The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant developments in world cinema.
Trends Asian cinema
An Asian cinema touchstone beginning in the early 1970s was traditional Hong Kong martial arts films, which sparked a greater interest in Chinese martial arts around the world. Martial arts film's popularity was elevated to a whole new level largely due to its biggest icon, Bruce Lee. He became famous for playing Kato in the television series The Green Hornet during the 1960s. When he returned to Hong Kong, Lee starred in three films that shot him to stardom all over Asia, The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972) and Way of the Dragon (1972). After the kung fu film Five Fingers of Death (1972), starring Indonesian-born actor Lo Lieh, topped the North American box office in 1973, this paved the way for Lee's The Big Boss and Fist of Fury topping the US box office. Lee achieved his greatest global stardom with his last completed film, and the first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio, Enter the Dragon (1973). This led to a "chopsocky" kung fu craze, while Lee's death shortly before the film's release resulted in a wave of "Bruceploitation" films in Hong Kong cinema. The latter trend eventually ended in 1978 when Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung popularized the kung fu comedy subgenre with Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, Enter the Fat Dragon, and Drunken Master; finally allowing the industry to move on and evolve again.
South Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising working-class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the films written by Salim–Javed and starring Amitabh Bachchan. They began the genre of gritty, violent, Bombay underworld crime films in the 1970s, with films such as Zanjeer (1973) and Deewaar (1975). These films portrayed adventurous plots and presented the young working-class man from the slums as an "angry young man". The women on the other hand were shown as ones who have adopted western values and outfits especially by heroines like Parveen Babi (who was featured on the cover of Time magazine for a story on Bollywood's success) and Zeenat Aman. However towards the very end of the 1970s, especially after the steep rise in land prices in urban areas and the decline in employment security, the heroines were seen more often as saree-women striving to have a prosperous middle-class family especially heroines like Jaya Prada and Hema Malini. In this way, the cinema of Asian region becomes a sociological statement of the social-economic times of the region and its people. In Malayalam cinema, Adoor Gopalakrishnan made Swayamvaram in 1972, which got wide critical acclaim. This was followed by the film Nirmalyam by M. T. Vasudevan Nair in 1973.
European cinema
In European cinema, the failure of the Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures reminiscent of the ones that celebrate the 1970s itself. These films expressed a yearning and as a premonition to the decade and its dreams. The Hungarian director István Szabó made the motion picture Szerelmesfilm (1970), which is a nostalgic portrayal and a premonition of the fading of the young 1970s ethos of change and a friendlier social structure. The Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci made the motion picture The Conformist (1970). German films after the war asked existential questions especially the works of Rainer Fassbinder. The films of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like Cries and Whispers (1973). Young German directors made films that came to be known as the German new wave. It was the voice of a new generation that had grown up after the second world war. These included directors like Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Werner Herzog.
North American cinema
The decade opened with Hollywood facing a financial slump, reflecting the monetary woes of the nation as a whole during the first half of the decade. Despite this, the 1970s proved to be a benchmark decade in the development of cinema, both as an art form and as a business. With young filmmakers taking greater risks and restrictions regarding language and sexuality lifting, New Hollywood produced some of the most critically acclaimed and financially successful films since the "golden era" of classical American cinema.
In the years previous to 1970, Hollywood had begun to cater to the younger generation with films such as The Graduate. This proved a folly when anti-war films like R. P. M. and The Strawberry Statement became major box-office flops. Even solid films with bankable stars, like the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora!, flopped, leaving studios in dire straits financially. Unable to repay financiers, studios began selling off land, furniture, clothing, and sets acquired over years of production. Nostalgic fans bid on merchandise and collectibles ranging from Judy Garland's sparkling red shoes to MGM's own back lots.
More of the successful films were those based in the harsh truths of war, rather than the excesses of the 1960s. Films like the Francis Ford Coppola-scripted Patton, starring George C. Scott as the World War II general, and Robert Altman's MASH, about a Korean War field hospital, were major box-office draws in 1970. Honest, old-fashioned films like Summer of '42, and the Erich Segal adaptation, Love Story, were commercial and critical hits. (Love Story and "Summer" remain, , two of the most successful films in Hollywood history. "Summer", costing US$1,000,000, brought in $25,000,000 at the box office, while "Love Story", with a budget of $2,200,000, earned $106,400,000).
