The 1970s is widely accepted as a peak decade for cinema. Hollywood’s Golden Age, with its stars like Humphrey Bogart, came to a symbolic end after Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969). The filmmaking mantle had now passed to the next generation.

The 1970s saw the established careers of the New Hollywood auteurs: Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg et al. Meanwhile, the era was enriched by its blacksploitation, horror, counterculture and art films. This list will recommend ten 1970s movie classics that are certain to delight cinephiles.

1. Rio Lobo (1970)

During the American Civil War, Colonel Cord McNally’s (John Wayne) friend is killed by Confederates. With the help of his new sidekicks, McNally sets out to find the men responsible.

Rio Lobo was the last film of one of America’s preeminent directors: Howard Hawks, responsible for Scarface (1932), His Girl Friday (1940) and The Big Sleep (1946). Director Quentin Tarantino has stated that he will retire after making ten movies. He explains this is because “most directors have horrible last movies. The most cutting-edge artist, the coolest guys, the hippest dudes, they’re the ones that stay at the party too long. They’re the ones that make those last two or three movies that are completely out of touch and do not realise the world has turned on them. I don’t want to make Rio Lobo.”

Rio Lobo may be the last film in the style of Hollywood’s golden age, before New Hollywood conquered cinema. However, it is a far more accomplished and entertaining than Tarantino gives it credit for. With Hawks’ matured mastery, it is more fluid and effective than Tarantino’s favourite of the director’s films: Rio Bravo (1959). Firstly, Rio Lobo’s action set pieces are suspenseful and well-choreographed, specifically the thrilling train sequence at the beginning. Additionally, Rio Lobo has a well-structured script with a textbook premise. John Wayne annexes humour to his cowboy persona, through his exchanges with his associates. The ensemble causes Rio Lobo to excel as both a comedy and an exemplary western.

2. Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Two petrolhead drifters (musicians Dennis Wilson and James Taylor) and a hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) race a GTO driver (Warren Oates) across the USA.

One of Two-Lane Blacktop’s most curious features is its strange, meditative, existential atmosphere. It has awkward pauses, philosophical introspection and laconic protagonists. Like Easy Rider (1969), Two-Lane Blacktop is a seminal countercultural classic and one of cinematic history’s most iconic road movies. Stylistically, it is emblematic of the hippie era and its adventurous, bohemian spirit.

More deeply, however, the movie is a haunting expression of director Monte Hellman’s poetic sensibility and uniquely desolate worldview. Concurrently, Warren Oates imbues hillbilly comedy, whilst the ingenious Harry Dean Stanton makes a tragic, heartfelt cameo. The road trip itself serves as a metaphor for the characters’ emotional arcs, their sense of longing and feeling lost.

3. Straw Dogs (1971)

David (Dustin Hoffman) and Amy Sumner (Susan George) reside in a bucolic English village. The builders repairing their house become increasingly more hostile towards them.

Foremost, Straw Dogs is the unsettling, unpredictable peak of explosive grindhouse thrillers. It professes ominous, amplifying tension and shockingly gruesome action. Under the surface, however, Straw Dogs examines the English class system, socialism and a debate over morality. What makes the movie more frightening than a supernatural horror is its plausibility and the implications of its harrowing rape scenes.

As well as perhaps Sam Peckinpah’s strongest directorial effort, it is one of maestro Dustin Hoffman’s most memorable roles. He contributes the skill, nuance and intelligence which have come to characterise his storied career. Intensely visceral and impactful, Straw Dogs strips back human civilisation to primal savagery.

4. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) is an arms dealer facing life imprisonment. He accepts a bargain to spy on the Boston underworld.

