So just to be clear, I don’t think anyone here is going to claim that Butch Cassidy (which, by the way, is a '60s film :) is emblematic of the best that Hollywood had to offer in that period. I’ve always liked it, but the big ones (Taxi Driver, Godfather I/II, Chinatown, Days of Heaven, Cabaret, Annie Hall, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Jaws, etc.) are on an altogether different level.
The Raindrops bit is rather silly (fantastic song, though), but IMO it hardly negates what is otherwise a very solid and at times poignant star-driven buddy Western.
It is a part of a lot of older cinema for sure, it’s not bad really but it is different. Setting the scene literally becomes a huge chunk of time. Although just before this time period, “Once Upon a Time in the West,” is dripping with scenes like that. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But it plays out very slowly due to that. And honestly, you could lump a ton of westerns into that same bucket. I love em, but yeah they have a lot of dramatic camera scenes with no character input.
I think Butch Cassidy is very good and it’s generally regarded as the best buddy movie of its time, but I would rate The Man Who Would Be King over it.
Ooh, forgot about that one. Bob Fosse takes a crack at turning his life into an updated version of 8 1/2. I found some of it a bit heavy handed, but it’s definitely interesting. Also, Roy Scheider is one of those actors I’d pretty much watch in anything.
Overall I’d recommend The Sting over Butch Cassidy, but let’s not forget that the cliff that Butch and Sundance jump off of is in “reality” the Cliffs of Insanity.
My contribution, since I don’t see that anyone’s mentioned it - Wake in Fright, which I think isn’t well known in the US, is a brutal indictment of Australian society set in the late 60’s/early 70’s Australian bush country. It’s a pretty raw, depressing film, so not for everyone. It’s also a fascinating, with good performances, including from Donald Pleasence.
My favorite film about the horrors of hospitality. It’s not a surprise it was made before Australia had a proper national film industry. No way they would let a Canadian represent Antipodian mateship in such a negative manner after 1975.
The director went on to make some interesting films, including the excellent football drama North Dallas Forty and a little Stallone vehicle called First Blood, before creating his masterpiece, A Weekend at Bernies, in the late 1980s.
Well, I ended up watching “Night Moves” first because instead of clicking the “more purchase options” button, I accidentally clicked “watch now”. And yeah, I could have cancelled it, but I thought “Now’s as good a time as any”, and watched it.
And it was/is a great film. Hackman was excellent as always, and so was everyone else. Brutal ending.
I would say this has many noirish elements, but it’s not noir as I know it, primarily because of the photography.
Still, I enjoyed the hell out of it, regardless of genre.
Not trying to be a snowflake or troll, but because of this thread I finally found and watched Chinatown for the first time, and was not even slightly entertained. Perhaps it is one of those “of its time” things in that it was excellent when it was new, but I found it far too slow and quite boring to the point of almost quitting many times. No offense intended to fans, I guess it was just not for me. For the record, I love many of the other suggestions (Butch & SDK, Jaws, Sting, Network, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse, Jeremiah Johnson and Raging Bull). I’ve never seen Night Moves, though, so I’ll be looking for that soon.
Generally speaking, I deny the progressive theory of art, that things seemed good once but then get worse because our standards are always improving. Y’know, the Iliad was excellent 2800 years ago and it still is. If Chinatown is a bad movie, it’s a bad movie.* It doesn’t need to be graded on a curve because it’s old. It may however need to be viewed with different aesthetic standards in mind than what are typically employed in current films.
*( I don’t think it’s a bad movie )
I’m sorry you didn’t like Chinatown, but lots of us do. A chacun sa gout and whatnot.
