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Best Drama Movies of the 1970s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
391 drama 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 8.1. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Papillon, 8.0 on IMDb against 58 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 | The Chaos Class '1975 | Comedy / Drama | 9.2 | - | - | 8.0 | Ertem Eğilmez |
| 4 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest '1975 | Drama | 8.6 | 92% | 84 | 8.4 | Miloš Forman |
| 5 | Apocalypse Now '1979 | Drama / War | 8.4 | 91% | 94 | 8.3 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 6 | Taxi Driver '1976 | Crime / Drama | 8.2 | 89% | 94 | 8.1 | Martin Scorsese |
| 7 | The Sting '1973 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.2 | 93% | 83 | 8.0 | George Roy Hill |
| 8 | Rocky '1976 | Drama | 8.1 | 93% | 70 | 7.8 | John G. Avildsen |
| 9 | Barry Lyndon '1975 | Drama | 8.1 | 77% | 89 | 8.0 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 10 | The Deer Hunter '1978 | Drama / War | 8.1 | 86% | 90 | 8.0 | Michael Cimino |
| 11 | Dog Day Afternoon '1975 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 8.0 | 94% | 86 | 7.9 | Sidney Lumet |
| 12 | Network '1976 | Drama | 8.0 | 90% | 83 | 7.8 | Sidney Lumet |
| 13 | Dersu Uzala '1975 | Drama | 8.2 | 73% | - | 7.9 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 14 | Stalker '1979 | Sci-Fi / Drama | 8.0 | 100% | 85 | 8.1 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 15 | Papillon '1973 | Crime / Drama | 8.0 | 74% | 58 | 7.8 | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 16 | Paper Moon '1973 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 91% | 77 | 7.9 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 17 | The Message '1976 | Drama / Action | 8.1 | - | - | 7.1 | Moustapha Akkad |
| 18 | Annie Hall '1977 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.9 | 97% | 92 | 7.7 | Woody Allen |
| 19 | The King of the Street Cleaners '1977 | Comedy / Romance / Drama | 8.5 | - | - | 7.8 | Zeki Ökten |
| 20 | Solaris '1972 | Drama / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 7.9 | 92% | 93 | 7.8 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 21 | Patton '1970 | War / Drama | 7.9 | 92% | 86 | 7.4 | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 22 | The Last Picture Show '1971 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 98% | 93 | 7.6 | Peter Bogdanovich |
| 23 | All the President's Men '1976 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.9 | 95% | 84 | 7.7 | Alan J. Pakula |
| 24 | Anand '1971 | Drama | 8.1 | - | - | 7.0 | Hrishikesh Mukherjee |
| 25 | Fiddler on the Roof '1971 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 81% | 67 | 7.7 | Norman Jewison |
| 26 | Being There '1979 | Comedy / Drama | 7.9 | 95% | 83 | 7.6 | Hal Ashby |
| 27 | Mirror '1975 | Drama | 7.9 | 100% | 82 | 7.9 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 28 | Kramer vs. Kramer '1979 | Drama | 7.8 | 90% | 77 | 7.6 | Robert Benton |
| 29 | Cries and Whispers '1972 | Drama | 7.9 | 92% | - | 7.9 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 30 | Manhattan '1979 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.8 | 93% | 83 | 7.7 | Woody Allen |
| 31 | A Woman Under the Influence '1974 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 88% | 88 | 7.7 | John Cassavetes |
| 32 | Autumn Sonata '1978 | Drama | 8.1 | 85% | - | 8.0 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 33 | Aguirre, the Wrath of God '1972 | Drama | 7.8 | 96% | - | 7.4 | Werner Herzog |
| 34 | Gentlemen of Fortune '1971 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 8.3 | - | - | 7.8 | Aleksandr Sery |
| 35 | Harold and Maude '1971 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.8 | 86% | 62 | 7.6 | Hal Ashby |
| 36 | Cabaret '1972 | Musical / Romance / Drama | 7.8 | 92% | 80 | 7.4 | Bob Fosse |
| 37 | Le Cercle Rouge '1970 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 92 | 7.6 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 38 | Day for Night '1973 | Comedy / Drama | 8.0 | 98% | - | 7.8 | François Truffaut |
| 39 | The Conformist '1971 | Drama | 7.9 | 98% | 100 | 7.6 | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| 40 | Ali: Fear Eats the Soul '1974 | Romance / Drama | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.7 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| 41 | Kes '1970 | Drama | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.4 | Ken Loach |
| 42 | Serpico '1973 | Crime / Drama | 7.7 | 93% | 83 | 7.5 | Sidney Lumet |
| 43 | The Conversation '1974 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.7 | 94% | 88 | 7.5 | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 44 | Amarcord '1973 | Comedy / Drama | 7.8 | 88% | - | 7.9 | Federico Fellini |
| 45 | Badlands '1973 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 7.7 | 97% | 94 | 7.4 | Terrence Malick |
| 46 | The Man Who Would Be King '1975 | Drama | 7.7 | 97% | 91 | 7.5 | John Huston |
| 47 | Scenes from a Marriage '1974 | Drama / Romance | 8.3 | - | - | 8.1 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 48 | All That Jazz '1979 | Drama | 7.8 | 88% | 72 | 7.5 | Bob Fosse |
| 49 | Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion '1970 | Drama / Thriller | 8.0 | 100% | 89 | 8.2 | Elio Petri |
| 50 | The Holy Mountain '1973 | Drama | 7.7 | 85% | 76 | 7.5 | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
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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Directors on this list
Francis Ford Coppola Miloš Forman Martin Scorsese George Roy Hill John G. Avildsen Stanley Kubrick Michael Cimino Sidney Lumet Akira Kurosawa Andrei Tarkovsky Franklin J. Schaffner Peter Bogdanovich
Actors on this list
Marlon Brando Al Pacino Robert Duvall Jack Nicholson Brad Dourif Martin Sheen Robert De Niro Jodie Foster Paul Newman Robert Redford Sylvester Stallone Talia Shire