At the forefront of The Friends of Eddie Coyle is Robert Mitchum’s career-best performance. In Out of the Past (1947), Mitchum became known for his hardboiled noir antiheroes, as well as villains, in pictures like The Night of the Hunter (1955). In this film, Mitchum is the antithesis of the cool he previously cultivated. Family man Eddie is tragic, hapless, softhearted and relatable, making him an pertinent avatar for the audience’s emotions.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ novel. His other work, Cogan’s Trade, was later adapted into Killing Them Softly (2012). True to Higgins’ source material, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is heavily dialogue-driven, whilst adhering to expertly crafted, fast-paced plotting. Capturing a distinct Boston regionality, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a classic of the genre and one of the most accomplished titles of the 1970s.

5. The Outfit (1973)

Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) sets out to take revenge against the mafia for the murder of his brother.

Primarily, The Outfit is a solidly entertaining crime movie, with all the gangster, hitman, shootout and caper trappings. It is an adaptation of a Donald E. Westlake novel. The genre-defining plot is elevated by Robert Duvall’s investment, supreme talent and flair for characterisation. He is supported by cult horror-favourite Karen Black, bringing her volatility and emotional intensity.

Undervalued, The Outfit began its life with a lukewarm response, but has since been reappraised. It is particularly recommendable to fans of groovy ‘70s crime movies, in search of their next watch. Moreover, The Outfit is an especial favourite of Quentin Tarantino, who praised it in his book Cinema Speculation. The film has had a noticeable influence upon Tarantino’s neo-noir style.

American cinema in the 1970s was so full, rich and varied that you could fill several volumes of books with overlooked and underrated gems. We all know and love the recognised masterpieces, the Oscar winners and quotable classics, but every film buff has their own list of movies that they wish more people had seen.

This is true of all decades of course, but one could argue that the seventies are more full of obscure bits of gold worth discovering than any other time. Join me, then, as I uncover ten more great American films from the 1970s, some more forgotten than others.

1. The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975)

Though the world knows and loves Gene Wilder for the legendary likes of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, his films with Richard Pryor (including Silver Streak and Stir Crazy), as well as his various collaborations with Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein), one true gem of his that has sadly become lost in time is the 1975 comedy, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother.

Written and directed by Wilder, he also takes the lead role as Sigerson Holmes, brother of the more famous Sherlock. As the movie begins, the legendary sleuth decides to lay low for a while and hands over a “difficult” case to his younger, less secure and considerably less brilliant sibling. The case leads him to Jenny Hill, a music hall singer played by Madeline Kahn, a shady crook named Eduardo Gambetti (Dom DeLuise) and Holmes’ great nemesis Moriarty (Leo McKern), all the while being assisted by the mild mannered Sgt. Sacker (Marty Feldman), a chap whose photographic memory proves incredibly helpful.

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother is a total treat from start to finish, the jokes coming thick and fast, and the highly quotable dialogue almost constant. Wilder’s script is both hilarious and genuinely well structured, encompassing song and dance routines, musical numbers, slapstick mayhem and clever wordplay. The performances are faultless, from Wilder’s lead effort to Kahn’s spectacular turn as Hill. One must also mention how funny DeLuise is here, while the ever reliable Roy Kinnear is also brilliant as Moriarty’s simple minded accomplice, Finney. (It’s also worth listening out for Mel Brooks’ voice cameo.)

The film was a massive hit at the time of release and was greeted warmly by critics. Sadly it isn’t as well known and loved today as it should be, at least in my opinion, and definitely deserves firm comedy classic status.

2. The Visitors (1972)

Elia Kazaan’s The Visitors concerns a young Vietnam vet named Bill (played by James Woods) who lives with his wife and son on her father’s farm. One day, two of his supposed buddies arrive, unannounced and out of nowhere. It turns out they are old army friends from ‘Nam, but the men harbour dark secrets from the past, which they are about to bring into Bill’s supposedly idyllic family life.

Low budget, raw and gritty, The Visitors has a tension running through it which is at times suffocating; even from the opening scene with the baby crying and the young couple’s early interactions, the unease bubbles and it’s clear something unpleasant will occur down the line. When the two soldiers arrive, it’s revealed that Bill is going to inform on his old allies, who raped and killed a girl in Vietnam, and the unease one feels at the very start is justified.

