Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1971
Best Movies of 1971, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
84 films from 1971 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is A Clockwork Orange ('1971), at 8.2 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.5. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Devils, 7.7 on IMDb against 52 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Clockwork Orange '1971 | Sci-Fi / Crime | 8.2 | 86% | 77 | 8.2 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 2 | The Last Picture Show '1971 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 98% | 93 | 7.6 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 3 | Anand '1971 | Drama | 8.1 | - | - | 7.0 | Hrishikesh Mukherjee |
| 4 | Fiddler on the Roof '1971 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 81% | 67 | 7.7 | Norman Jewison |
| 5 | Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory '1971 | Fantasy / Comedy | 7.8 | 84% | 67 | 7.5 | Mel Stuart |
| 6 | Gentlemen of Fortune '1971 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.3 | - | - | 7.8 | Aleksandr Sery |
| 7 | Harold and Maude '1971 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.8 | 86% | 62 | 7.6 | Hal Ashby |
| 8 | The Conformist '1971 | Drama | 7.9 | 98% | 100 | 7.6 | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| 9 | Dirty Harry '1971 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | 89% | 87 | 7.5 | Don Siegel |
| 10 | The French Connection '1971 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.6 | 97% | 94 | 7.5 | William Friedkin |
| 11 | Duel '1971 | Action / Thriller | 7.6 | 90% | 81 | 7.4 | Steven Spielberg |
| 12 | Johnny Got His Gun '1971 | War / Drama | 7.8 | 67% | 71 | 7.5 | Dalton Trumbo |
| 13 | The Devils '1971 | Drama / Horror | 7.7 | 56% | 52 | 7.5 | Ken Russell |
| 14 | 12 Chairs '1971 | Comedy / Crime | 8.1 | - | - | 7.6 | Leonid Gaidai |
| 15 | McCabe & Mrs. Miller '1971 | Drama / Western | 7.6 | 85% | 93 | 7.2 | Robert Altman |
| 16 | Walkabout '1971 | Drama | 7.6 | 86% | 85 | 7.3 | Nicolas Roeg |
| 17 | The Emigrants '1971 | Drama / Western | 8.0 | 94% | - | 7.4 | Jan Troell |
| 18 | Duck, You Sucker '1971 | Western | 7.5 | 92% | 77 | 7.7 | Sergio Leone |
| 19 | And Now for Something Completely Different '1971 | Comedy | 7.5 | 88% | - | 7.2 | Ian MacNaughton |
| 20 | Straw Dogs '1971 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 7.4 | 82% | 75 | 7.1 | Sam Peckinpah |
| 21 | Winnie-the-Pooh Goes Visiting '1971 | Animation | 8.2 | - | - | 7.5 | Fyodor Khitruk |
| 22 | Punishment Park '1971 | Drama / Thriller | 7.7 | 92% | - | 7.3 | Peter Watkins |
| 23 | Wake in Fright '1971 | Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 97% | 85 | 7.2 | Ted Kotcheff |
| 24 | 10 Rillington Place '1971 | Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 64% | - | 7.3 | Richard Fleischer |
| 25 | Murmur of the Heart '1971 | Drama / Comedy | 7.5 | 94% | - | 7.0 | Louis Malle |
| 26 | Macbeth '1971 | War / Drama | 7.4 | 78% | - | 7.1 | Roman Polanski |
| 27 | Get Carter '1971 | Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 85% | 80 | 7.0 | Mike Hodges |
| 28 | Sacco & Vanzetti '1971 | Drama | 7.7 | 70% | - | 7.6 | Giuliano Montaldo |
| 29 | Death in Venice '1971 | Drama | 7.3 | 70% | - | 7.2 | Luchino Visconti |
| 30 | The Working Class Goes to Heaven '1971 | Drama | 7.6 | - | - | 7.8 | Elio Petri |
| 31 | The Andromeda Strain '1971 | Sci-Fi / Thriller / Drama | 7.2 | 68% | 60 | 7.0 | Robert Wise |
| 32 | A New Leaf '1971 | Comedy / Romance | 7.3 | 94% | - | 7.3 | Elaine May |
| 33 | Vanishing Point '1971 | Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.2 | 62% | 61 | 7.1 | Richard C. Sarafian |
| 34 | Trinity Is Still My Name '1971 | Comedy / Western | 7.2 | - | - | 7.4 | Enzo Barboni |
| 35 | Two-Lane Blacktop '1971 | Drama | 7.2 | 93% | 89 | 7.0 | Monte Hellman |
| 36 | Summer of '42 '1971 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 77% | 59 | 6.7 | Robert Mulligan |
| 37 | Max and the Junkmen '1971 | Crime / Romance | 7.3 | - | - | 7.1 | Claude Sautet |
| 38 | Delusions of Grandeur '1971 | Comedy | 7.2 | - | - | 7.4 | Gérard Oury |
| 39 | Deep End '1971 | Drama / Comedy | 7.2 | 90% | - | 7.0 | Jerzy Skolimowski |
| 40 | The Go-Between '1971 | Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 100% | - | 6.8 | Joseph Losey |
| 41 | Two English Girls '1971 | Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 89% | - | 6.9 | François Truffaut |
| 42 | Bedknobs and Broomsticks '1971 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.1 | 66% | 59 | 7.0 | Robert Stevenson |
| 43 | Klute '1971 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.1 | 92% | 81 | 6.8 | Alan J. Pakula |
| 44 | The Panic in Needle Park '1971 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 7.1 | 79% | 74 | 6.8 | Jerry Schatzberg |
| 45 | The Beguiled '1971 | Thriller / Drama / War | 7.1 | 90% | 66 | 7.0 | Don Siegel |
| 46 | Big Jake '1971 | Western | 7.1 | 75% | 57 | 6.8 | George Sherman |
| 47 | Jo '1971 | Comedy / Crime | 7.1 | - | - | 7.2 | Jean Girault |
| 48 | Daisy Town '1971 | Animation / Comedy / Western | 6.9 | - | - | 6.9 | René Goscinny |
| 49 | Lawman '1971 | Western | 7.0 | 73% | 52 | 6.5 | Michael Winner |
| 50 | Sunday Bloody Sunday '1971 | Drama | 7.0 | 83% | - | 6.5 | John Schlesinger |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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