10. FELLINI SATYRICON

25 LISTS | 0 TOP SPOTS
Federico Fellini | 129 mins | Comedy/Drama/Fantasy
Martin Potter | Hiram Keller | Max Born

“Director Federico Fellini’s lushly wrought recreation of the luxuries and vices of Nero’s Rome is distinguished by its intoxicating visual appeal.  A bold tapestry of nightmarish beauty, this directorial masterwork handsomely repays repeated viewings.” – John Koch, Boston Herald

9. DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE

28 LISTS | 0 TOP SPOTS
Frank Perry | 95 mins | Comedy/Drama
Richard Benjamin | Frank Langella | Carrie Snodgress

“The best of the new “Now” flicks, superbly directed by Frank Perry as he traces a marriage grown to neglect that is temporarily spiced with a strangely cruel extra-marital love affair.” – Elston Brooks, Fort Worth Star Telegram

8. WOMEN IN LOVE

34 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT
Ken Russel | 131 mins | Comedy/Drama/Romance
Alan Bates | Oliver Reed | Glenda Jackson

“Cinema seems to be pressing its own revival of D.H. Lawrence, and of all the film adaptations made so far, this one represents the best effort to capture the author’s philosophy and sensual style.  A beautiful work, somewhat overwhelmed by an excess of visual riches and complex ideas, the picture nonetheless does humor to Lawrence and to the intelligence of its director, Ken Russell.  Among several good portrayals, Glenda Jackson stands out with cool brilliance.” – Giles M. Fowler, Kansas City Star

7. CATCH-22

36 LISTS | 2 TOP SPOTS
Mike Nichols | 122 mins | Comedy/Drama/War
Alan Arkin | Martin Balsam | Richard Benjamin

“”Catch-22″ is the best anti-war film ever made.  The humor is bizarre, absurd and ugly; but so too is the ordeal of men in war.  Mike Nichols directed with brilliance and Alan Arkin was at his best in the leading role.  Take five!” – William E. Sarmento, Lowell Sun

6. JOE

37 LISTS | 0 TOP SPOTS
John G. Avildsen | 107 mins | Drama/Thriller
Peter Boyle | Dennis Patrick | Susan Sarandon

“A film that was, and still is, felt by this writer to be a specious and meretricious work, pandering to fears and hates, manipulating rather than massaging, the emotions of a film audience.  Performances were very spotty including the highly touted one by Peter Boyle in the title role, but this was one of the few films that didn’t go down like the proverbial Chinese dinner.  I know of no one that wasn’t talking about it days after seeing it, and talking with excitement and deep personal feeling.  In that manner, “Joe” succeeded.” – Donald Cragin, Boston Herald

5. WOODSTOCK

37 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT
Michael Wadleigh | 184 mins | Documentary/Musical
Joan Baez | Richie Havens | Roger Daltrey

“An award-winning photographer, Wadleigh captured some 120 hours of the famous rock festival on film and edited it down to about three hours of exciting motion picture.  He captured just aout everything that went on there and it was fascinating.” – Harry MacArthur, Washington Star

4. LITTLE BIG MAN

40 LISTS | 2 TOP SPOTS
Arthur Penn | 139 mins | Comedy/Western/Adventure
Dustin Hoffman | Faye Dunaway | Chief Dan George

“This film is more moving for what it wants to accomplish than for what it actually does.  Penn’s film is a tough testament to the contrariness of the American experience as survived by 120-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), who lived through every great moment of the winning of the west.” – Vincent Canby, New York Times

3. PATTON

60 LISTS | 10 TOP SPOTS
Franklin J. Schaffner | 172 mins | Biography/Drama/War
George C. Scott | Karl Malden | Stephen Young

“A big, remarkably well-made war movie that becomes exceptional because of George C. Scott’s brilliant portrayal of Gen. George S. Patton Jr.  He’s played more compellingly and with more dimension than is customary in a screen portrait of a military man.  The screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North is unusual for its intelligence, wit and impartiality. Franklin Schaffner directed the sprawling World War II pageant with impressive clarity and authority.” – Stanley Eichelbaum, San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle

