The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) ’70s Action Movies

The 1970s are considered one of the best decades for unbridled action. However, the era also had its fair share of action duds.

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After the “New Hollywood” movement began in the late 1960s, it was kicked into full swing throughout the 1970s. As Hollywood’s cinematic output in general was getting darker and more cynical, action movies got grittier and more violent. The Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War turned the national conversation toward questioning authority.

This led to movies about crooked cops and gang warfare and vengeful architects taking the law into their own hands. There was also a Bond movie starring Christopher Lee as a villain with three nipples. So, here are the five best, and five worst, action movies of the ‘70s.

10 Best: Enter The Dragon (1973)

Cementing Bruce Lee’s place as one of the greatest action movie legends of all time right before his untimely death, Enter the Dragon is a masterpiece of martial arts cinema. It follows a Shaolin martial artist who’s recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate a drug trafficker’s island by competing in his martial arts tournament.

The plot is designed to give Lee as many chances as possible to show off his superpowers, and it pays off in spades for fans of action cinema.

9 Worst: French Connection II (1975)

For all intents and purposes, John Frankenheimer directed a perfectly serviceable police thriller when he helmed the sequel to William Friedkin’s The French Connection. However, inevitable comparisons have to be drawn with the original, and the original is one of the greatest crime films ever made. Frankenheimer’s movie seems by-the-numbers when compared to Friedkin’s subversive masterpiece.

Popeye Doyle’s drug addiction subplot drags down the plot, while the climactic shootout is predictable. Plus, the sequel as a whole inherently undoes the genius of the original French Connection’s ambiguous ending.

8 Best: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Opening with the iconic Union Jack parachute jump and escalating to submarine warfare and the near-outbreak of World War III, The Spy Who Loved Me is the peak of Roger Moore’s Bond years. It uses the Bond plot formula perfectly, with all the fresh, yet familiar pieces fitting together in harmony and plenty of riveting action sequences to bat.

Carly Simon’s brilliant theme song, “Nobody Does It Better,” the first 007 theme not to share its title with the movie it’s in, is the catchy icing on the cake.

7 Worst: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

It would be an understatement to say that, throughout the Roger Moore era, the James Bond movies got kind of ridiculous. But the height of that ridiculousness – when it stopped being fun and started causing eyes to roll – was The Man with the Golden Gun.

From Christopher Lee playing a three-nippled villain to an absurd slide whistle sound effect ruining one of the greatest car stunts ever captured on film, The Man with the Golden Gun really took the cake.

6 Best: Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

Hugely controversial upon its release for bluntly depicting the murder of a little girl, Assault on Precinct 13 is one of the grimiest, most violent, most visceral action thrillers of the 1970s.

From the mind of the great John Carpenter, it transplants the gun-toting action of Rio Bravo and the intense claustrophobia of Night of the Living Dead into a police station as it comes under fire from a sadistic, dozens-strong gang.

5 Worst: Airport 1975 (1974)

The star-studded disaster movie was one of the most popular genres in the 1970s. It led to some great movies, like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, but it also led to some not-so-great movies, like Airport 1975.

It concerns a passenger jet whose flight is interrupted by a collision that wipes out everyone who’s qualified to land the plane. If that sounds like Airplane!, it’s because Airplane! was heavily influenced by it – except the absurdity of Airport 1975 is unironic.

4 Best: Dirty Harry (1971)

The American action hero was changed forever when Clint Eastwood started playing grizzled, rule-breaking, tough-as-nails cop Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry. Long gone was the idealized John Wayne hero; the reign of the questionable antihero could begin.

The uncredited script work by John Milius and Terrence Malick can be seen in the movie’s overtly political themes and aggressive disregard for Hollywood norms.

3 Worst: White Line Fever (1975)

Before Jan-Michael Vincent was most famous for appearing in an interdimensional movie trailer in Rick and Morty, he took on corruption in the trucking industry in 1975’s White Line Fever.

Vincent’s performance is fun and there’s some decent action, but the movie is irrevocably marred by the fact that the filmmakers clearly have no knowledge of the world of trucking.

2 Best: Death Wish (1974)

Perfectly encapsulating the anti-establishment tone of ‘70s American cinema, Death Wish stars Charles Bronson as an architect whose wife and daughter are attacked by hoodlums and then failed by the ensuing legal proceedings. So, he decides to take the law into his own hands.

There have been a ton of vigilante movies over the years – many of them direct knockoffs of Death Wish – but this Bronson-starring gem is arguably still the genre’s pinnacle.

1 Worst: Rollerball (1975)

Arriving as the big-budget studio-mounted alternative to Death Race 2000, Rollerball takes audiences to a dystopian future controlled by corporate greed where social issues have all boiled down to a violent sport. As with the big-budget studio-mounted alternative to anything, very few critics and moviegoers were impressed by this.

Its worldbuilding is lazy, its action is uninspired, and even its star James Caan has criticized it for giving him a character with nothing to work from.

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