The Visitors was scripted by Elia’s son Chris and was shot around the Kazan country house. Creaky in parts, its rough and readiness actually works in the film’s favour. The film was inspired by true events, and written as a kind of sequel to Daniel Lang’s article on the infamous Incident on Hill 192. Lang himself later expanded it into a book, Casualties of War, which was brought to the screen by Brian De Palma in 1988.

Naturally, given its source material, The Visitors is engaging, but for me the main reason to watch it today is for Woods, for the first time the star of a film. As far as starring debuts go, it’s remarkably assured and he shows early promise, completely at one with his character. It may be the most obscure Kazaan movie there is, but it proved that the old master still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

3. The Crazies (1973)

Just as Night of the Living Dead defined the modern zombie movie and started off decades of imitations and reimaginings of the slow moving undead scenario, The Crazies arguably single-handedly invented the highly popular panicky apocalyptic pandemic movie. Without The Crazies, there’d be none of those high paced fright fests consisting of fast moving, foamy mouthed infected fiends out to feast upon you and tear you limb from limb.

In a world without The Crazies, there’s no Rabid, no Shivers, no 28 Days Later, no Cabin Fever; the list goes on. But while Night of the Living Dead’s mighty influence is voiced time and again in both horror and mainstream circles, widely recognised by even the most casual of horror fans as the singular daddy of the zombie flick, The Crazies’ appeal is more cult, underground, and as Romero himself would say, trollish. It might have made only a small dint of impact at the time of its release, but The Crazies is another one of Romero’s terrifying, traumatic gems which has lasted through time and remains a classic after all these decades.

The plot starts with a plane crashing in Pennsylvania, which releases a mysterious virus which gets into the water supply (Cabin Fever anyone?) and begins to turn the town’s folk utterly mad and homicidal in their urges. Back in the early 70s, what with the Cold War and Vietnam still very much clogging up the air, The Crazies must have been a distressing film to watch. But now, a time where we are constantly on our toes waiting for the next horrifying news items of bloody terrorism and mass hysteria, it’s hardly a pleasant watch. It’s bleak, claustrophobic, and totally plausible too.

In The Crazies, Romero tells us we are helpless against the establishment and their decisions, no matter how hurriedly they are acted out. It’s chilling to think that if they wanted us sealed off, shot, disposed of, or out of the picture all together, they’d be able to achieve that in very little time and have a reasonable explanation for doing so. Despite its obvious technical imperfections then, this is a very important film, the first in a sub-genre that gradually grew out of its low key arrival.

4. Time After Time (1979)

Despite being a star since the start of the decade, Malcolm McDowell’s first above the title Hollywood blockbuster was 1979’s Time After Time, an exciting sci-fi adventure with a potentially daft plot premise which, largely because of the appealing performances, manages to stay grounded. Once you get over the initial ludicrous plot, which involves HG Wells perusing Jack the Ripper through 1970s USA after they transport from the 1890s in a time machine, you will enjoy this film. Wells feels he has to stop this killer and save the future from his menace, a future which he believes will be some Heavenly Utopia. What follows is a light suspense thriller with surprisingly gory murder scenes and a quick pace.

Nicholas Meyer’s direction is suffocatingly tense and his script is very clever at times. One of the most chilling and poignant moments in the film is when the positive, almost naive Wells’ dark realisation that the future is a scary place, and nothing at all like his hopeful vision. Worse still, within this sobering reality, Jack the Ripper is an amateur in comparison to what horror 1970s America has to offer. Light relief is had in the romantic sub plot which involves McDowell and Mary Steenburgen as a bank clerk. The duo are incredibly charming together, and there was obviously more than acting going on. Indeed, the two actors fell in love on set and later married.

