1975 was one of those years where cinema didn’t just show off—it reshaped the landscape. Spielberg invented the modern blockbuster with Jaws. Kubrick made aristocratic dystopia look gorgeous with Barry Lyndon. Altman wrangled chaos into brilliance with Nashville. And if you wanted something stranger, sleazier, or more politically charged, you had Pasolini, Herzog, and a wave of international filmmakers pushing boundaries that still feel shocking today. It was a year where Hollywood muscle met arthouse audacity, where pulp sat comfortably beside prestige, and where nearly every corner of film (from horror to melodrama to political documentary) delivered something unforgettable. So here it is: the best movies of 1975, a lineup that proves one year can hold multitudes, and that cinema in the mid-70s was firing on every cylinder imaginable.
These are the 50 Greatest Movies Turning 50 in 2025.
10. One Way or Another
ScreenAge Wasteland has always maintained a zero clickbait policy when it comes to articles, especially lists. We’ve never done a “greatest films you’ve never seen” list, but I’d argue, if the movies in said list truly haven’t been seen by anyone, is it still clickbait? I’m confident that not only have you not seen One Way or Another, you’ve never even heard of it, which is criminal since it’s a revolutionary, life-changing work of art that Criterion should’ve added to their collection decades ago. The only feature from the radical Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez (who also worked as an assistant director with Agnès Varda and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea before her untimely death at age thirty-one) is an extraordinary portrait of post-revolution Cuba.
The film is a love story between Mario, a factory worker shaped by old-school machismo, and Yolanda, a teacher trying to push progressive ideals. But it’s also a documentary about Cuba in the early years after the revolution, showing housing projects, class conflicts, and the attempt to build a new society. The two halves keep crashing into each other, forcing you to look at the romance through the lens of politics and the politics through the lens of daily life. It’s not polished. The performances are stiff, the editing can feel abrupt, and the documentary inserts come at you without warning. But that rawness is the point—it feels urgent, like it had to be made. Gómez was the first woman to direct a Cuban feature and clearly wasn’t interested in safe storytelling.
She wanted cinema to wrestle with gender, race, class, and the messy contradictions of revolution. And somehow, she did all of that inside a 78-minute film that still feels radical today. Technically, adding this film to the list is a bit of a cheat. Yes, it had its film festival debut in 1975, but it wasn’t officially released till two years later in Cuba and three years later in the United States. But being on this list would get more eyes on it than if I did a simple review of it or put it in some obscure movie list. Putting it up against the best films of one of the best movie years ever should demonstrate just how good it is. It’s not a smooth ride, but it’s powerful, passionate, and completely singular.
9. Picnic at Hanging Rock
While not a traditional horror film, Picnic at Hanging Rock is suffused with dread and atmosphere. On Valentine’s Day in 1900, three girls disappear during the eponymous outing – an excursion from their private girls’ school. In the aftermath, the emotional and mental pressure cooker affects everyone involved (and some who weren’t even there). While director Peter Weir (The Last Wave, Witness) adds details to the mystery, no satisfactory explanation is coming. Instead, we watch as a headmistress slowly goes mad, a girl loses everything she holds dear (including her life), and the school falls apart in the face of public condemnation. It’s been years since I last watched the film, but I remember it as almost like watching a haunting from the perspective of a ghost – seeing the terror, dismay, and dissolution of the people involved as through a haze, unable to affect anything, attached and yet somehow disconnected. It’s an eerie period piece that ended up becoming one of Australia’s most beloved films.
–Bob Cram
8. Love and Death
Woody Allen takes on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and every Russian cliché he can find in Love and Death and turns it into one of the funniest things he’s ever made. This is Allen at his silliest, before he decided he needed to be Ingmar Bergman with jokes. The film follows Boris (Allen), a cowardly intellectual drafted into the Napoleonic wars, and his cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton, already proving she’s the perfect comedic partner), as they stumble through philosophy, romance, and assassination plots with all the grace of a drunk Marx Brother. Every scene is stuffed with gags—slapstick, one-liners, parodies of Russian literature, even a little Looney Tunes-esque chaos. Allen debates morality with Death, ponders the futility of existence, and still manages to slip in a joke about wheat. It’s the rare spoof that feels both smart and incredibly dumb at the same time. Is it profound? Not really. But it’s a reminder that Allen was once capable of rapid-fire absurdism without drowning in self-seriousness. Love and Death is him firing on all comedic cylinders—before he slowed down to mumble about relationships for the next four decades.
7. Nashville
Nashville isn’t just a movie—it’s twenty-four movies happening at once. A sprawling, chaotic, funny, and deeply cynical tapestry of America wrapped in rhinestones and twang. It’s one of and earliest and best examples of hyperlink cinema that has rarer been equalled. Altman could juggle more subplots than a dozen clowns could juggle bowling pins. Set against the backdrop of the country music scene, Altman weaves together singers, wannabes, con men, groupies, politicians, and hangers-on, all orbiting the idea of fame like moths around a flaming jukebox. His signature overlapping dialogue and zoom-happy camerawork turn the film into a living organism. Everyone’s talking, singing, hustling, scheming. Some are delusional, some are tragic, some are just trying to get laid but they all share the same dream: to be seen, to be heard, to matter.
