tomoko Naraoka
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed while she tours the country, even though the modern world imposes changes on people’s behavior.

Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Ernst Hannawald, Werner Schwuchow
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany

Thomas is the son of a prison warden. He falls for and seduces Martin, who is older and one of the prison inmates. After Martin is released, They try to build a relationship and a life together but, no one will let them alone.

Director: Robert Benton
Stars: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy
Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA

A grumpy semi-retired private investigator partners with a quirky female client to catch the people who murdered his partner.

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Milos Frýba, Jaroslav Vozáb
Genre: Animation, Short, Horror
Country: Czechoslovakia

A mockumentary-style adaptation of the gothic 1764 novel of the same name, which includes Terry Gilliam-like animations throughout.

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: India

Wazed Ali Shah was the ruler of one of the last independent kingdoms of India. The British, intent on controlling this rich country, had sent General Outram on a secret mission to clear the way for an annexation. While pressure was mounting amidst intrigue and political maneuvers, Ali Shah composes poems and listens to music, secluded in his palace. The court was of no help, as exemplified by nobles Mir and Mirza, who, ignoring the situation of their country and all of their duties towards their families, spend their days playing endless parties of chess.

Director: Yôji Yamada
Stars: Ken Takakura, Chieko Baishô, Kaori Momoi
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan

Three complete strangers embark on a road-trip to Hokkaido.

Director: Claude Goretta
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Yves Beneyton, Florence Giorgetti
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Switzerland | France | West Germany

A reserved young woman moves into an apartment with a young student she met while on vacation.

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, Gert Fröbe
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: West Germany | USA

Berlin, 1923. Following the suicide of his brother, American circus acrobat Abel Rosenberg attempts to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Director: Sam Peckinpah
Stars: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason
Genre: Drama, War
Country: UK | West Germany

German commander Captain Hauptmann Stransky (Maximilian Schell) places a squad in extreme danger after Sergeant Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) refuses to lie for him.

Director: Basilio Martín Patino
Stars: Claudio Rodríguez, Vicente Copete, Antonio López
Genre: Documentary
Country: Spain

Exploration of a particularly dark zone of the Francoism along with three executioners of death sentences still active in the Spain of the early seventies. Beyond the allegation against capital punishment, the documentary explores the personal story of the three men and their ways of understanding the trade they perform, those executed by them in the garotte or the crimes that are punished. An implacable reflection on power and an atrocious portrait of the society in which those hangmen operate.

Director: Janusz Majewski
Stars: Ewa Dalkowska, Aleksander Bardini, Mariusz Dmochowski
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Poland

One of the most talked-about trials in 1930s Polish press. Housekeeper Rita Gorgon, who has an affair with her employer, is accused of murdering his teenage daughter.

Director: Jean Beaudin
Stars: Marcel Sabourin, Monique Mercure, Marthe Thierry
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

The wife of photographer J.A. Martin decides to go with him in his tour of the hard Canadian countryside at the turn of the century. She hopes the intimacy will revive their marriage.

Director: Tengiz Abuladze
Stars: Lika Kavzharadze, Soso Jachvliani, Zaza Kolelishvili
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

This film is about psychology of people, about lonesome persons, about terrible mentality and about fantastic dreams…

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Sylvia Kristel, Charles Vanel, Fernand Ledoux
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: France

Alice Carol leaves her husband one rainy night, telling him that she does not love him anymore. She travels alone but when her windscreen breaks on a lonely road, she has to stop and seek help. She goes to a creepy manor and is welcomed by the owner, Henri Vergennes, and his butler, Colas. Alice is invited to spend the night in the house. The next morning, Alice can’t find the two men from he previous night but finds her car surprisingly fixed. She tries to leave but cannot find the gate. She stops the car and walks around the wall trying to find an exit but becomes increasingly worried with what she finds.

Director: Goran Markovic
Stars: Slavko Stimac, Bekim Fehmiu, Ljubisa Samardzic
Genre: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia

A troubled young boy is sent to a juvenile detention center where he meets a teacher who has an unusual pedagogical approach.

Director: John Waters
Stars: Liz Renay, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Fantasy
Country: USA

A neurotic society woman murders her husband with the help of her maid and, on the lam, escape to Mortville, a homeless community ruled over by a fascist queen.

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Stars: Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbé, Susan Penhaligon
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: Netherlands | Belgium

During World War II, Dutch students join the resistance movement against the German occupation of The Netherlands.

Director: Stan Brakhage
Stars: n/a
Genre: Short
Country: USA

An experimental film by Stan Brakhage which combines various footage of animals including dogs, raccoons, snakes, and mice.