McDowell, for once not playing the villain, is marvellous, showing a side to his talent that is criminally underused. He perfects his role as the overwhelmed gentleman; soft spoken, well mannered, kind and sensitive, qualities that none of his previous roles had so strongly. David Warner, who is quite simply one of the most reliable actors of all time, is great as the frighteningly unpredictable villain; tense, strange and sinister. Although it may have aged a bit, Time After Time is still a classic piece of Hollywood fun, with plenty of thrills and some simply wonderful moments. It also deserves as lot more attention in retrospective views on 1970s cinema.

5. Murder by Decree (1979)

The cinematic world of Sherlock Holmes is a varied and endlessly entertaining place, full of both straight forward adaptations of Doyle’s classic stories and more experimental, imaginative fare. Definitely among the latter is 1979’s Murder by Decree, an all star romp which has a genuinely clever premise and runs with it without becoming tiresome.

Directed by Bob Clark, and with a screenplay by John Hopkins (based on the book The Ripper File by John Lloyd and Elwyn Jones), it stars Christopher Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Watson, who are on the trail of Jack the Ripper in late 1880s Whitechapel. There’s a wonderful supporting cast which includes David Hemmings as Inspector Foxborough, alongside Donald Sutherland, Frank Finlay and John Geilgud.

The plot premise has been used again, but the idea of Holmes setting his sights on the Ripper was an inspired one at the time. Clark directs beautifully, transporting the viewer back to the shadowy atmosphere of late 19th century London, and the script stays subtle and grounded while still delivering the goods and keeping you guessing until the final reel.

Murder by Decree was a modest success upon release and the critics loved it too. As the years have gone by, however, it has slowly faded away, though it does pop up on TV now and then. It’s one of those enjoyable experiences where you find yourself spoilt rotten by the general fun and the dazzling cast, which is full tot he brim with the kind of solid actors we took for granted in days gone by.

Though we all know America wasn’t the only country putting out solid cinema through the the 1970s, one cannot deny that Hollywood was going through a new golden period. Independent features and major studio films alike were garnering critical acclaim while also getting bums on to cinema seats, in what was arguably the richest and most revolutionary period in film history. This was the era of New Hollywood, when the young mavericks were given free reign over the Hollywood studios, thrown stacks of cash to realise their cinematic dreams. Some were hits, others were not so successful, but even many of the so-called flops were at the very least interesting. The lunatics had briefly taken over the asylum, and the results were extraordinary.

The 1970s were crammed full of outrageously good movies, more than I could ever put into a hundred lists. Below, then, are ten choice cuts which may have gone under your film-viewing radar…

1. Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)

One of the now lesser known films from Dustin Hoffman’s golden period is the curious Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, in which he plays rock composer Georgie Soloway, looking for the man of the title who’s been spreading lies about him. (To not spoil it for first time viewers, Kellerman’s true identity is very surprising.) The film follows Soloway’s life in the passing of one day, delving into his psychological troubles, his tormented past and his weirdest fantasies.

Then at the height of his stardom, Dustin was attracted to the part because it was a deep character he could really get to grips with, and as it was a small, lowish budget film, he was destined to be at the very centre of it. It was also a drastically different character to what viewers had seen him play before, at least on the screen. Only four years earlier he’d embodied post-teen, pre-adulthood frustration in The Graduate, and played the ultimate outsider in Midnight Cowboy. And here he was, playing an even more complex part, a man who wrote love songs for a living but had never had a meaningful relationship of his own.

It may have been a good opportunity for Hoffman the actor (it was rather like one of the stage roles he’d played in the mid sixties), yet commercially speaking it was suicide after the smash hits that came before it. But Hoffman was not commercially minded, thankfully, and he took roles for their artistic worth, not the pay cheque attached to them.

