It was, to put it mildly, a monster of a year in movies, one that gave us maybe the strongest Best Picture class ever, so let’s look back at a few.
Jaws
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Jaws dominated the year, grossing $260 million in North America and $470.7 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of the year. It overtook The Godfather as the highest-grossing film ever, a title it would hold until Star Wars came along. By any measure, Jaws was 1975’s king.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest netted a worldwide $108.9 million, so audiences were hungry for drama too. Only two films grossed over $100 million in 1975, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was one of them. This film won Best Picture that year.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show presents an interesting look at how initial box office performance doesn’t tell the whole story. The film was initially released to scathing reviews and a tepid box office in its 1975 run, but went on to be a cult phenomenon.
Dog Day Afternoon
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Dog Day Afternoon earned $50 million worldwide (while Shampoo brought in $49.4 million worldwide). Both films connected with audiences who wanted mature, complex storytelling, but Dog Day Afternoon is definitely my favorite of the two. Sidney Lumet’s Al Pacino-starrer is a masterpiece of true crime storytelling.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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Honestly, a miracle of moviemaking from the Monty Python troupe that gave us some iconic lines that persist in nerd circles to this day. The film grossed more than any other British film screened in the U.S. in 1975.
Grey Gardens
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1975 also produced several critically acclaimed films that found more limited commercial success. Grey Gardens, the Maysles brothers’ documentary about the eccentric Beale relatives of Jackie Kennedy, was first released in the United States at the New York Film Festival on September 27, 1975. It remains endlessly quotable and influential in documentary filmmaking.
Nashville
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Robert Altman’s Nashville was a sprawling, three-hour tapestry of American life that managed to feel both epic and intimate, featuring twenty-four characters and multiple musical numbers. The film wasn’t a box office success, making only $9 million, but it earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Keith Carradine’s song “I’m Easy.”
Barry Lyndon
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Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon represented the director at his most visually stunning, shot entirely with natural light using specially adapted NASA lenses. I can see how audiences in the summer of Jaws might have found the sprawling story a bit drab, but it’s a beautiful film that holds up decades later.
Three Days of the Condor
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Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor is a post-Watergate thriller with some of the tightest editing you can find, which landed it an Oscar nom. The film’s themes about government conspiracy and oil politics feel eerily modern.
Mirror
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1975 also marked the release of one of the most challenging films from outside the Hollywood system. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror faced censorship issues and was given a limited release in the Soviet Union (including just two theaters in Moscow that year).
Looking at these films, we can see that 1975 was the year audiences embraced everything from popular entertainment to sophisticated drama. And we know there are a ton of great movies from the year that we missed—let us know your favorites.