Director: James Benning
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada | USA

Sixty one-minute shots with no camera movement. This tension between painterly and cinematic space is not only experienced as an intellectual contrast but is also felt as a dialectic between permanence and impermanence.

Director: Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein
Stars: Pat Bond, John Burnside, Sally M. Gearhart
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

More than two dozen men and women of various backgrounds, ages, and races talk to the camera about being gay. Their stories are arranged in loose chronology: early years, fitting in (which for some meant marriage), disclosing their sexuality, establishing adult identities, and reflecting on how things have changed and how things should be.

Director: Silvio Narizzano
Stars: Bud Cort, Samantha Eggar, Chris Wiggins
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada

In the 1930’s, Max Brown is an urban young man from an Eastern province, fresh from college, whose only job offer is in a one-room school house in the Canadian prairie. At first he’s distant, superior, lonely, and bewildered; his students are rebellious. Over the course of the year, he is drawn to Alice Field, the wife of a farmer, in a love that can lead nowhere. But, he and his students connect, a connection that matters and lasts.

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Stars: Elisabeth Trissenaar, Kurt Raab, Bernhard Helfrich
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany

The lackluster and plodding station master Bolwieser has the (mis)fortune to be married to the town’s siren; his trusting nature leads him into serious trouble when she beds nearly every available guy.

Director: Mario Monicelli
Stars: Alberto Sordi, Shelley Winters, Vincenzo Crocitti
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Italy

A meek middle-aged man takes justice in his own hands.

Director: Atif Yilmaz
Stars: Türkan Soray, Kadir Inanir, Ahmet Mekin
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Soviet Union

Story of a dilemma between a woman’s love and her logic. Asya, a young girl with a strict mother, meets Ilyas who is a womanizer city man, and they quickly fall in love. They get over the hardships and have a quick happy marriage. However, after he helps a man one night, Ilyas’ life changes forever and he leaves Asya and Samet, their son and doesn’t come back. After that, Asya takes their son and go away without knowing where she is heading, until a familiar hand reaches her to help selflessly.

Director: Agnès Varda
Stars: Thérèse Liotard, Valérie Mairesse, Robert Dadiès
Genre: Drama, History
Country: France | Soviet Union

The lives of Pomme, an aspiring singer, and Suzanne, a struggling mother, as they search for their own identity in 1970s France.

Director: Richard Attenborough
Stars: Sean Connery, Ryan O’Neal, Michael Caine
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: USA

Operation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.

Director: Hollis Frampton
Stars: n/a
Genre: Short
Country: USA

A short film by Hollis Frampton centering around a bride and groom in a garden setting.

Director: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Stars: Christo, Jeanne-Claude
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

An engrossing document of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s efforts to build a 24 1/2-mile-long, 18-foot-high fence of white fabric across the hills of northern California. The artists’ struggle with local ranchers, environmentalists and state bureaucrats ends when the fence is unfurled, reuniting the community in a celebration of beauty.

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Aleksandr Kalyagin, Elena Solovey, Evgeniya Glushenko
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Early in the 20th century, family and friends gather at the country estate of a general’s widow, Anna Petrovna. Sofia, the new wife of Anna’s step-son, recognizes Misha, the brother-in-law of one of the widow’s admirers: a few years before, they had been idealistic lovers and now she can’t believe he has settled for a dim wife and a job as a teacher. Amidst parlor games and idle talk of women’s rights and peasants’ capabilities, Sofia and Misha rekindle their love. Will they flaunt convention, abandon families, and run away to pursue lost dreams? Rescue comes from an unexpected place.

Director: Anthony Page
Stars: Bibi Andersson, Kathleen Quinlan, Ben Piazza
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA

A disturbed, institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Bruno S., Eva Mattes, Clemens Scheitz
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: West Germany

In Berlin, an alcoholic man, recently released from prison, joins his elderly friend and a prostitute in a determined dream to leave Germany and seek a better life in Wisconsin.

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: West Germany | France

Tom Ripley, who deals in forged art, suggests a picture framer he knows would make a good hit man.

Director: Ousmane Sembene
Stars: Tabata Ndiaye, Moustapha Yade, Ismaila Diagne
Genre: Drama
Country: Senegal | France

In protest of forced conversion to Islam, the Ceddo (outsiders) kidnap King Demba War’s daughter Princess Dior Yacine and hold her hostage.

Director: Chris Marker
Stars: Laurence Cuvillier, Davos Hanich, François Maspero
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

French essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and ’70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.