30 Favorite Films of 1971
by Blue_Leaf | created - 26 Mar 2015 | updated - 09 Sep 2016 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Monty Python's and Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
PG | 88 min | Comedy
An anthology of the best sketches from the first and second seasons of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).
Director: Ian MacNaughton | Stars: John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam
Votes: 31,512
2. The Andromeda Strain (1971)
G | 131 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Top scientists work feverishly in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and how the deadly contagion can be stopped.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid
Votes: 40,464 | Gross: $3.42M
3. Bananas (1971)
PG-13 | 82 min | Comedy
When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalbán, Nati Abascal
Votes: 37,825 | Gross: $11.80M
4. A Bay of Blood (1971)
R | 84 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The murder of a wealthy countess triggers a chain reaction of brutal killings in the surrounding bay area, as several unscrupulous characters try to seize her large estate.
Director: Mario Bava | Stars: Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati
Votes: 12,719
Top 1000
5. The Beguiled (1971)
R | 105 min | Drama, Thriller, War
While recuperating in a Confederate girls' boarding school, a Union soldier cons his way into each of the lonely women's hearts, causing them to turn on each other, and eventually, on him.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris
Votes: 19,223
6. Bless the Beasts & Children (1971)
GP | 109 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of social misfits at a summer camp for boys run away to save penned-in buffaloes from a rifle club's slaughter.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Bill Mumy, Barry Robins, Miles Chapin, Darel Glaser
Votes: 1,582 | Gross: $0.21M
7. Carnal Knowledge (1971)
R | 98 min | Comedy, Drama
Chronicling the lifelong sexual development of two men who meet and become friends in college.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret
Votes: 14,904 | Gross: $28.62M
8. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 881,627 | Gross: $6.21M
Top 1000
9. Death in Venice (1971)
GP | 130 min | Drama, Romance
While recovering in Venice, sickly composer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio.
Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci
Votes: 23,045 | Gross: $0.15M
10. Dirty Harry (1971)
R | 102 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
When a man calling himself "the Scorpio Killer" menaces San Francisco, tough-as-nails Police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan is assigned to track down the crazed psychopath.
Directors: Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Andrew Robinson, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni
Votes: 168,370 | Gross: $35.90M
11. Duel (1971 TV Movie)
PG | 90 min | Action, Thriller
A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell
Votes: 78,436
12. The Emigrants (1971)
PG | 151 min | Drama, History
Småland, Sweden, mid-19th century. A farming family struggle with their rocky, unyielding land, and decide to embark on the arduous journey to new hope in America.
Director: Jan Troell | Stars: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Sven-Olof Bern
Votes: 7,470 | Gross: $1.16M
Top 1000
13. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
G | 181 min | Drama, Family, Musical
In pre-revolutionary Russia, a Jewish peasant with traditional values contends with marrying off three of his daughters with modern romantic ideals while growing anti-Semitic sentiment threatens his village.
Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon
Votes: 47,893 | Gross: $80.50M
14. The French Connection (1971)
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco
Votes: 135,761 | Gross: $15.63M
Top 1000
15. The Go-Between (1971)
GP | 116 min | Drama, Romance
A tale of torrid and forbidden love between a couple in the English countryside.
Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard, Margaret Leighton
Votes: 6,306 | Gross: $0.75M
16. Harold and Maude (1971)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack
Votes: 81,871
Top 1000
17. Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
R | 111 min | Drama, War
During World War I, a patriotic young American is rendered blind, deaf, limbless, and mute by a horrific artillery shell attack. Trapped in what's left of his body, he desperately looks for a way to end his life.
Director: Dalton Trumbo | Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Kathy Fields, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards
Votes: 18,358 | Gross: $0.55M
Top 1000
18. Klute (1971)
R | 114 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead: a connection with a New York prostitute.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Roy Scheider
Votes: 29,641 | Gross: $17.44M
Top 1000
19. The Last Picture Show (1971)
R | 118 min | Drama, Romance
In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied North Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson
Votes: 52,411 | Gross: $29.13M
Top 1000
20. Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
PG-13 | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History
During the sixteenth century, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots engages in over two decades of religious and political conflict with her cousin, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, amidst political intrigue in her native land.
