Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1972
Best Movies of 1972, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
94 films from 1972 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is The Godfather ('1972), at 9.2 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.5. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Cowboys, 7.4 on IMDb against 52 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Godfather '1972 | Drama / Crime | 9.2 | 97% | 100 | 8.7 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 2 | Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii '1972 | Musical / Documentary | 8.6 | 100% | 75 | 8.1 | Adrian Maben |
| 3 | Solaris '1972 | Drama / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 7.9 | 92% | 93 | 7.8 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 4 | Sleuth '1972 | Thriller / Mystery / Crime | 7.9 | 90% | - | 7.7 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 5 | Cries and Whispers '1972 | Drama | 7.9 | 92% | - | 7.9 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 6 | Aguirre, the Wrath of God '1972 | Drama | 7.8 | 96% | - | 7.4 | Werner Herzog |
| 7 | Cabaret '1972 | Musical / Romance / Drama | 7.8 | 92% | 80 | 7.4 | Bob Fosse |
| 8 | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie '1972 | Comedy | 7.7 | 98% | 93 | 7.4 | Luis Buñuel |
| 9 | Deliverance '1972 | Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 90% | 80 | 7.3 | John Boorman |
| 10 | Jeremiah Johnson '1972 | Western | 7.6 | 92% | 75 | 7.3 | Sydney Pollack |
| 11 | Play It Again, Sam '1972 | Comedy / Romance | 7.6 | 97% | 77 | 7.4 | Herbert Ross |
| 12 | What's Up, Doc? '1972 | Comedy / Crime / Romance | 7.6 | 88% | 73 | 7.4 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 13 | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx '1972 | Action / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.4 | Kenji Misumi |
| 14 | The Dawns Here Are Quiet '1972 | Drama / War | 8.0 | - | - | 7.0 | Stanislav Rostotsky |
| 15 | Frenzy '1972 | Crime / Thriller / Horror | 7.4 | 89% | 92 | 7.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 16 | Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance '1972 | Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.7 | 86% | - | 7.4 | Kenji Misumi |
| 17 | Winnie-the-Pooh and a Busy Day '1972 | Animation | 8.2 | - | - | 7.5 | Fyodor Khitruk |
| 18 | Love in the Afternoon '1972 | Drama / Romance | 7.6 | 87% | - | 7.3 | Éric Rohmer |
| 19 | The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant '1972 | Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 85% | 73 | 7.4 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| 20 | The Telephone Box '1972 | Drama / Horror | 7.8 | - | - | 7.3 | Antonio Mercero |
| 21 | The Cowboys '1972 | Western / Drama / Action | 7.4 | 75% | 52 | 7.1 | Mark Rydell |
| 22 | The Getaway '1972 | Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 84% | 55 | 7.1 | Sam Peckinpah |
| 23 | The Lorax '1972 | Animation / Drama / Fantasy | 7.8 | - | - | 7.2 | Hawley Pratt |
| 24 | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades '1972 | Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.5 | - | - | 7.1 | Kenji Misumi |
| 25 | Roma '1972 | Comedy / Drama | 7.3 | 61% | - | 7.3 | Federico Fellini |
| 26 | The Night Stalker '1972 | Mystery / Horror / Thriller | 7.4 | 88% | - | 6.9 | John Llewellyn Moxey |
| 27 | Fist of Fury '1972 | Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.2 | - | 68 | 7.2 | Lo Wei |
| 28 | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril '1972 | Action / Thriller | 7.5 | - | - | 7.3 | Buichi Saitō |
| 29 | Caliber 9 '1972 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | - | - | 7.5 | Fernando Di Leo |
| 30 | The Scopone Game '1972 | Comedy / Drama | 7.6 | - | - | 7.4 | Luigi Comencini |
| 31 | Fat City '1972 | Drama | 7.2 | 100% | 89 | 7.1 | John Huston |
| 32 | Snoopy, Come Home '1972 | Animation / Drama / Comedy | 7.3 | 93% | 66 | 7.2 | Bill Melendez |
| 33 | The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe '1972 | Comedy / Mystery | 7.2 | 67% | - | 7.0 | Yves Robert |
| 34 | The Poseidon Adventure '1972 | Drama / Thriller | 7.1 | 82% | 70 | 7.2 | Ronald Neame |
| 35 | The Adventures of Pinocchio '1972 | Fantasy / Drama / Comedy | 7.7 | - | - | 7.5 | Luigi Comencini |
| 36 | The Way of the Dragon '1972 | Action / Crime | 7.1 | 88% | 58 | 7.4 | Bruce Lee |
| 37 | Cesar and Rosalie '1972 | Romance / Drama | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Claude Sautet |
| 38 | Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion '1972 | Action / Drama / Thriller | 7.2 | - | - | 7.1 | Shunya Ito |
| 39 | Brother Sun, Sister Moon '1972 | Drama | 7.2 | 42% | - | 7.1 | Franco Zeffirelli |
| 40 | Avanti! '1972 | Comedy / Romance | 7.1 | 79% | - | 6.9 | Billy Wilder |
| 41 | Slap the Monster on Page One '1972 | Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | - | - | 7.7 | Marco Bellocchio |
| 42 | Indian Summer '1972 | Drama / Romance | 7.1 | - | - | 7.6 | Valerio Zurlini |
| 43 | Don't Torture a Duckling '1972 | Horror | 7.0 | 88% | - | 7.3 | Lucio Fulci |
| 44 | The Candidate '1972 | Comedy / Drama | 7.0 | 89% | 66 | 6.5 | Michael Ritchie |
| 45 | Un Flic '1972 | Crime / Thriller | 7.0 | 82% | 72 | 6.6 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 46 | Images '1972 | Thriller / Mystery / Drama / Horror | 7.0 | 71% | - | 6.8 | Robert Altman |
| 47 | Across 110th Street '1972 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.0 | 85% | - | 6.7 | Barry Shear |
| 48 | Ulzana's Raid '1972 | Western | 7.0 | 90% | - | 6.9 | Robert Aldrich |
| 49 | The Annuity '1972 | Comedy | 6.9 | - | - | 6.7 | Pierre Tchernia |
| 50 | Money Money Money '1972 | Comedy | 6.9 | - | - | 6.7 | Claude Lelouch |
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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