The Year in Review- 1977

It was the year Luke Skywalker came to rescue us and Woody Allen won awards that he had no interest in accepting. Steven Spielberg staged an alien invasion, John Travolta tore up the dance floor, and Jane Fonda found her long-lost friend. Richard Dreyfuss was top-tier, Paul Newman played hockey, and Clint Eastwood careened around in a bullet-ridden bus. Here are the ten best films in order for 1977.

1. "Star Wars"(1977) The history of film can accurately be broken up into two categories- before "Star Wars" and after "Star Wars". The most iconic pop culture property on the planet turned it's bold creator George Lucas into a diety, one of the most powerful men in entertainment, and he did it with an $11 million budget and a story that was impossible to unpack before May 1977. But his colorful characters, groundbreaking FX, and thrilling, near-perfect execution resonated deeply with a disillusioned generation of moviegoers worn down by Vietnam and Watergate. This is a special movie, that works in a transportive "Wizard of Oz"-like way, even without the benefit of sequels and prequels that lifted it's good vs.evil, mass-merchandised mythology to a quasi-religious level of importance for legions of Force followers.

2. "Annie Hall"(1977) Woody Allen's legacy has gotten complicated, there's no way around it. I wish I could just call him the greatest writer-director we've ever had, and leave it at that. Persistent questions about his personal life have really got nothing to do with the most artistic romcom ever produced or Diane Keaton's career-defining characterization(she chose her own clothes). Love fades, so don't knock masturbation. Famously, the somewhat-reclusive Allen didn't even attend the Oscar ceremony that solidified his neurotic brand("Annie Hall" took Best Picture and Director). All they do is give out awards! This movie deserved them.

3. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"(1977) Steven Spielberg, emboldened by the enormous success of his first masterpiece "Jaws", promptly got to work on another one. This was becoming a habit, and this intimate UFO epic(fueled by his own childhood imaginings) holds the distinction of being one of only a few of the fabled director's screenplay credits. Richard Dreyfuss is our everyman avatar in Indiana whose strange sightings become an obsession, while French filmmaker Francois Truffaut aids in the U.S. government's investigation. The classy "Close Encounters" was a major hit with critics AND audiences. That doesn't happen too much anymore.

4. "Saturday Night Fever"(1977) The truth is that John Travolta and his dance moves hit the zeitgeist in '77 with almost as much force as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Gene Siskel's favorite movie turned the 23 year old "Welcome Back, Kotter" cut-up into an overnight sensation with enough goodwill to withstand a dozen flops. That's because director John Badham perfectly captured a very specific time and place, and his prancing star never lost his power to put us right back there in that Brooklyn disco. "Fever" is a tougher film than you may remember, and nobody ever said that Tony Manero was a hero. Furthering the film's unlikely legacy is the Bee Gees, whose immortal soundtrack contributions made it the highest-selling album ever up to that point.

5. "Julia"(1977) Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave are lifelong friends in the 1930s, torn apart by the growing terror of the Nazi Party in this nourishing, fact-based period drama from director Fred Zinnemann("A Man For All Seasons"). Joining these two talented women(briefly) was a 27 year old Meryl Streep in her big screen debut. "Julia" was the most critically celebrated film of the year, receiving ten Oscar nominations, with well-deserved wins going to Redgrave for Best Supporting Actress and Alvin Sargent's Adapted Screenplay. The ever-reliable Jason Robards appears as Fonda's mentor/love interest.

6. "The Goodbye Girl"(1977) This may be hard for my readers under the age of 40 to believe, but Richard Dreyfuss was once right there with De Niro, Pacino, Nicholson, and Hoffman, and he has the Best Actor Oscar to prove it. His hot streak wouldn't last, but we're here to talk about the first year of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. Talented costar Marsha Mason has her then-husband Neil Simon and his heavenly screenwriting to thank for three nominations. Director Herbert Ross handles the verbal fireworks in that Manhattan apartment as skillfully as he did in his OTHER '70s Simon classic "The Sunshine Boys".

