What is the best film of 1973?

By IQ Score on TV Intelligentsia, Mean Streets (Scorsese), Day for Night (Truffaut), Cries and Whispers (Bergman), Badlands (Malick), and Amarcord (Fellini) anchor the year. International auteur peak.

Why is 1973 considered such a strong year?

1973 saw simultaneous canonical work from Scorsese (Mean Streets debut), Malick (Badlands debut), Altman (Long Goodbye), Friedkin (The Exorcist), Truffaut (Day for Night Oscar), Bergman (Cries and Whispers Oscar nominees), Fellini (Amarcord upcoming Oscar). The most-canonical international-cinema convergence year of the 1970s.

Cinema · 1973 Ranked

Best Films of 1973, Ranked by IQ Score

The single year Scorsese, Malick, Altman, and Friedkin's mid-period peaks aligned. Films of 1973, ranked.

1973 is the year multiple New Hollywood directors hit their canonical mid-period peak. Mean Streets (Scorsese), Badlands (Malick), The Long Goodbye (Altman), The Exorcist (Friedkin), American Graffiti (Lucas) — all released within twelve months.

The structural argument for 1973-as-canonical-year: Scorsese's breakthrough (Mean Streets), Malick's directorial debut (Badlands), Altman's canonical neo-noir (The Long Goodbye), Friedkin's genre-redefining horror (The Exorcist), Lucas's pre-Star-Wars breakthrough (American Graffiti). The most-canonical New Hollywood class-of-1973 cohort.

9 titles · ranked by IQ Score