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- Director: Joseph Losey
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 2 hours, 3 minutes

The French Holocaust drama "Mr. Klein" stars Alain Delon as a Parisian art dealer targeted by the police who believe him to be Jewish. Klein believes this to be a case of mistaken identity, but as he struggles to find proof of who he really is, the twisty film refuses to provide any easy answers. In a 2019 , Kenneth Turan wrote, "Moody, elegantly disturbing and impeccably made by a master director, this story of blurred identities and casual immorality in German-occupied Paris benefits from what might be the best performance of star Alain Delon's long career."

- Director: Charles B. Pierce
- IMDb user rating: 6.0
- Metascore: 52
- Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes

"The Town That Dreaded Sundown" wasn't well received upon its release. In a dismissive , Vincent Canby wrote, "A couple of professional actors, Ben Johnson and Andrew Prine, head the cast, but the film looks nonprofessional in every other respect." Nevertheless, the low-budget film was a box-office hit that has since come to be regarded as an influential early slasher. "The Town That Dreaded Sundown," which follows a hooded serial murderer called the Phantom Killer who targets Texarkana, also inspired a metasequel of the same name in 2014.

- Director: Robert Moore
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 59
- Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes

With a sharp script from playwright Neil Simon, the mystery comedy "Murder by Death" is notable for its impressive ensemble cast, including Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, and writer Truman Capote, among others. Most of them play parody versions of famous fictional crime-solvers. It earned two Golden Globe nominations and mostly positive reviews, with Variety calling it "a very good silly-funny Neil Simon satirical comedy."

- Director: Brian De Palma
- IMDb user rating: 6.7
- Metascore: 59
- Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes

Not to be confused with the 2026 horror film of the same name, Brian De Palma's "Obsession"—his first of two movies on this list—is a psychological thriller about a man (Cliff Robertson) haunted by the death of his wife, who then falls in love with her exact double. Both women are played by Geneviève Bujold, and yes, De Palma cited "Vertigo" as an influence. 's Lou Lumenick wrote in 2011, "Subtlety is not a term that can often be applied to DePalma's other work, but it's this uncharacteristic restraint that helps make 'Obsession' his masterpiece."

- Director: Zoltán Fábri
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 56 minutes

Though the subject matter might prove daunting for some, Zoltán Fábri's "The Fifth Seal" is regarded as a major achievement in Hungarian filmmaking. The movie is a wartime drama with a focus on the psychological, asking tough questions of its characters—and its audience. critic Peter Bradshaw has called it a "gloomy fable of disillusion and resignation."

- Director: Barbara Kopple
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 80
- Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes

"Harlan County U.S.A." won Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards—and with good reason. The film is a remarkable depiction of a 1973 coal miners' strike, and earned massive acclaim from critics. In fact, it has a on Rotten Tomatoes. In a 2005 review, championed "Harlan County U.S.A." as "articulate, indomitable, courageous."

- Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 70
- Runtime: 5 hours, 17 minutes

You have to strap in for Bernardo Bertolucci's epic historical drama "1900," which runs over five hours and was screened in two separate parts in many countries to account for its length. (In the U.S., it was edited down to a shorter version, but the unedited cut is now available.) While reviews for the Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu film were decidedly mixed at the time, it has always had its fans. For , Geoffrey Nowell-Smith wrote, "Its eccentricity, and the incorporation of this eccentricity into the staid format of the historical spectacular, proves to be its redemption."

- Director: Alfred Sole
- IMDb user rating: 6.4
- Metascore: 67
- Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Brooke Shields has a memorable early role in "Alice, Sweet Alice," playing the first victim of a masked killer whose identity drives the film's central mystery. Highly controversial at the time for its graphic violence, the movie has the feel of an Italian giallo despite being made by American director Alfred Sole. In a 2005 , Jeremiah Kipp wrote, "'Alice, Sweet Alice' conflates the angst of adolescent sexual development with the fury of Catholic retribution, suggesting at times an analog version of David Fincher's 'Se7en.'"