Ulu Grosbard, who would work with Dustin again at the end of the 1970s, directs this free flowing, experimental and often daring film with just the kind of showiness it needs. The savage critical mauling it received at the time was hardly valid, for it’s certainly an entertaining and ambitious effort that deserves applauding for what it aims at more than damning for what it is.

2. Day of the Locust (1975)

Based on Nathaniel West’s book, the film is set in pre-war Hollywood, following newly graduated Tod Hackett’s arrival in tinsel-town to work as a painter for a movie studio. Moving into an apartment block, he meets various characters, such as aspiring movie star Faye (Karen Black), and shy accountant Homer Simpson (really), played with beautiful understatement by Donald Sutherland.

A savage satire on Hollywood, the film veers towards the nightmarish at times, with touches of visual horror, and is unflinching in its criticisms of the Hollywood machine. Though certain Hollywood insiders might judge the film for its harshness, and in the way it presents Hollywood as a corrupt place that wrecks hopes and dreams, they might also see more than a touch of reality within its multi-faceted, often disturbing take on the land that promises riches and fame, but often delivers the exact opposite.

What deepens the blow of course is the fact it’s shot by one of Hollywood’s great outsiders, John Schlesinger, who made some of the finest American films of his era, perversely through the curious lens of a Brit, a man on the outside looking in while paradoxically being welcomed and celebrated. That said, it perhaps took such an alien eye to achieve what Day of the Locust does. Had an American made the film, it’s doubtful there would have been as much venom in the bite as there is.

Direction aside, the acting is stellar. Though Sutherland is undeniably strong in the picture, the players who garnered the most praise were Karen Black and Burgess Meredith, who was cast as her father. All the cast are great in fact, the script is sharp and the plot keeps you hooked the whole way through. An often overlooked little gem.

3. Doc (1971)

The 1970s marked a second golden period for the American western. Many of the finest entries in the genre were rather unconventional, like Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (1970) and The Missouri Breaks (1976), Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) and Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971). One of the best of the early seventies, in my view, is the Frank Perry-directed Doc, with Stacy Keach cast as the notorious Doc Holiday.

In this gritty, raw version of the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Coral, scripted by Pete Hamill, Faye Dunaway is Kate Elder, who hooks up with Doc early on in the film on his way to look for Wyatt Earp, played here by the great Harris Yulin. When Doc meets up with the Earps, he and the boys are faced with the menacing “Cowboys” who don’t take kindly to Earp’s ruling of their dusty old town

Doc is a western that focuses on character development and interaction rather than action and over the top shoot outs. While we get to see the famous OK Coral Gunfight, it lasts for under a minute, and it’s right at the end of the picture. What we do get are a group of stellar performances, all note perfect in their execution, from a very fine cast. Perry’s direction takes you up close to the mud and the grit, while Hamill’s script leaves the cast a lot of room to flesh out their parts. Keach is fantastic, nailing the former dentist turned Wild West hero, and he broods accordingly through the whole picture. But he makes him a well rounded character too, which is very important to note, bringing Doc out of the history books and into the world of the contemporary.

While I feel Doc is rather underrated, it thankfully does have its fans, and is widely available. Well worth seeking out is the special edition Blu-ray version which features new interviews with Faye Dunaway and Keach, who recall their memories of the movie.

4. The New Centurions (1972)

The New Centurions (1972) stars the unfairly often-overlooked Stacy Keach and George C Scott, the latter who had recently won an Oscar for his performance in Patton. Based on Joseph Wambaugh’s popular book, it was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars Keach as Roy, one of three rookie cops (the other two are Scott Wilson and Erik Estrada) who ends up being assigned a new partner, grizzled veteran Andy Kilvinski (George C Scott), who has some rather interesting methods in keeping the streets clean, some of which do not sit well with the younger yet more traditional officers, Roy included.

Like much of Wambaugh’s work, the film focuses on the pressures of living life as a law enforcer, and how obsessive the job can become. Roy’s marriage suffers greatly due to his fixation on his work, and he starts to comfort himself with the bottle. The finale is tragic, but it does make one stop and think of the toll that life on the force can take.