One of the most insightful films of the decade came from the mind of a Hollywood outsider, Czech director Miloš Forman, whose Taking Off became a bold reflection of life at the beginning of the 1970s. The 1971 film satirized the American middle class, following a young girl who runs away from home, leaving her parents free to explore life for the first time in years. While the film was never given a wide release in America, it became a major critical achievement both in America and around the world (garnering the film high honors at the Cannes Film Festival and several BAFTA Award nominations).
Sean Connery returned to the role of James Bond in 1971 in Diamonds Are Forever after George Lazenby filled the role in 1969. Roger Moore succeeded Connery in 1973 with an adaptation of Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die which was the most successful of his Bond films in terms of admissions. Live and Let Die was followed by an adaptation of The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974, which at the time garnered the lowest box office taking of any Bond film before it. After its release Harry Saltzman co-owner of Danjaq with Albert R. Broccoli sold his half to United Artists causing a three-year gap until the next Bond film, the longest gap since the start of the franchise in 1962. The series picked up again in 1977 with The Spy Who Loved Me and ended the decade with Moonraker in 1979, which was the highest grossing Bond film (not adjusting for inflation) of all time until GoldenEye in 1995.
An adaptation of an Arthur Hailey novel would prove to be one of the most notable films of 1970, and would set the stage for a major trend in 1970s cinema. The film, Airport, featured a complex plot, characters, and an all-star cast of Hollywood A-listers and legends. Airport followed an airport manager trying to keep a fictional Chicago airport operational during a blizzard, as well as a bomb plot to blow up an airplane. The film was a major critical and financial success, helping pull Universal Studios into the black for the year. The film earned senior actress Helen Hayes an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and garnered many other nominations in both technical and talent categories. The success of the film launched several other disaster films, many of which following the same blueprint of major stars, a melodramatic script, and great suspense.
Three Airport sequels followed in 1974, 1977, and 1979, each successor making less money than the last. 1972 brought The Poseidon Adventure, which starred a young Gene Hackman leading an all-star cast to safety in a capsized luxury liner. The film earned an Academy Award for visual effects (and Best Original Song for "The Morning After"), as well as numerous nominations, including one for its notable supporting star, Shelley Winters, but its sequel in 1979 was far less successful. The Towering Inferno teamed Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against a fire in a San Francisco skyscraper. The film cost a whopping $14 million to produce (expensive for its time), and won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Song. The same year, the epic Earthquake featured questionable effects (camera shake and models) to achieve a destructive 9.9 earthquake in Los Angeles. Despite this, the film was one of the most successful of its time, earning $80 million at box office. By the late 1970s, the novelty had worn off and the disasters had become less exciting. 1977 brought a terrorist targeting a Rollercoaster, 1978 a Swarm of bees, and a less-than-threatening Meteor in 1979.
The early 1970s also brought a rebirth of gritty crime film, three years after the influential Bullitt. William Friedkin's The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman as a drug detective and Sidney Lumet's Serpico, starring Al Pacino in the true-life story of an honest cop who fought corruption, were two of the most famous ones. Films like Get Carter featured gratuitous nudity, while Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking A Clockwork Orange featured much physical and sexual violence to complement its complex story. African American filmmakers also found success in the 1970s with such hits as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Like other sequels in the 1970s, Shaft went on to have two more adventures, each less successful than the last.
An adaptation of a Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather, was a box-office and critical success in 1972. The three-hour epic followed a Mafia boss, played by Marlon Brando, through his life of crime. Beyond the violence and drama were themes of love, pride, and greed. The Godfather went on to earn $134 million at American box office, and $245 million throughout the world, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Its director Francis Ford Coppola was passed over in favor of Bob Fosse and his musical, Cabaret, which also earned an Oscar for its star, Liza Minnelli. The Godfather Part II followed in 1974, with roughly the same principal cast and crew, earning Oscars for star Robert De Niro, its director, composer, screenwriters and art directors. The film also earned the Best Picture Oscar for that year.
Not all of the "street smart" urban related films were 100% live action. Director Ralph Bakshi released the first animated full-length feature specifically oriented towards adults (Fritz the Cat) then moved on to two other features that dealt with the mafia and other ethnic-related urban issues. Both Heavy Traffic and Coonskin would prove that this kind of material could be handled effectively in the animation genre. Bakshi would later produce fantasy oriented films (Wizards and The Lord of the Rings) before the decade ended.