10. THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
30 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT Fred Zinnemann | 143 mins | Crime/Drama/Thriller Edward Fox | Terence Alexander | Michel Auclair | Alan Badel
“Fred Zimmermann’s intelligent and stylish thriller made from Frederick Forsyth’s best seller, manages to be harrowingly suspenseful with a story about an unsuccessful plot to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. Since we know that the Jackal, played by Edward Fox, will not succeed on his deadly mission, the film is all the more commendable for keeping the viewer at the edge of his seat.” – Stanley Eichelbaum, San Francisco Examiner
9. SLEEPER
31 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT Woody Allen | 89 mins | Comedy/Sci-Fi Woody Allen | Diane Keaton | John Beck | Mary Gregory
“Woody Allen’s version of a brave new world in which sexual urges are satisfied by machines and nutritionists consider steak and French fries health food, is uproarious, the funniest film of the year. Woody stars as the sleeper of the title – having been cryogenically frozen for two centuries and then defrosted in the year 2173. He also co-wrote and directed the film, which reduces to the sublimely ridiculous follies of our plastic pop-culture.” – John Koch, Boston Herald
8. THE STING
32 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT George Roy Hill | 129 mins | Comedy/Crime/Drama Paul Newman | Robert Redford | Robert Shaw | Charles Durning
“The Sting represents a triumph of several diverse elements all dovetailed by George Roy Hill’s smooth direction into a gem of light entertainment. Solid acting from Robert Redford and Paul Newman, fine period effects to evoke a setting of depression-era Chicago, and a tightly written and carefully researched screenplay by David Ward that lays bare the “Big Con” gambling swindles of professional con artists in their hayday. The action grows progressively more engrossing towards the end, and the audience is sucked right into the climatic con game before they’re quite aware of it – but all in good fun.” – Donia Mills, Washington Evening Post
7. THE LAST DETAIL
36 LISTS | 0 TOP SPOTS Hal Ashby | 104 mins | Comedy/Drama Jack Nicholson | Randy Quaid | Otis Young | Clifton James
“The Last Detail gave us another memorable Jack Nicholson character, this time a Navy man named Buddusky. He and a buddy are assigned to escort a big hulk of a kid to the naval brig at Portsmouth, where he’ll do eight years for petty theft. The kid is guilty – he’s a compulsive thief – but he steals because he’s mixed up, dumb, unloved.
Buddusky and his partner decide to show the kid a good time before he’s locked up, and the three of them set off on a drunken, savage, sometimes funny odyssey through the earthier aspects of Washington and New York. The direction was by Hal (“Harold and Maude”) Ashby, who has a good feeling for the rhythms of scenes and especially, for Nicholson’s own timing.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
6. SERPICO
35 LISTS | 3 TOP SPOTS Sidney Lumet | 130 mins | Biography/Crime/Drama Al Pacino | John Randolph | Jack Kehoe | Biff McGuire
“Credit the performance of Al Pacino again, who must also be credited for the number 1 choice. Another bravura performance as the honest cop who blew the whistle on the graft-riddled New York Police Department.” – Elston Brooks, Fort Worth Star Telegram
5. BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY
36 LISTS | 1 TOP SPOT John D. Hancock | 96 mins | Drama/Sport Michael Moriarty | Robert De Niro | Vincent Gardenia | Phil Foster
“My original reaction to this film by John Hancock was slightly tempered after a second viewing. Still, I like the idea that, although it is about a dying baseball player and his friendship with the star of the team, it doesn’t settle for cheap emotion, sweet sentimentality or grandstand plays. What saves it from sliding into much is a stubbornly no-nonsense performance by Robert De Niro as the tobacco-chewing Georgia cracker who is losing the game of life.” – Kathleen Carroll, New York Daily News
4. PAPER MOON
41 LISTS | 4 TOP SPOTS Peter Bogdanovich | 102 mins | Comedy/Drama Ryan O'Neal | Tatum O'Neal | Madeline Kahn | John Hillerman
“Who could resist it? A tough, tiny girl who out-cons her con artist teacher in a nostalgic black and white movie by Peter Bogdanovich that used all the old film tricks and worked. Not a milestone, just a charmer.” – Joyce J. Persico, Trenton Evening Times
3. LAST TANGO IN PARIS
42 LISTS | 5 TOP SPOTS Bernardo Bertolucci | 129 mins | Drama/Romance Marlon Brando | Maria Schneider | Maria Michi | Giovanna Galletti