In preparation for their roles, the cast underwent strict police training, under the insistence of Joe Wambaugh. When observing the actors in their roles, they seem so natural in their uniforms that you’d swear they were real cops – that is, if you didn’t recognise them from other films. Scott is as strong and intimidating as ever, and Wilson is particularly good as one of the rookies. Keach is fabulous as Roy, the cop who struggles juggling life on the beat and life back home when the badge is removed. It’s a dedicated, full performance with a complete arc within the framework of the picture, and Keach makes him a character we genuinely feel and care for. His interactions with Scott are hugely enjoyable, especially in the early parts of the picture, and his downward spiral makes for harrowing viewing.

5. Martin (1977)

It may have been George A Romero’s favourite of his own movies, but nearly 50 years on, for me at least, it is also his most disturbing. As Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hopper pointed out, it’s not the ghouls you should be scared of, but the real people. Martin goes by this rule and from the word go is an uncomfortable, unsettling and fiendish experience. It is also brilliant.

John Amplas delivers a tour de force career best performance as Martin, a young man with vampiric allusions, a fantasist who dreams gothic visions of seduction and isolation, a daydreaming outcast who sees himself as the victim of torch-holding mobs in these strange dark fantasies. Not just a day dreaming loner, we also know Martin is dangerous and twisted from the word go. In one of the film’s most disturbing scenes, Martin kills a young woman on a night train, injects her with drugs, slits her wrist open and drinks her blood.

The young Martin is taken in by Cuda, his granduncle, where he takes shelter with the old man and his daughter, Martin’s cousin. Cuda believes Martin is a full on vampire, warning him off his daughter by using clichéd methods as a threat (garlic, crosses etc.), thus heightening Martin’s sense of egomaniacal power. Martin feels victimised, but Cuda’s fears are justified.

The clever thing about Martin is that Romero never really lets us know what is real, fantasy or a product of fear, in this case a deep fear of the vampire. Martin lives like a vamp, but even he admits to his granduncle that “there’s no real magic.” Romero has never been too interested in supernatural explanations, and in all his Dead movies only really alludes to why the dead are coming back to life. It’s all left to the mystery, the imagination, which makes the films age better and not appear silly down the line with dated technological or scientific theories. Martin is very much the same, as it’s left to us to decide what Martin really is.

Although Amplas is great in the film (as are some of the supporting cast), the star of the show, once again, is George A. Romero, stripping the vampire legend bare and exposing the grit beneath the usual glamorous polish. His camera work nails the demythologisation sublimely, as does the hard edged, harsh, spiky cinematography. It’s a glimpse into the diary of a mad man, and no punches are pulled.

Martin didn’t make much of an impact back in the day, but is now seen as something of a horror gem. But is it really horror? It certainly has its moments of horror, but these scenes are more real, gut wrenching and sickening, just as believable as the brutal slayings in Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and as psychologically complex as Silence of the Lambs. It’s a very intelligent, deep character study, and also a reflection of teenage isolation, loneliness and despair, feelings which for the luckier ones tend to leave our systems as we leave our teens. Is Martin the ultimate teenage nightmare?

The New Hollywood boom of the 1970s was full of undisputed landmarks, undeniable masterpieces which we all look back on with reverence. But one cannot deny that there are far more buried gems than lauded classics from that rich and varied period in filmmaking history. Indeed, for every Godfather there are dozens of unsung gems hidden away in the annals of time. Though one might get frustrated that the movies we love don’t get their due credit, there is much joy to be had in digging deep into that era and finding the gold beneath the thick layers of dust.

It would be easy for most film buffs to list a thousand overlooked American films from the 1970s. To start with then, here are ten notable omissions. from the officially recognised classic category.