2. M*A*S*H

63 LISTS | 7 TOP SPOTS
Robert Altman | 116 mins | Comedy/Drama/War
Donald Sutherland | Elliott Gould | Tom Skerritt

“”M*A*S*H” was about war and dying, yes.  It was also about how you’ve sometimes got to laugh in the face of death, to stay sane at all.  Yes.  And if we thought of it as a movie about people being funny and cruel to each other, just to distract themselves from the horror of mending bodies in a combat-area hospital, we were close to what “M*A*S*H” was about.  But as the year wore on, Robert Altman’s film also began to seem to be about camaraderie.  About people working together, doing something that needed doing.  Now, when I think about “M*A*S*H,” I can’t remember another movie in which the characters seemed to get along so well and naturally.  Camaraderie is perhaps more basic to war than blood, even.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

1. FIVE EASY PIECES

64 LISTS | 14 TOP SPOTS
Bob Rafelson | 98 mins | Drama
Jack Nicholson | Karen Black | Billy Green Bush

“Even in Biblical history we find agonizing communication gap between father and son (King Saul and Jonathan, for example) and in “Five Easy Pieces” a pianistically gifted son’s inability to communicate with a dying father who filled him with a love for fine music sounds the dominant theme of a great promise in human fulfillment dissipated and discarded in self-doubt and self-hate.  A film made memorable by Jack Nicholson’s remarkable performance as “the failure.”” – Sam Lesner, Chicago Daily News

Full List:

R	Film	L	#1	AR	L%	#1%	TCL	TCL1	TCL%	TCL1%
1	Five Easy Pieces	64	14	3.4	65%	25%	42	10	62%	25%
2	MASH	63	7	3.5	64%	13%	42	3	62%	8%
3	Patton	60	10	2.8	61%	18%	37	7	54%	18%
4	Little Big Man	40	2	5.1	39%	3%	25	2	37%	5%
5	Woodstock	37	1	6.6	38%	2%	25	0	37%	0%
6	Joe	37	0	6.3	37%	0%	25	0	37%	0%
7	Catch-22	36	2	5.3	37%	4%	20	1	29%	3%
8	Women in Love	34	1	5.0	35%	2%	27	0	40%	0%
9	Diary of a Mad Housewife	28	0	3.9	28%	0%	19	0	28%	0%
10	Fellini Satyricon	25	0	6.5	26%	0%	18	0	26%	0%
11	I Never Sang For My Father	26	0	7.5	25%	0%	15	0	22%	0%
12	The Passion of Anna	24	2	4.6	24%	4%	18	2	26%	5%
13	The Wild Child	22	2	6.2	22%	4%	17	2	25%	5%
14	The Boys in the Band	21	0	4.2	21%	0%	13	0	19%	0%
15	Lovers and Other Strangers	21	0	6.1	21%	0%	13	0	19%	0%
16	Tristana	21	0	6.1	21%	0%	18	0	26%	0%
17	Ryan's Daughter	20	3	4.9	20%	5%	11	1	16%	3%
18	My Night at Maud's	19	3	4.0	19%	5%	14	3	21%	8%
19	Love Story	18	1	4.1	18%	2%	15	1	22%	3%
20	Airport	16	0	5.8	16%	0%	11	0	16%	0%
21	Loving (1970)	14	0	6.1	14%	0%	12	0	18%	0%
22	The Confession	14	1	5.9	14%	2%	9	1	13%	3%
23	The Ballad of Cable Hogue	13	0	7.1	13%	0%	11	0	16%	0%
24	This Man Must Die	13	0	4.9	13%	0%	11	0	16%	0%
25	Scrooge	11	0	6.0	11%	0%	6	0	9%	0%
26	Goin' Down the Road	11	0	5.8	11%	0%	7	0	10%	0%
27	The Virgin and the Gypsy	10	0	8.4	10%	0%	7	0	10%	0%
28	Kes	10	0	6.8	10%	0%	8	0	12%	0%

Lists Included 98 | Top Critics’ Lists Included 68

R Rank
L Total number of lists where the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year
AR Average position on ranked top 10 lists
#1 Total number of lists where the film was selected as the best film of the year
L% Percentage of total lists where the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year
#1% Percentage of mentions where the film was selected as the best film of the year
TCL Number of times that the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL1 Number of times that the film was selected as the best film of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL% Percentage of times that the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL1% Percentage of lists where the film was selected as the best film of the year on top critics’ lists