- Director: Michael Anderson
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Metascore: 53
- Runtime: 1 hour, 59 minutes

Based on the novel of the same name, "Logan's Run" is a dystopian sci-fi action movie about a society where citizens who reach the age of 30 are killed. The film got Oscar nominations for art direction and cinematography, and it received a Special Achievement Award in commendation of its visual effects. Reviews were mixed, but defended "Logan's Run" as "a vast, silly extravaganza that delivers a certain amount of fun, once it stops taking itself seriously."

- Director: Carlos Saura
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes

The psychological drama "Cría Cuervos" was chosen as Spain's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, though it was ultimately not picked. The movie did, however, earn the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and has, in the 50 years since its release, solidified its reputation as a classic. For , Peter Bradshaw wrote, "The film is a masterpiece of form and technique, and [Geraldine] Chaplin and [Ana] Torrent are both outstanding."

- Director: Clint Eastwood
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 69
- Runtime: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Clint Eastwood directed and starred in "The Outlaw Josey Wales," which is not your typical Western. Here, Eastwood's gunslinger character is not exactly a hero, and he spends the movie evading the Union soldiers and bounty hunters who want him dead. As  Phil Hardy noted, "the film demonstrated Eastwood's ability to recreate his first starring role, as the mythic Man with No Name of the Italian Westerns, and to subtly undercut it through comedy and mockery."

- Director: John Schlesinger
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 64
- Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes

"Is it safe?" For all that happens over the course of two hours, "Marathon Man" will always be best remembered for the notorious scene where Dr. Szell (Laurence Olivier), a disguised Nazi war criminal, uses dental instruments to torture Babe (Dustin Hoffman). Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, but critics also recognized William Goldman's taut script. In a contemporary review, wrote, "If holes in plots bother you, 'Marathon Man' will be maddening. But as well-crafted escapist entertainment, as a diabolical thriller, the movie works with relentless skill."

- Director: John Cassavetes
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 65
- Runtime: 2 hours, 15 minutes

John Cassavetes movies are often intense experiences, and that's certainly true of "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," which stars Ben Gazzara as a strip club owner whose gambling debt forces him to do a gangster's bidding. It's probably for the best that a never came to fruition. Writing for , Richard Brody said, "John Cassavetes, who made much of his money performing in action films, put that experience to work as the director of this hard, brooding crime drama."

- Director: Nagisa Ōshima
- IMDb user rating: 6.6
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 49 minutes

One of the most controversial films ever made, the Japanese movie "In the Realm of the Senses" shocked audiences with its graphic content and was banned across the globe. Up until the '90s, it was hard to see an uncut version of the movie in the U.S. In a from 2009, Trevor Johnston wrote, "Unsanitized, worryingly convincing in its sadomasochistic detail, this is seriously provocative cinema, a telling reminder of what it really means to be dangerous."

- Director: Chantal Akerman
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Runtime: 1 hour, 29 minutes

Chantal Akerman's 1975 classic "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" has been called the . She followed that up with another lauded film, the avant-garde documentary "News from Home," in which footage of New York is interspersed with the filmmaker reading letters sent by her mother. Is it for everyone? Surely not. But the 's Jonathan Rosenbaum praised it as "one of the best depictions of the alienation of exile that I know."

- Director: Nicolas Roeg
- IMDb user rating: 6.6
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 2 hours, 19 minutes

David Bowie always had a certain alien vibe about him, and that was used to great effect in "The Man Who Fell to Earth," a surreal sci-fi drama where he plays an extraterrestrial who crash-lands on our planet. The movie is now regarded as a cult classic that has influenced films like "The Prestige" and "Under the Skin," and it was adapted into the 2015 musical "Lazarus." In , Adam Nayman wrote, "[Nicolas] Roeg's film is so rich and lucid that it could be an essay."

- Director: Roman Polanski
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 71
- Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes

"The Tenant" is not one of Roman Polanski's more famous films, but it forms the third part of his "Apartment Trilogy," following the more well-known "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby." It's another psychological thriller, this time about a man, played by Polanski himself, who discovers that his apartment belonged to a tenant who died by suicide. In a contemporary , Vincent Canby wrote, "That 'The Tenant' works so well is because it's not strictly about madness, though that is its narrative form. It's about emotional isolation that has become physical."