1. A Safe Place (1971)

Henry Jaglom’s A Safe Place follows Noah (Tuesday Weld), a young woman living alone in New York who looks back to her childhood, “her safe place” from long ago. She has flashbacks to an enigmatic street magician she met as a child, played by a wonderful Orson Welles, while getting through two relationships, one of which is with the modern and hip Mitch, played nicely by Jack Nicholson.

The film is a moody and imaginative trip inside Noah/Susan’s head and is crammed full of marvellous imagery. Apparently put together from 50 hours of footage, Jaglom’s film is pure and full of soul. His central character is an isolated flower child, but the film works effectively away from its early 1970s framework. Indeed, there is no way anyone could place this among the more dated films of the late sixties and early seventies because it seems, thanks to Jaglom’s vision, completely of its own time.

Weld is superb in the film, in what might be her most free and liberated performance. Giving her room to breathe and express herself, Jaglom made way for a truly stunning effort. In a way, what Weld does in this film is not a performance or display of “acting”, but a kind of being. She is child-like but also a woman in every way, and Jaglom gifts her the room to be playful and inventive. Though Weld holds the film together in some ways, Orson Welles has the showier, more charismatic part. He is tremendous in fact, and for me it exists as one of the finest bits of acting he did for another director. For Jaglom, it was a dream to direct Welles, a man he had always admired and very much wanted for his own debut feature.

A Safe Place was regarded as a key feminist movie upon release, and though it did next to no box office, it has since garnered a cult following, like much of Jaglom’s work. I view it as a free, liberated, exciting bit of introspective cinema, an experiment few if any filmmakers would dare to make these days. “It’s a film about the loss of innocence,” Jaglom later said. “About how dwelling on the seemingly beautiful past is really a killer and stops you from being able to live in the present and function for the future.” A message we can all learn from I believe.

2. Alex in Wonderland (1970)

A film that too often gets completely ignored is Paul Mazursky’s flawed but extremely interesting, Alex in Wonderland (1970), a self-referential, Fellini-esque take on the life of a filmmaker and his daily struggles. In the lead role of Alex, Donald Sutherland – newly famous thanks to roles in such landmark films as MASH and Kelly’s Heroes – gives a controlled, reliable effort, and even though he is playing the artistically insecure type, his presence does provide the film with a certain grounded quality it requires, especially given there is no plot holding it together. But the whole thing is a lot of fun; Mazursky’s playful direction keeps things entertaining, and Sutherland is engaging throughout.

It also features a highly memorable cameo from Fellini himself, only a few years before he would cast Sutherland in his version of Casanova. Sutherland later said he was just plain wrong for the part of Alex, and also confessed that he had turned down the lead in Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs in order to work with Mazursky. (Sutherland as the mathematician turned primal male in Straw Dogs is one of the great what-ifs in cinema history.)

Like Henry Jaglom, Mazursky is an important voice from the New Hollywood boom but one who too often gets overlooked completely. This gem is well worth the time of any fan of character-focused American cinema.

3. I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

Gene Hackman received his second Oscar nomination for his part in I Never Sang For My Father (1970), a role that changed his career for the better. Directed by Gilbert Cates, it was written by Gilbert Cales who adapted it from his own hit play. In the picture, Hackman plays college professor Gene Garrison, a widow who lives in the shadow of his domineering father, Tom, played by Melvyn Douglas.

The film begins with Gene “enjoying” a night with his parents, and the constant jibes from his dad replaying in his mind as he returns home. When the mother is hospitalized with a heart attack, and dies soon after, Gene finds himself spending more time with his dad, resulting in much tension and discomfort. At the same time, Gene’s girlfriend Peggy actually warms to old Tom, all the while Gene is hatching a plan to get remarried and leave his old man behind for a new life. This leads to crippling inner conflicts for the younger man.

