Greatest Films of the American New Wave by Year

1970

1971

• Mash
• Patton
• Five Easy Pieces
• Little Big Man
• Catch 22
• Tora! Tora! Tora!
• Diary of a Mad Housewife

• The French Connection
• The Last Picture Show
• Carnal Knowledge
• A Clockwork Orange
• Harold and Maude
• THX 1138
• Dirty Harry
• The Panic in Needle Park

1972

• The Godfather
• Deliverance
• Cabaret
• Sounder
• Last Tango in Paris
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
• The Hospital
• Play it Again, Sam
• The Poseidon Adventure
• The Heartbreak Kid
• Jeremiah Johnson
• The Candidate

1973

• American Graffiti
• The Sting
• The Exorcist
• Serpico
• Cinderella Liberty
• The Way We Were
• Paper Moon
• The Last Detail
• Mean Streets

1974

• Chinatown
• The Conversation
• The Godfather Part 2
• Blazing Saddles
• Young Frankenstein
• A Woman Under the Influence
• Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Death Wish

1975

• Jaws
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Shampoo
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Three Days of the Condor
• Nashville
• Barry Lyndon

1976

• Rocky
• All the President’s Men
• Network
• Taxi Driver
• Marathon Man
• Bound for Glory
• Carrie

1977

• Star Wars
• Annie Hall
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Saturday Night Fever
• Looking for Mr. Goodbar
• New York, New York

1978

• The Deer Hunter
• Grease
• Animal House
• Heaven Can Wait
• Midnight Express
• The Goodbye Girl
• Same Time Next Year
• Coming Home
• Days of Heaven
• Halloween
• An Unmarried Woman
• Interiors
• The Wiz

1979

• Apocalypse Now
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• The Amityville Horror
• 10
• Manhattan
• All That Jazz
• Being There
• The China Syndrome
• Norma Rae
• Breaking Away
• The Onion Field
• The Great Santini
• The Electric Horseman
• Alien

1980

• Raging Bull
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Coal Miner’s Daughter
• The Elephant Man
• The Stunt Man
• Airplane!
• Ordinary People
• Melvin and Howard
• Fame
• The Shining
• Private Benjamin

1981

• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Arthur
• Reds
• On Golden Pond
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman
• Atlantic City
• My Dinner with Andre
• Modern Romance
• Quest for Fire
• Ragtime
• Pennies from Heaven

1982

• ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
• Tootsie
• An Officer and a Gentleman
• 48 HRS
• Poltergeist
• Sophie’s Choice
• My Favorite Year
• Victor/Victoria
• Blade Runner
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High
• Diner
• Missing
• Frances
• The Verdict
• Tron

1983

• Terms of Endearment
• Return of the Jedi
• Tender Mercies
• The Right Stuff
• Silkwood
• Trading Places
• Risky Business
• The Big Chill
• A Christmas Story
• The King of Comedy
• Vacation
• Scarface
• Testament
• Star 80
• Valley Girl
• Zelig

1984

• Amadeus
• The Killing Fields
• Places in the Heart
• A Passage to India
• The Terminator
• Ghostbusters
• Gremlins
• Police Academy
• Revenge of the Nerds
• The NeverEnding Story
• Romancing the Stone
• Beverly Hills Cop
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Choose Me
• This is Spinal Tap
• Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
• The Karate Kid
• Blood Simple
• Paris, Texas
• Footloose
• The Natural
• Splash
• Sixteen Candles
• Moscow on the Hudson
• Racing with the Moon
• Broadway Danny Rose
• The Stone Boy
• Purple Rain
• Under the Volcano
• Bachelor Party
• Birdy
• The Pope of Greenwich Village
• The Bostonians
• Red Dawn
• Repo Man
• The Bounty
• The Last Starfighter
• All of Me
• A Soldier’s Story
• Country
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• The Cotton Club
• Starman