Tough, Mean, Angry, Filthy Science Fiction Films from the 1970s
by spacezoomer | created - 7 months ago | updated - 3 weeks ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. No Blade of Grass (1970)
R | 96 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An environmental catastrophe destroys civilization. Led by father John and mother Ann, the Custance clan sets out on a quest for safety in a savage world that may just end up turning them into the very thing they are fleeing.
Director: Cornel Wilde | Stars: Nigel Davenport, Jean Wallace, John Hamill, Lynne Frederick
Votes: 2,059 | Gross: $0.35M
2. THX 1138 (1971)
R | 86 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In the 25th century, a time when people have designations instead of names, a man, THX 1138, and a woman, LUH 3417, rebel against their rigidly controlled society.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie
Votes: 54,651 | Gross: $2.44M
3. The Omega Man (1971)
PG | 98 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Dr Robert Neville has developed an experimental vaccine which makes him the only immune survivor of a biological catastrophe. A gang of homicidal mutants blame science for their condition and attempt to kill him.
Director: Boris Sagal | Stars: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Paul Koslo
Votes: 34,087 | Gross: $8.72M
4. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 881,783 | Gross: $6.21M
5. Z.P.G. (1972)
PG | 97 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
Concerned with population over-growth, the Earth government bans, under the penalty of death, all pregnancies but one couple decides to risk having a real baby rather than legally adopt a cyborg child.
Director: Michael Campus | Stars: Oliver Reed, Geraldine Chaplin, Don Gordon, Diane Cilento
Votes: 1,579
6. Soylent Green (1973)
PG | 97 min | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A nightmarish futuristic fantasy about the controlling power of big corporations and an innocent cop who stumbles on the truth.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors
Votes: 70,615 | Gross: $7.92M
7. Westworld (1973)
PG | 88 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A robot malfunction creates havoc and terror for unsuspecting vacationers at a futuristic, adult-themed amusement park.
Director: Michael Crichton | Stars: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold
Votes: 63,005 | Gross: $16.06M
8. Dark Star (1974)
G | 83 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Dan O'Bannon, Dre Pahich, Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm
Votes: 27,280
9. The Terminal Man (1974)
PG | 104 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response to his brain.
Director: Mike Hodges | Stars: George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat
Votes: 2,561 | Gross: $0.22M
10. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
R | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
A young man and his telepathic dog wander a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Director: L.Q. Jones | Stars: Don Johnson, Jason Robards, Susanne Benton, Tim McIntire
Votes: 19,248 | Gross: $6.90M
11. Death Race 2000 (1975)
R | 80 min | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
In a dystopian future, a cross country automobile race requires contestants to run down innocent pedestrians to gain points that are tallied based on each kill's brutality.
Director: Paul Bartel | Stars: David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Simone Griffeth, Mary Woronov
Votes: 30,925 | Gross: $8.00M
12. Rollerball (1975)
Approved | 125 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Sport
In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.
Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: James Caan, John Houseman, Maud Adams, John Beck
Votes: 29,324 | Gross: $30.00M
13. The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
R | 94 min | Action, Sci-Fi
Virus holocaust is not the only plague that threatens our future. New York City, 2012 A.D. In a plague devastated world, one tired man finds a reason to fight.
Director: Robert Clouse | Stars: Yul Brynner, Max von Sydow, Joanna Miles, William Smith
Votes: 2,296
14. Shivers (1975)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Allan Kolman
Votes: 23,603
15. Logan's Run (1976)
PG | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A police officer in the future uncovers the deadly secret behind a society that worships youth.
Director: Michael Anderson | Stars: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne
Votes: 61,072 | Gross: $25.00M
16. God Told Me To (1976)
R | 91 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
A New York detective investigates a series of murders committed by random New Yorkers who claim that "God told them to."
Director: Larry Cohen | Stars: Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin, Sandy Dennis, Sylvia Sidney
Votes: 6,557
17. Demon Seed (1977)
Approved | 94 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist creates Proteus--an organic super computer with artificial intelligence which becomes obsessed with human beings, and in particular the creator's wife.
Director: Donald Cammell | Stars: Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, Gerrit Graham, Berry Kroeger
Votes: 10,013
18. Mad Max (1979)
R | 88 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
In a self-destructing world, a vengeful Australian policeman sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang.
Director: George Miller | Stars: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley
Votes: 222,649 | Gross: $8.75M
19. The Andromeda Strain (1971)
G | 131 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Top scientists work feverishly in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and how the deadly contagion can be stopped.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid
Votes: 40,464 | Gross: $3.42M
20. The China Syndrome (1979)
PG | 122 min | Drama, Thriller
A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.
Director: James Bridges | Stars: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady
Votes: 33,060 | Gross: $51.72M
21. The Visitor (1979)
R | 108 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The soul of a young girl with telekinetic powers and her mother become the prize in a battle between good ETs and evil ETs.
Director: Giulio Paradisi | Stars: Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston
Votes: 4,544
22. Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.
Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans
Votes: 13,916 | Gross: $0.57M
23. Sleeper (1973)
PG | 89 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
A nerdish store owner is revived out of cryostasis into a future world to fight an oppressive government.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory
Votes: 44,839 | Gross: $2.91M
24. Quintet (1979)
R | 118 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
During a future ice age, dying humanity occupies its remaining time by playing a board game called "Quintet." For one small group, this obsession is not enough; they play the game with living pieces ... and only the winner survives.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Paul Newman, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Bibi Andersson
Votes: 3,583
25. Silent Running (1972)
G | 89 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth's botany, kept in a greenhouse aboard a spacecraft.
Director: Douglas Trumbull | Stars: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint
Votes: 31,483 | Gross: $0.69M
26. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
R | 139 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An alien must pose as a human to save his dying planet, but a woman and greed of other men create complications.
Director: Nicolas Roeg | Stars: David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Buck Henry
Votes: 28,686 | Gross: $0.10M
27. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
PG | 138 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
Roy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Votes: 217,026 | Gross: $132.09M
28. Zardoz (1974)
R | 105 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
In the late 23rd century, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton
Votes: 24,573 | Gross: $0.07M
29. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
PG | 115 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 69,920 | Gross: $24.95M
30. Fantastic Planet (1973)
PG | 72 min | Animation, Sci-Fi
On a faraway planet where blue giants rule, oppressed humanoids rebel against their machine-like leaders.
Director: René Laloux | Stars: Barry Bostwick, Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart
Votes: 36,869 | Gross: $0.19M
31. Alien (1979)
R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 951,787 | Gross: $78.90M
32. Solaris (1972)
PG | 167 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetskiy
Votes: 98,325
33. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,450,745 | Gross: $322.74M
34. Stalker (1979)
Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko
Votes: 144,871 | Gross: $0.23M
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