Special Report

Bad Movies You'll Remember If You Grew Up in the '70s

The 70s are regarded as great years for film — and are sometimes even referred to as Hollywood’s last golden era. The decade began with classics such as “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” and ended with “Apocalypse Now.” 

In between there were fan favorites such as “Jaws,” “Star Wars” and “Saturday Night Fever.” The 70s was the decade that launched the careers of directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg, and ushered in the Summer Blockbuster.

If you grew up in the 70s you probably remember the great movies, and there are some bad ones you probably can’t forget as well. But because it was a great decade, even the bad movies had their fans and some even did well at the box office. 

Sometimes people are put off by themes of horror and violence, and that may be why movies like “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Piranha” and “Straw Dogs” ended up on our list of bad movies from the 70s. A title like “I Spit on Your Grave” might deter some people from even reading the reviews. 

But there are some surprises on the list too. “Sleuth” and “The Great Gatsby” had lots of star power and somebody must have liked them because they were both remade (in 2007 and 2013, respectively). And if this list isn’t enough, you might enjoy the 25 worst movies of all time

Click here to see bad movies you’ll remember if you grew up in the 70’s.

To determine the 15 worst movies you’ll remember if you grew up in the 70s, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Rotten Tomatoes. We created an index based on the average critic rating from Rotten Tomatoes, the average audience rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and the average user rating from IMDb. We only considered feature films with at least 5,000 Rotten Tomatoes audience reviews, 10 Rotten Tomatoes critic reviews, and 10,000 IMDb user reviews. All data is for the most recent period available. Data was collected February 2021.

Courtesy of United Artists

15. Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
> Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
> Director(s): Guy Hamilton
> Starring: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood
> Box office gross: $43.8 million

With a plot that some described as too complicated to explain, “Diamonds Are Forever” starred Sean Connery, who returned to his role as the famous 007 spy after a hiatus of a few years.

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Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

14. The Fury (1978)
> Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
> Director(s): Brian De Palma, John G. Fox
> Starring: Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress, Charles Durning
> Box office gross: Not available

In this spy thriller/horror movie, the son of a CIA operative is kidnapped for his psychic powers by a sinister colleague who wants to develop the boy’s abilities as a weapon. One critic called the plot “convoluted, confused and confusing,” but most praised Kirk Douglas’ performance.

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

13. The Eiger Sanction (1975)
> Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
> Director(s): Clint Eastwood
> Starring: Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, Jack Cassidy
> Box office gross: Not available

Clint Eastwood, who also directed this movie, plays an art history professor and art collector who finances his hobby by performing the occassional assassination. Movie critic Roger Ebert said its plot was “so unlikely and confused that we can’t believe it for much more than 15 seconds at a time.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

12. The Omega Man (1971)
> Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
> Director(s): Boris Sagal
> Starring: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Paul Koslo
> Box office gross: $8.7 million

This movie might hit an especially sensitive note among viewers today. An experimental vaccine leaves Dr. Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) as the only truly immune survivor of a global pandemic.

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Courtesy of Vanguard Releasing Group

11. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
> Genre: Horror, Thriller
> Director(s): Wes Craven
> Starring: Suze Lanier-Bramlett, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, Dee Wallace
> Box office gross: $25.0 million

A family driving to California accidentally crashes in the desert and encounters a group of cannibals in this horror thriller. While some found the movie “tasteless” and “ultra-violent,” it became a cult classic and was remade in 2006.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

10. The Great Gatsby (1974)
> Genre: Drama, Romance
> Director(s): Jack Clayton
> Starring: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Karen Black
> Box office gross: $6.7 million

Based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name, “The Great Gatsby” tells the story of a young Midwesterner who becomes involved with a decadent crowd living in the mansions of 1920s Long Island. Movie critic Roger Ebert called it “a superficially beautiful hunk of a movie.”

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Courtesy of United Artists

9. The Mechanic (1972)
> Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
> Director(s): Michael Winner
> Starring: Charles Bronson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Keenan Wynn, Jill Ireland
> Box office gross: $7.3 million

A jaded hitman befriends the son of one of his victims and takes him on as an apprentice in this action thriller. But one critic called it “as slow as molasses and just as exciting.”

Courtesy of Cambist Films

8. The Crazies (1973)
> Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
> Director(s): George A. Romero
> Starring: Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lloyd Hollar
> Box office gross: $150000.0 million

“The Crazies” takes place in a Pennsylvania town that has accidentally become infected by a man-made virus. Another pandemic movie on our list — perhaps we have just lost the taste for such subject matter.

Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

7. Sleuth (1972)
> Genre: Mystery, Thriller
> Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz
> Starring: Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Alec Cawthorne, John Matthews
> Box office gross: $4.1 million

In this disturbing battle of wits, Andrew Wyke, mystery writer and game player (played by Laurence Olivier) meets Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), who has fallen in love with his wife.

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Courtesy of New World Pictures

6. Piranha (1978)
> Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
> Director(s): Joe Dante
> Starring: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies-Urich, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn
> Box office gross: $6.0 million

Flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released in a river near a summer camp in this comedy-horror hybrid. A brazen “Jaws” knockoff, some viewers found the movie so bad it was good.

Courtesy of Trancas International Films

5. Halloween (1978)
> Genre: Horror, Thriller
> Director(s): John Carpenter
> Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
> Box office gross: $47.0 million

In this horror-slasher movie, Michael Myers, who killed his sister when he was a child, escapes from a mental hospital and returns to stalk teenage babysitters on Halloween. This first “Halloween” movie spawned a slew of sequels and remakes.

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Courtesy of Cinerama Releasing

4. Straw Dogs (1971)
> Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
> Director(s): Sam Peckinpah
> Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna
> Box office gross: Not available

In this 1971 psychological thriller, American astrophysicist David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) and his British wife move to the English countryside for a more peaceful life, but they are terrorized by the locals. One critic wrote that the script “relies on shock and violence to tide it over.”

Courtesy of American International Pictures

3. The Last House on the Left (1972)
> Genre: Crime, Horror, Thriller
> Director(s): Wes Craven
> Starring: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln
> Box office gross: $3.1 million

In “The Last House on the Left,” two teenage girls on their way to a rock concert are kidnapped by a group of sadistic convicts. One of two Wes Craven movies on our list, critics found the movie’s “visceral brutality is more repulsive than engrossing.”

Courtesy of Cinemagic

2. I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
> Genre: Horror, Thriller
> Director(s): Meir Zarchi
> Starring: Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols
> Box office gross: Not available

In this brutal revenge horror movie, a young writer seeking seclusion to work on her first novel is stalked by vicious rapists. Movie critic Roger Ebert called it “a film without a shred of artistic distinction.”

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Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

1. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
> Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
> Director(s): J. Lee Thompson
> Starring: Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Severn Darden
> Box office gross: $8.8 million

In this fifth and final installment of the original Planet of the Apes series, the battle between apes and humans continues, but most critics agree that the movie takes “a celebrated franchise and blows it all up.”

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