Why 1977? That is the year I was born (which does mean that I only have second-hand experience of this year). Also, it’s a weirdly important year in terms of movies. Also, I did plan to just do this for each year after my birth. My overall goal with these kinds of articles is to use different excuses to talk about different movies, which might hopefully lead someone to find something new to watch. This specific year has plenty.

I mean, Star Wars came out, as did Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saturday Night Fever. And that’s just the financially big movies. (Yes, I left out Smokey and the Bandit, because it’s just a weird outlier.)

Let’s not talk about those, let’s talk about my favorite movies from this year instead.

1. Voskhozhdenie (The Ascent)

This is a Soviet movie shot in Belarus. It’s about two partisan fighters during WWII, who are sent on an errant in the middle of the winter to find food for group of refugees from the German advance. During their mission they learn a lot about loyalty.

This was initially banned until the husband of the director, Larisa Shepitko, talked a former Soviet general into watching it. The general, who had been in a similar situation himself, then convinced the government that the movie was worth releasing. And is it ever? It’s bleak and often way too real about how little war respects the civilians or the participants for that matter. The way it depicts this life under these circumstances is just gripping.

Sadly, Shepitko had health issues and her career was cut short at 41. Also, for the record, this movie won the Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival.

2. Hausu (House)

A bunch of schoolgirls visit the house of the aunt of one of them. There nothing is as it seems as the house is haunted.

This might be the most light-hearted horror movie I’ve seen, but it is not a parody of a horror movie. It just happens to be very farcical in the way it approaches the subject matter. It is also just great. You know how some movies are just stupid in the best possible way? This is exactly that kind of a movie. Also, there’s a lot of special effects here, but this isn’t exactly Star Wars, so… they are a little simple, but effective in their own way.

3. Eraserhead

I told you this year is kind of special.

David Lynch recently announced that his health problems are limiting his ability to work or even leave his house, so this should be a time to celebrate his career. This is where his career in features started.

And what a start it is. Just a weird little nightmare that is so timeless you can’t really tell it’s almost 50 years old. It’s just one of those experiences that can lead you to a whole new path in enjoying a whole new world of art.

4. 3 Women

Another very weird film. This time from Robert Altman. Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek are roommates, who’s personalities start to change. This wasn’t scripted in a traditional way, but only had a treatment at the start of shooting. Altman then wrote the next day after each day of shooting while also letting the actors improvise quite a bit. This actually started as a dream by Altman and it definitely has that quality.

5. Suspiria

I do like the remake more (which is heresy among the fans of this movie, but gladly I’m correct in this case), but the original has strengths as well. It’s more about the experience than the plot, which is kind of barebones. The most memorable thing is the colors, which are vibrant to say the least and the most vibrant is of course all the blood.

6. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh<(strong>

Weeee… I’ve loved this movie ever since I was a kid. There is just this non-threatening air to the movie where the level of jeopardy is that Pooh somehow manages to eat too much honey and gets stuck into the doorway of Rabbit. It’s just special.

7. Martin

A young man thinks he is a vampire. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, but he seems to be convinced of it as is an older relative who keeps telling Martin that his days will soon be numbered. On the other hand, Martin also states that he isn’t magic. He is just sick. This is a very interesting take on supernatural horror in the modern world. George Romero was very good at deconstructing horror in this way.

8. Cet obscur objet du désir (That Obscure Object of Desire)

It’s weird to think that Bunuel, the man who co-directed a movie with Dali back in the late 20s was still working in 1977. This was his last directorial job. Not his best movie by a longshot, but still a worthy bookend to a career which, again, started nearly 50 years earlier with a short that includes scenes like cutting open an eye in a close-up.

This is about a romance gone bad between a barely legal woman and a middle-aged man. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Bunuel decided to use two actors for the female lead, a decision that was unfortunate at the time of shooting, but was loved by the critics. (The reason was that Bunuel had trouble with the original actor in the role, but apparently it was neither of the two who ended up playing the role.)

9. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

I told you this is my favorite movies of the year, not necessarily the best. In some ways, the name says it all. The villain of this horror piece is, in fact, a bed. Not just any bed. There’s lore behind it as explained by the painting next to it that has witnessed everything.

The movie is all over the place. It doesn’t really settle on any specific feel, but there is a weird dreamlike element to it. You know, just like Eraserhead (which I bring up because both of these films actually started filming all the way back in 1972).

10. Sorcerer

After the Oscar favorite French Connection and, the much better remembered, one of the biggest hits of all time, The Exorcist, William Friedkin settled upon this as his next movie. It is a remake of the French classic Le salaire de la peur where vagabonds are given an opportunity to leave their current miserable lives behind, as long as they can drive at least one of two trucks full of nitroglyserin through a jungle in order to use it to fight a fire at an oilfield.

It is not as good as the original, but it is still nerve-wracking in a very good way. I don’t really like how they needed some extra stakes by making the fire a result of terrorist action instead of just an accident. Felt unnecessary when the route speaks for itself.

Finally

This was a time of huge changes in movies. The auteurs of the 70s were now established directors, but not only that: the concept of blockbuster (it used to literally mean that the line to see the movie would be around the block) had been born a few years before with Jaws, but Star Wars completely broke the bank on this. It is still the movie with most tickets sold since reliable tracking (Gone with the Wind was much bigger, but reliable tracking didn’t exist in the 30s when the business was very different).

On the other hand, as you can see from the list above, this was also a year where weird movies from all over the world made an impact (John Waters’ Desperate Living, Terry Gilliam’s Jabberwocky and Werner Herzog’s Stroszek didn’t even fit onto my list). There’s also Annie Hall, but I’m personally not a big fan of it.

On genre front, you could mention Cross of Iron or Hills Have Eyes or maybe even Petey Wheatstraw, a blackspoilation movie about a man who agrees to marry Satan’s daughter in exchange for his resurrection, but finds the daughter too ugly.