Director: Charles Jarrott | Stars: Vanessa Redgrave, Glenda Jackson, Patrick McGoohan, Timothy Dalton
Votes: 4,882 | Gross: $2.33M
21. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
R | 120 min | Drama, Western
A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Old West mining town, and their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane
Votes: 27,663 | Gross: $8.20M
Top 1000
22. Murmur of the Heart (1971)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama
As France is nearing the end of the first Indochina War, an open-minded teenage boy finds himself torn between a rebellious urge to discover love, and the ever-present, almost dominating affection of his beloved mother.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michael Lonsdale
Votes: 10,853 | Gross: $0.35M
Top 1000
23. Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)
GP | 183 min | Biography, Drama, History
Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Michael Jayston, Janet Suzman, Roderic Noble, Ania Marson
Votes: 5,569 | Gross: $3.96M
24. The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
PG | 110 min | Drama
Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.
Director: Jerry Schatzberg | Stars: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright
Votes: 20,223
Top 1000
25. Play Misty for Me (1971)
R | 102 min | Drama, Thriller
The life of a disc jockey is turned upside down after a romantic encounter with an obsessed fan.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch
Votes: 31,933 | Gross: $11.80M
26. Shaft (1971)
R | 100 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A crime lord hires black private eye, John Shaft, to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Director: Gordon Parks | Stars: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John
Votes: 21,038 | Gross: $16.69M
27. Straw Dogs (1971)
R | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A young American and his English wife come to rural England and face increasingly vicious local harassment.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna
Votes: 64,527
Top 1000
28. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
R | 110 min | Drama
The emotional intricacies of a polyamorous relationship between young artist Bob and his two lovers: a lonely male doctor and a frustrated female office worker.
Director: John Schlesinger | Stars: Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson, Murray Head, Peggy Ashcroft
Votes: 7,068 | Gross: $0.54M
29. Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)
G | 91 min | Comedy, Romance, Western
A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.
Director: Burt Kennedy | Stars: James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan
Votes: 6,269 | Gross: $0.55M
30. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
R | 97 min | Action, Crime, Drama
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
Director: Melvin Van Peebles | Stars: Melvin Van Peebles, Hubert Scales, John Dullaghan, Simon Chuckster
Votes: 5,869 | Gross: $15.18M
31. 10 Rillington Place (1971)
GP | 111 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
What happened to the women at 10 Rillington Place? The story of British serial killer John Christie, who committed most or all of his crimes in the titular terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, John Hurt, Pat Heywood
Votes: 9,792
32. Two English Girls (1971)
130 min | Drama, Romance
At the beginning of the 20th century, middle-class young Frenchman Claude Roc meets young Englishwoman Ann Brown in Paris. They become friends and she invites him to spend holidays at the ... See full summary »
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Kika Markham, Stacey Tendeter, Sylvia Marriott
Votes: 5,865
33. Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
R | 102 min | Drama
While drag-racing through the American Southwest in a Chevrolet 150, a driver and his mechanic cross paths with an enigmatic hitchhiker and the tall-tale-spinning driver of a GTO.
Director: Monte Hellman | Stars: James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, Dennis Wilson
Votes: 13,428
Top 1000
34. Walkabout (1971)
GP | 100 min | Adventure, Drama
Two city-bred siblings are stranded in the Australian Outback, where they learn to survive with the aid of an Aboriginal boy on his "walkabout": a ritual separation from his tribe.
Director: Nicolas Roeg | Stars: Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil, Luc Roeg, John Meillon
Votes: 27,357 | Gross: $0.02M
Top 1000
35. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
G | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
A poor but hopeful boy seeks one of the five coveted golden tickets that will send him on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory.
Director: Mel Stuart | Stars: Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear
Votes: 227,484 | Gross: $4.00M
Top 1000
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