Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1978
Best Movies of 1978, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
76 films from 1978 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is The Deer Hunter ('1978), at 8.1 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.2. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Boys from Brazil, 7.0 on IMDb against 40 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Deer Hunter '1978 | Drama / War | 8.1 | 86% | 90 | 8.0 | Michael Cimino |
| 2 | Autumn Sonata '1978 | Drama | 8.1 | 85% | - | 8.0 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 3 | Dawn of the Dead '1978 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.8 | 92% | 71 | 7.5 | George A. Romero |
| 4 | Halloween '1978 | Horror / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | 91 | 7.6 | John Carpenter |
| 5 | Days of Heaven '1978 | Drama / Romance | 7.7 | 93% | 94 | 7.5 | Terrence Malick |
| 6 | The Last Waltz '1978 | Documentary / Musical | 8.1 | 98% | 84 | 7.7 | Martin Scorsese |
| 7 | Midnight Express '1978 | Drama / Crime | 7.5 | 90% | 59 | 7.4 | Alan Parker |
| 8 | Superman '1978 | Sci-Fi / Action | 7.4 | 87% | 82 | 7.2 | Richard Donner |
| 9 | Animal House '1978 | Comedy | 7.4 | 89% | 79 | 6.9 | John Landis |
| 10 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers '1978 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 7.4 | 93% | 75 | 7.2 | Philip Kaufman |
| 11 | Watership Down '1978 | Animation / Drama | 7.5 | 83% | 64 | 7.2 | Martin Rosen |
| 12 | Drunken Master '1978 | Action / Comedy | 7.4 | 81% | 68 | 7.4 | Yuen Woo-ping |
| 13 | The 36th Chamber of Shaolin '1978 | Action | 7.6 | 83% | - | 7.5 | Lau Kar-leung |
| 14 | Grease '1978 | Romance / Comedy | 7.2 | 65% | 70 | 7.4 | Randal Kleiser |
| 15 | Death on the Nile '1978 | Mystery | 7.3 | 80% | 59 | 7.2 | John Guillermin |
| 16 | The Tree of Wooden Clogs '1978 | Drama | 7.8 | 95% | - | 7.6 | Ermanno Olmi |
| 17 | Blue Collar '1978 | Drama / Crime | 7.5 | 96% | 77 | 7.3 | Paul Schrader |
| 18 | Coming Home '1978 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.3 | 83% | 61 | 7.0 | Hal Ashby |
| 19 | Interiors '1978 | Drama | 7.2 | 78% | 67 | 6.8 | Woody Allen |
| 20 | Snake in the Eagle's Shadow '1978 | Action / Comedy | 7.3 | 80% | - | 7.3 | Yuen Woo-ping |
| 21 | Straight Time '1978 | Crime / Drama | 7.4 | 82% | 64 | 7.1 | Ulu Grosbard |
| 22 | The Driver '1978 | Crime / Thriller / Action | 7.1 | 80% | 56 | 7.2 | Walter Hill |
| 23 | The Silent Partner '1978 | Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 78% | 74 | 7.1 | Daryl Duke |
| 24 | La Cage aux Folles '1978 | Comedy | 7.2 | 92% | 61 | 6.8 | Édouard Molinaro |
| 25 | The Boys from Brazil '1978 | Drama / Mystery / Sci-Fi | 7.0 | 72% | 40 | 6.7 | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 26 | The Buddy Holly Story '1978 | Drama / Musical | 7.2 | 100% | 78 | 7.1 | Steve Rash |
| 27 | Killer of Sheep '1978 | Drama | 7.2 | 98% | 96 | 6.6 | Charles Burnett |
| 28 | Odds and Evens '1978 | Comedy / Crime / Action | 7.1 | - | - | 7.0 | Sergio Corbucci |
| 29 | Up in Smoke '1978 | Comedy | 6.9 | 45% | 57 | 6.6 | Lou Adler |
| 30 | Heaven Can Wait '1978 | Fantasy / Comedy / Romance / Drama | 6.9 | 82% | 72 | 6.7 | Buck Henry |
| 31 | Big Wednesday '1978 | Drama / Comedy | 7.1 | 64% | 54 | 6.9 | John Milius |
| 32 | Coma '1978 | Thriller / Mystery / Horror | 6.9 | 81% | 60 | 6.7 | Michael Crichton |
| 33 | The First Great Train Robbery '1978 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 6.9 | 79% | 68 | 6.7 | Michael Crichton |
| 34 | The Five Venoms '1978 | Action / Drama / Mystery / Fantasy | 7.0 | 80% | - | 6.6 | Chang Cheh |
| 35 | Martin '1978 | Horror / Drama | 6.9 | 90% | 68 | 6.8 | George A. Romero |
| 36 | Empire of Passion '1978 | Drama / Romance / Horror | 7.0 | 80% | - | 6.8 | Nagisa Ōshima |
| 37 | The Medusa Touch '1978 | Horror / Thriller / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 6.9 | - | 49 | 6.8 | Jack Gold |
| 38 | Foul Play '1978 | Comedy / Mystery / Thriller | 6.8 | 74% | 45 | 6.3 | Colin Higgins |
| 39 | The Wild Geese '1978 | Action / Thriller / War | 6.8 | 75% | - | 6.8 | Andrew V. McLaglen |
| 40 | Magic '1978 | Drama / Horror | 6.8 | 87% | 49 | 6.8 | Richard Attenborough |
| 41 | Battlestar Galactica '1978 | Sci-Fi | 6.8 | 35% | - | 6.9 | Richard A. Colla |
| 42 | Get Out Your Handkerchiefs '1978 | Romance / Comedy / Drama | 6.9 | 83% | - | 6.6 | Bertrand Blier |
| 43 | Ecce Bombo '1978 | Comedy / Drama | 7.0 | - | - | 7.4 | Nanni Moretti |
| 44 | Fedora '1978 | Drama / Mystery | 6.8 | 72% | - | 6.7 | Billy Wilder |
| 45 | French Fried Vacation '1978 | Comedy | 6.7 | - | - | 6.6 | Patrice Leconte |
| 46 | They Called Him Bulldozer '1978 | Action / Comedy | 6.7 | - | - | 6.9 | Michele Lupo |
| 47 | Someone's Watching Me! '1978 | Thriller | 6.6 | 88% | - | 6.2 | John Carpenter |
| 48 | Revenge of the Pink Panther '1978 | Comedy / Crime / Mystery | 6.6 | 80% | 65 | 6.4 | Blake Edwards |
| 49 | The Shout '1978 | Thriller / Mystery / Horror | 6.5 | 86% | 67 | 6.0 | Jerzy Skolimowski |
| 50 | The Discord '1978 | Comedy | 6.4 | - | - | 6.4 | Claude Zidi |
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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