- Director: John Carpenter
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes

John Carpenter was inspired by classic Westerns and "Night of the Living Dead" when he wrote and directed the action film "Assault on Precinct 13," which follows a police officer (Austin Stoker) defending a nearly shuttered station from a ruthless gang's siege. While not as famous as Carpenter's subsequent work, like "Halloween," this early film has a serious cult following. The 's Dave Kehr called it a "hopelessly violent but exceedingly well-made police thriller." It was also remade in 2005, though that iteration has had less staying power.

- Director: Elaine May
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 1 hour, 46 minutes

John Cassavetes wasn't only directing films in 1976—he also starred in "Mikey and Nicky," a crime drama helmed by Elaine May. Cassavetes plays the titular Nicky, a desperate mobster looking for help from his childhood friend Mikey, played by Peter Falk. "Mikey and Nicky" was a bomb that kept May from directing for over a decade, but it's much more appreciated now, particularly with the release of May's director's cut. 's Matt Patches called it "a nuclear attack on toxic masculinity, and among the more challenging films I've ever watched."

- Director: Richard Donner
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 43
- Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes

Richard Donner's "The Omen" is a little schlockier than you might expect from an Academy Award-winning horror film (it picked up a trophy for Jerry Goldsmith's score), but there's no questioning its influence. The film—which follows young Damien Thorn (Harvey Spencer Stephens), who turns out to be the Antichrist—spawned an entire franchise and countless copycats. As critic Kevin Thomas put it, "No matter how much you may dislike 'The Omen,' there's just no denying that it is an absolutely riveting, thoroughly scary experience."

- Director: Alan J. Pakula
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 2 hours, 18 minutes

Who knew a film about a newspaper investigation could be so thrilling? In "All the President's Men," Alan J. Pakula and writer William Goldman manage to turn Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) investigating the Watergate scandal into edge-of-your-seat entertainment. praised it by saying, "The movie's so well paced, acted, and edited that it develops the illusion of momentum."

- Director: Sidney Lumet
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 83
- Runtime: 2 hours, 1 minute

Many movies are said to be ahead of their time, but few can boast the kind of prescience that "Network" delivers. While ostensibly the story of news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) having a nervous breakdown, the film accurately predicted the evolution of media, from the transformation of news into entertainment to reality television. In a 2026 review for , Derek Smith noted, "Half a century later, Sidney Lumet's 'Network' remains a darkly humorous and relevant treatise on capitalism's erosion of morality."

- Director: John G. Avildsen
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 70
- Runtime: 2 hours

It's hard to measure the success of "Rocky," a film made for $1 million that went on to gross . It led to eight more movies, with the series as a whole earning more than $1.5 billion, making it the in cinema. And it's become a cultural touchstone that far surpasses the simple story of Sylvester Stallone as an aspiring heavyweight champion. In a contemporary review for the , Kathleen Carroll wrote, "Like the movies of Frank Capra, Rocky is a glowing tribute to the human spirit—a chin-up reminder that the decent, little guys of the world often accomplish the impossible if only because they try so hard."

- Director: Brian De Palma
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes

The first adaptation of a Stephen King novel, "Carrie" is inarguably one of the very best. Brian De Palma earns his second spot on this list with his riveting take on Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a high schooler tormented by bullies and her abusive mother (Piper Laurie). In the movie's most memorable sequence, still harrowing after 50 years, Carrie uses her telekinetic powers for blood-soaked revenge at the prom. The renowned critic Pauline Kael, writing for , said, "'Carrie' is a terrifying lyrical thriller. The director, Brian De Palma, has mastered a teasing style—a perverse mixture of comedy and horror and tension."

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes

Even people who haven't seen "Taxi Driver" know the iconic scene of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) talking to himself in the mirror, but the movie's impact far exceeds one quotable moment. Martin Scorsese's harrowing psychological drama, with a screenplay by Paul Schrader, captured the country's uneasy state in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. As Kevin Kelly wrote for , "'Taxi Driver' is so volatile it nearly explodes from the screen. Under Martin Scorsese's brilliant direction, it works a dramatic tension that is inescapable, carefully, systematically straitjacketing its audience in the problems of its central character."