7. "Slap Shot"(1977) Paul Newman was back in loose, likeable form as the helmetless head of the hapless Charlestown Chiefs, a losing Pennsylvania hockey team in this politically-incorrect comedy from his "Butch Cassidy" director George Roy Hill. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd and her locker room lingo may have helped usher in the irreverent rowdiness that would soon be found in most of the genre's offerings. The NHL initially denounced the film for being a poor representation of the sport. Ironically, many players would cite it as a firm favorite, years later.

8. "3 Women"(1977) The odd friendship between Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek is the ominous set-up for Robert Altman's strangely-hypnotic drama, that was somehow denied a home video release until the Criterion Collection caught up with it in 2004. That was when adventurous cinephiles would come to agree with Roger Ebert about the indecipherable events in a California desert town with '3rd Woman' Janice Rule. It would be a dirty move to give away much more than the fact that Duvall and Spacek are both fantastic in a film that's just begging to be added to your sneaky '70s horror rotation.

9. "A Bridge Too Far"(1977) Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Caine, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford. Some of the biggest names of this or any other era reported for duty, but Richard Attenborough's three-hour WWII epic is NOT a star-driven film. William Goldman's screenplay(based on Cornelius Ryan's accurate 1974 book) covers the oft-overlooked Operation Market Garden, a failed Allied campaign in '44 that resulted in at least 10,000 casualties. "Bridge" was impressively shot in actual locations in the Netherlands, and was the most expensive production since "Cleopatra". Yet, critics were split, and the Oscars ignored it. That doesn't seem right.

10. "The Gauntlet"(1977) The immortal Clint Eastwood closed out the year with this holiday hit(which he also directed), as a hard-living cop turned unwitting fugitive on a wild trek between Phoenix and Las Vegas. The late Sondra Locke, Eastwood's girlfriend for fourteen years and costar in six films, is a tough-talking prostitute he must protect from the mob, outlaw bikers, and crooked colleagues. This film contains heavy gunfire and notable action sequences(at a cost of $1 million) that would become commonplace in subsequent Hollywood thrillers, but simply weren't being done regularly in 1977.

Honorable Mentions- "Pumping Iron"(1977) Arnold Schwarzenegger is numero uno in this bodybuilding doc. "The Late Show"(1977) Art Carney teams with Lily Tomlin. "Eraserhead"(1977) David Lynch's black-and-white debut is one of the weirdest movies ever made. "Fun with Dick and Jane"(1977) Fun with George Segal and Jane Fonda. "The Domino Principle"(1977) Gene Hackman and Stanley Kramer didn't get along. "Airport '77"(1977) Jack Lemmon and Jimmy Stewart star in this threequel. "The Duellists"(1977) Ridley Scott enters our lives. "The White Buffalo"(1977) Charles Bronson and J. Lee Thompson teamed for this mystical Western. "The Deep"(1977) Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte are scuba-diving treasure hunters. "Sorcerer"(1977) This William Friedkin flick has it's fans. "The Greatest"(1977) Muhammad Ali plays himself. "Smokey and the Bandit"(1977) Burt Reynolds in the third biggest hit of the year. "The Spy Who Loved Me"(1977) The best Roger Moore Bond. "Suspiria"(1977) Dario Argento's haunted dance hall has a cult following. "The Kentucky Fried Movie"(1977) This crude sketch comedy kickstarted the careers of John Landis, Jim Abrahams, and the Zucker brothers. "Oh, God!"(1977) George Burns as the Almighty. "The Turning Point"(1977) Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft are prima ballerinas. "High Anxiety"(1977) Mel Brooks takes comic aim at Hitchcock. "New York, New York"(1977) Liza Minelli in the least popular De Niro/Scorsese movie. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar"(1977) Diane Keaton and Richard Gere were both good. "Opening Night"(1977) Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes made eight movies together.