I Never Sang For My Father, as with other pictures about inner conflicts from this era, is not a film one can get a genuine idea of from the plot outline alone. Like the same year’s Five Easy Pieces, another melancholic drama dealing with father issues, the gold is in the performances, the interactions between the main characters, and the tension in the air. It is Hackman who makes the film what it is, giving a subtle, multi layered effort where he says more in gestures and silences than in any choice of words. The love for his father is there underneath the surface; it’s just getting it out there and expressing the emotion which is the challenge. Yet it’s a challenge Hackman as an actor is willing to take, and he tackles it beautifully with grace.

I Never Sang For My Father is undoubtedly all but forgotten and is probably only known by Hackman die-hards. It deserves a proper re-release, and a re-appraisal for that matter.

4. Prime Cut (1972)

After his glorious moment at the Oscars, winning Best Actor for The French Connection, Gene Hackman continued to work solidly. Some of the films were major blockbusters (Poseidon Adventure), others more arty fare. Prime Cut (1972) is sadly one of the less talked-about films he made in the early to mid 1970s. Directed by Michael Ritchie, it follows Lee Marvin as Nick, an enforcer sent from Chicago by the mob to retrieve a debt of £500,000 from Kansas City meat industry tycoon “Mary Ann”, played with menace by Hackman. But this is no straight forward gangster shoot ’em up.

There are hints of homosexuality between Mary Ann and his twisted brother, and more disturbingly there is a sub plot where Nick saves a young girl (played by Sissy Spacek) from Mary Ann’s human sex slave sale, where the teens are drugged and taken away by the highest bidder. On top of this is the fact that, at the film’s very start, it’s clear that Mary Ann has arranged for one of the Chicago mob’s men to be mashed up and processed into sausage meat.

All this, it’s fair to say, made the picture pretty controversial in 1972. It may leave a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth, but it’s bold, brilliantly acted and finely constructed. It’s so well written in fact that it literally flies by, and it’s peppered with quotable dialogue. There is a statement being made here about meat as a concept, as dead flesh, the price of flesh, and the value of human beings when compared to our more primitive friends who are bought, sold and processed. But for the most part it’s just an exciting, utterly involving thriller. Marvin is the solid hero, while Hackman is pure sleaze as Mary Ann, a creep who runs his empire with ruthless abandon, unconcerned with the world outside his realm of seediness.

5. The Dion Brothers (1974)

One long-buried gem whose obscurity seems particularly unfair is The Dion Brothers, also known as The Gravy Train. Directed by Jack Starrett and co-written by Terence Malick under the name David Whitney, the picture is almost ludicrously entertaining from start to finish.

It follows the Dions, Calvin and Rut, played by Stacy Keach and Frederic Forrest, in their misadventures as criminals across America. Early in the picture, the two ex-coal miners pack their jobs in and agree to help out in an armed robbery that initially goes well but turns out to have been set up so the Dions will take the fall while the organisers, Tony (Barry Primus) and Carlo (Richard Romanus), get away. But the Dions are sharper than they are given credit. Escaping a police ambush disguised as cops, they head out on the road for revenge, swearing to track down the weasel who left them for dead.

First off, the script is plain hilarious, littered with little nuggets of urban wit and end-of-your-seat scenarios. The acting is terrific too; Keach is the cool, moustached older brother, a smooth con man who has his wits about him; Forrest is the fool hardy pup with a short fuse and a willingness to go extreme pretty quickly. The chemistry between the pair carries the film along nicely, and it’s surprising that in no time at all, as much as you are enjoying proceedings, the film zooms by in a flash.

The film was all but ignored upon release, but thankfully has developed a bit of a cult following as the years have gone by, with one fan being Quentin Tarantino, who at one point even wanted to remake the picture. Even Guillermo Del Toro loves it, having once being quoted as saying: “Every person on the fucking planet should see this movie, it’s a classic!”

Sadly, despite its cult film credentials, it still hasn’t had an official physical release yet. Hopefully one day it will get a proper Blu-ray release with all the trimmings.