“Last Tango in Paris was more than a triumph of style for director Bernardo Bertolucci, and even more than the capital performance of Marlon Brando’s career. It was a fascinating story, told with a lush, brooding sincerity that held you in the grip of a man coming apart, using sex as a weapon, then as a language and finally – against all hope – as evidence of love. – David Elliott, Chicago Daily News
2. DAY FOR NIGHT
56 LISTS | 9 TOP SPOTS François Truffaut | 116 mins | Comedy/Drama/Romance Jacqueline Bisset | Jean-Pierre Léaud | François Truffaut | Valentina Cortese
“A merry movie on making movies, this film has director Truffaut himself in a central role. He’s the patient, resourceful fellow in charge of creating an entertainment out of so much celluloid and chaos. Apart from showing us how life is behind the scenes, which accounts for a lot of the film’s interest, Truffaut infuses the whole with contagious humor. It is so bubbly and show-bizzy a work, so good-natured, that it puts the movie fan behind the film buff and wheedles them right out of their differences.” – Susan Stark, Detroit Free Press
1. AMERICAN GRAFFITI
71 LISTS | 10 TOP SPOTS George Lucas | 110 mins | Comedy/Drama Richard Dreyfuss | Ron Howard | Paul Le Mat | Charles Martin Smith
“The year’s best American film, this popular portrait of small-town adolescents in 1962 has been widely misunderstood by both its critics (who accuse it of shallow nostalgia) and by many of its admirers (who seem to respond to it as shallow nostalgia). But what writer-director George Lucas has achieved is something quite complex and original: a half comic, half melancholy sketch of changing young America in the Kennedy years, of the dead-end 1950s world of “The Last Picture Show” right before it crumbles.” – John Hartl, Seattle Times
Full List:
| R | Film | L | #1 | AR | L% | #1% | TCL | TCL1 | TCL% | TCL1% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | American Graffiti | 71 | 10 | 4.68 | 71% | 14% | 17 | 1 | 59% | 6% |
| 2 | Day For Night | 56 | 9 | 4.12 | 54% | 13% | 20 | 3 | 69% | 18% |
| 3 | Last Tango in Paris | 42 | 5 | 3.58 | 42% | 8% | 15 | 0 | 52% | 0% |
| 4 | Paper Moon | 41 | 4 | 4.52 | 41% | 6% | 11 | 1 | 38% | 6% |
| 5 | Bang the Drum Slowly | 36 | 1 | 5.21 | 36% | 2% | 9 | 0 | 31% | 0% |
| 6 | Serpico | 35 | 3 | 5.04 | 32% | 4% | 13 | 2 | 45% | 12% |
| 7 | The Last Detail | 36 | 0 | 6.00 | 32% | 0% | 13 | 0 | 45% | 0% |
| 8 | The Sting | 32 | 1 | 6.76 | 31% | 2% | 11 | 0 | 38% | 0% |
| 9 | Sleeper | 31 | 1 | 6.50 | 30% | 2% | 11 | 0 | 38% | 0% |
| 10 | The Day of the Jackal | 30 | 1 | 5.44 | 30% | 2% | 7 | 0 | 24% | 0% |
| 11 | The New Land | 28 | 6 | 3.78 | 28% | 9% | 8 | 3 | 28% | 18% |
| 12 | Mean Streets | 29 | 0 | 4.81 | 28% | 0% | 9 | 0 | 31% | 0% |
| 13 | O Lucky Man! | 25 | 0 | 6.00 | 25% | 0% | 5 | 0 | 17% | 0% |
| 14 | The Long Goodbye | 22 | 2 | 5.90 | 22% | 3% | 6 | 1 | 21% | 6% |
| 15 | The Exorcist | 22 | 2 | 4.33 | 22% | 3% | 9 | 0 | 31% | 0% |
| 16 | Blume in Love | 18 | 1 | 6.83 | 18% | 2% | 8 | 1 | 28% | 6% |
| 17 | The Paper Chase | 18 | 0 | 7.38 | 18% | 0% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 18 | A Touch of Class | 17 | 0 | 7.00 | 17% | 0% | 1 | 0 | 3% | 0% |
| 19 | Don't Look Now | 18 | 1 | 6.00 | 17% | 2% | 3 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 20 | The Iceman Cometh | 16 | 1 | 5.00 | 16% | 2% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 21 | The Way We Were | 16 | 0 | 6.38 | 16% | 0% | 3 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 22 | State of Siege | 14 | 0 | 7.00 | 14% | 0% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 23 | The Homecoming | 14 | 0 | 6.86 | 14% | 0% | 3 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 24 | Save the Tiger | 13 | 0 | 4.86 | 13% | 0% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 25 | The Spider's Stratagem | 11 | 2 | 4.33 | 11% | 3% | 6 | 2 | 21% | 12% |
| 26 | The Friends of Eddie Coyle | 11 | 1 | 6.50 | 11% | 2% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 27 | Jesus Christ Superstar | 10 | 2 | 3.00 | 10% | 3% | 3 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 28 | The Last American Hero | 10 | 0 | 7.33 | 10% | 0% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 29 | Love | 10 | 0 | 5.00 | 10% | 0% | 8 | 0 | 28% | 0% |
| 30 | Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams | 10 | 0 | 8.00 | 10% | 0% | 4 | 0 | 14% | 0% |
| 31 | Cinderella Liberty | 10 | 0 | 8.17 | 9% | 0% | 3 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
Lists Included 100 | Top Critics’ Lists Included 29
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
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