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Best Crime Movies of the 1970s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
133 crime films from the 1970s 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 7.7. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Mean Streets, 7.1 on IMDb against 96 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 | The Godfather Part II '1974 | Drama / Crime | 9.0 | 96% | 90 | 8.6 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 3 | Taxi Driver '1976 | Crime / Drama | 8.2 | 89% | 94 | 8.1 | Martin Scorsese |
| 4 | A Clockwork Orange '1971 | Sci-Fi / Crime | 8.2 | 83% | 77 | 8.2 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 5 | The Sting '1973 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.2 | 93% | 83 | 8.0 | George Roy Hill |
| 6 | Chinatown '1974 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 8.1 | 98% | 92 | 7.9 | Roman Polanski |
| 7 | Dog Day Afternoon '1975 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 8.0 | 94% | 86 | 7.9 | Sidney Lumet |
| 8 | Papillon '1973 | Crime / Drama | 8.0 | 74% | 58 | 7.8 | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 9 | Paper Moon '1973 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 91% | 77 | 7.9 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 10 | Sleuth '1972 | Thriller / Mystery / Crime | 7.9 | 90% | - | 7.7 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 11 | Gentlemen of Fortune '1971 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.3 | - | - | 7.8 | Aleksandr Sery |
| 12 | Le Cercle Rouge '1970 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 92 | 7.6 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 13 | Dirty Harry '1971 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | 89% | 87 | 7.5 | Don Siegel |
| 14 | Serpico '1973 | Crime / Drama | 7.7 | 93% | 83 | 7.5 | Sidney Lumet |
| 15 | The Conversation '1974 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.7 | 94% | 88 | 7.5 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 16 | Badlands '1973 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 7.7 | 97% | 94 | 7.4 | Terrence Malick |
| 17 | The French Connection '1971 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.6 | 97% | 94 | 7.5 | William Friedkin |
| 18 | 12 Chairs '1971 | Comedy / Crime | 8.1 | - | - | 7.6 | Leonid Gaidai |
| 19 | The Taking of Pelham One Two Three '1974 | Crime / Thriller / Action / Comedy | 7.6 | 98% | 68 | 7.5 | Joseph Sargent |
| 20 | What's Up, Doc? '1972 | Comedy / Crime / Romance | 7.6 | 88% | 73 | 7.4 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 21 | The Castle of Cagliostro '1979 | Animation / Comedy / Crime | 7.6 | 95% | 72 | 7.5 | Hayao Miyazaki |
| 22 | The Long Goodbye '1973 | Mystery / Crime / Comedy | 7.5 | 93% | 87 | 7.4 | Robert Altman |
| 23 | Midnight Express '1978 | Drama / Crime | 7.5 | 90% | 59 | 7.4 | Alan Parker |
| 24 | Lady Snowblood '1973 | Action / Crime / Drama | 7.6 | 100% | 80 | 7.5 | Toshiya Fujita |
| 25 | Straw Dogs '1971 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 7.4 | 82% | 75 | 7.1 | Sam Peckinpah |
| 26 | Frenzy '1972 | Crime / Thriller / Horror | 7.4 | 89% | 92 | 7.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 27 | Marathon Man '1976 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.4 | 82% | 64 | 7.2 | John Schlesinger |
| 28 | Charley Varrick '1973 | Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 82% | 76 | 7.4 | Don Siegel |
| 29 | 10 Rillington Place '1971 | Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 64% | - | 7.3 | Richard Fleischer |
| 30 | The Friends of Eddie Coyle '1973 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 98% | 84 | 7.2 | Peter Yates |
| 31 | Get Carter '1971 | Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 85% | 80 | 6.9 | Mike Hodges |
| 32 | Scum '1979 | Drama / Crime | 7.6 | 89% | 78 | 7.1 | Alan Clarke |
| 33 | Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia '1974 | Action / Crime / Drama | 7.4 | 77% | 80 | 7.1 | Sam Peckinpah |
| 34 | Assault on Precinct 13 '1976 | Thriller / Action / Crime | 7.3 | 94% | 89 | 7.3 | John Carpenter |
| 35 | The Getaway '1972 | Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 84% | 55 | 7.2 | Sam Peckinpah |
| 36 | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons '1973 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Kenji Misumi |
| 37 | Magnum Force '1973 | Drama / Crime / Action | 7.2 | 69% | 58 | 7.1 | Ted Post |
| 38 | Vengeance Is Mine '1979 | Crime / Drama | 7.7 | 100% | 85 | 7.5 | Shōhei Imamura |
| 39 | The American Friend '1977 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 7.4 | 88% | 79 | 7.1 | Wim Wenders |
| 40 | Two Men in Town '1973 | Crime / Drama | 7.3 | - | - | 7.1 | José Giovanni |
| 41 | Vanishing Point '1971 | Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.2 | 62% | 61 | 7.1 | Richard C. Sarafian |
| 42 | The Butcher '1970 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Claude Chabrol |
| 43 | The Last of Sheila '1973 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.2 | 90% | - | 7.0 | Herbert Ross |
| 44 | Murder by Death '1976 | Comedy / Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | 63% | 59 | 7.1 | Robert Moore |
| 45 | Max and the Junkmen '1971 | Crime / Romance | 7.3 | - | - | 7.1 | Claude Sautet |
| 46 | The Killing of a Chinese Bookie '1976 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.3 | 81% | 65 | 7.0 | John Cassavetes |
| 47 | I... for Icarus '1979 | Thriller / Crime / Mystery | 7.8 | - | - | 7.6 | Henri Verneuil |
| 48 | Caliber 9 '1972 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | - | - | 7.5 | Fernando Di Leo |
| 49 | Mean Streets '1973 | Drama / Crime | 7.1 | 92% | 96 | 7.0 | Martin Scorsese |
| 50 | Klute '1971 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.1 | 92% | 81 | 6.8 | Alan J. Pakula |
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.
All crime movies
All movies of the 1970s
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Other genres in the 1970s
Action of the 1970s Animation of the 1970s Comedy of the 1970s Drama of the 1970s Fantasy of the 1970s Horror of the 1970s Mystery of the 1970s Romance of the 1970s Sci-Fi of the 1970s Thriller of the 1970s War of the 1970s Western of the 1970s
Directors on this list
Francis Ford Coppola Martin Scorsese Stanley Kubrick George Roy Hill Roman Polanski Sidney Lumet Franklin J. Schaffner Peter Bogdanovich Joseph L. Mankiewicz Jean-Pierre Melville Don Siegel Terrence Malick
Actors on this list
Marlon Brando Al Pacino Robert Duvall Robert De Niro Jodie Foster Malcolm McDowell Paul Newman Robert Redford Jack Nicholson Faye Dunaway Steve McQueen Dustin Hoffman