The cast of dreamers is so long, listing them would take up half the write up. It’s seemingly every incredible up and coming actor and screen stealing character actor of the decade somehow all shoved into one movie and they’re all hungry to own the film. Each character is fascinating, with all (or most) of the country performers all writing and singing their own songs. It’s an enthralling portrait of the desperate fight for fame that ends the only way Altman knows how: with violence. He pulls the rug out from under the spectacle, reminding you that America’s obsession with celebrity is just another performance, and sometimes the dream dies hard.
6. Dog Day Afternoon
Based on true events, Dog Day Afternoon captures the chaos of a Brooklyn bank robbery gone wrong. It’s a strange film at times, and being unfamiliar with the actual events that took place, it takes a few twists that I never expected. More importantly, Al Pacino delivers a career-defining performance as Sonny. He’s an extremely flawed man. Yes, he’s a criminal, but he manages to garner real sympathy as his desperation unfolds in real time. All with an entire city watching. Not to be overshadowed, John Cazale has never had a bad or even mediocre performance, and his quiet intensity here elevates everything.
It’s far more than just a crime drama, and far more than a sum of its parts. It’s a portrayal of identity, desperation, and media frenzy. It’s full of social commentary and has some really funny dark humour. Not many films have you willing kidnappers and bank robbers on, making you desperate for them to succeed. But Dog Day Afternoon pulls it off with ease.
–Lee McCutcheon
5. Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon is three hours of powdered wigs, candlelit duels, and some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous images ever put on film. It’s also the story of a complete bastard. Ryan O’Neal plays Redmond Barry, a man who schemes, seduces, cheats, and crawls his way up the social ladder—only to fall right back down it. The reason Barry Lyndon is one of the best films of all time is the fact that it marries the image with the story better than almost any other movie. The rise and fall of Redmond Barry is told so expertly by Kubrick, that it would make any list if that’s all it had to offer but it’s also one of the best shot films in history. Kubrick shoots it all like a series of 18th-century paintings come to life.
Every frame could hang in a museum. The candlelit interiors, the rolling landscapes, the way people barely move while the camera glides in on them—it’s immaculate. But under all that beauty is a story about emptiness: how ambition curdles, how success doesn’t satisfy, how history swallows men like Barry whole. It’s slow, it’s cold, and it’s perfect. A movie that dares you to get bored, then rewards your patience with scenes so stunning they feel like they were crafted by God Himself. Every single element is perfect. It’s an impeccably made masterpiece and the fact that it isn’t even Kubrick’s best, is a true testament to his abilities.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Not the first Monty Python film, but for my money the absolute best of them. (My wife prefers Life of Brian, though.) It’s one of the greatest comedic films I’ve ever seen, and quoting the (endlessly quotable) film ushers you into a shared world of Python fans. A world where it’s only a flesh wound, a herring may be required to chop down a tree, a witch weighs the same as a duck, and your favorite color is blue… no, yellow! (Aughhhh…) Still as enjoyable today as it was 50 years ago, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the funniest films of all time. A work of comedic genius that will probably still be causing laughs (and introducing fans to each other) 50 years from now.
–Bob Cram
3. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
One of my all-time favorite movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is a whirlwind of campy chaos, blending spooky vibes with outrageous characters who leap off the screen. This horror musical has catchy tunes that will have you humming the songs days after watching. And of course, the fantastic Tim Curry is giving an all-time performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, an eccentric bisexual transvestite scientist. Rocky Horror has garnered an incredible cult following, where people dress up as their favorite characters from the film, with several gags being acted out in the theater itself. Grab your fishnets, crank up the surround sound, and dive into this fun, unhinged masterpiece.
–Vincent Kane
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Half a century after its release, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest remains one of the most powerful films in American cinema. It makes me cry. It makes me laugh. And it breaks my damn heart. Still, watching McMurphy and his adopted family on their various adventures always manages to put a smile on my face. Directed by Miloš Forman and led by Jack Nicholson, it brilliantly captures the tension between a collection of loveable oddballs and oppressive authority. There’s something lovable about every one of the patients, which makes their small victories and heartbreaking defeats all the more impactful. On the other hand, the stone-faced master manipulator Nurse Ratched will never fail to make my blood boil. She plays one of the most unforgettable antagonists we’ve ever seen, perfectly embodying a quiet control mixed with devastating impact. Fifty years on, One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest feels as relevant as ever. It’s darkly funny, deeply moving, and a great reminder of why it’s important to have the courage to resist conformity.
–Lee McCutcheon
1. Jaws
There are movies and there are perfect movies. Jaws is a perfect movie. From that first scene of absolute terror to the final shot of Brody and Hooper swimming back to shore, the film delivers. Somehow, Spielberg and crew navigated a collection of disasters and setbacks, and rewrites to produce one of the great, classic films of all time. The first true blockbuster, the film that kept millions of people out of the water, the movie that made Steven Spielberg a star director. There’s no better or more entertaining film made in 1975, and it changed the way films have been made and marketed since. There’s nothing I can say about the film that hasn’t already been said a hundred times, but I always want to anyway. That the film still inspires such devotion and interest five decades after its release is a testament to just how damn good it is. Here’s to 50 more years of enjoying Jaws!
–Bob Cram
20-11
What are some of your favorite movies from 1975 that didn’t show up on the list? Share them with us down in the comments!
