My Top Favorite Films of 1972
by IrinaOma | created - 8 months ago | updated - 8 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,013,699 | Gross: $134.97M
2. The Getaway (1972)
PG | 123 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A recently-released ex-con and his loyal wife go on the run after a heist goes awry.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers
Votes: 35,702 | Gross: $36.73M
3. Deliverance (1972)
R | 109 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
Votes: 119,314 | Gross: $7.06M
4. The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
PG | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A group of passengers must embark on a harrowing struggle for survival after a rogue wave capsizes their cruise ship at sea.
Director: Ronald Neame | Stars: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons
Votes: 49,256 | Gross: $84.56M
5. The Way of the Dragon (1972)
R | 90 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
A man visits his relatives at their restaurant in Italy and has to help them defend against brutal gangsters harassing them.
Director: Bruce Lee | Stars: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Nora Miao, Ping-Ou Wei
Votes: 41,069 | Gross: $4.06M
6. Sacrifice! (1972)
R | 93 min | Adventure, Horror, Romance
After a photographer is captured by a primitive tribe, his life is spared and he's accepted into the village after the chief's daughter falls for him, but he has to survive the jungle's harsh life, including the cannibals.
Director: Umberto Lenzi | Stars: Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai, Prasitsak Singhara, Sulallewan Suxantat
Votes: 2,532 | Gross: $0.04M
7. Fist of Fury (1972)
R | 107 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A young man seeks vengence for the death of his teacher.
Director: Wei Lo | Stars: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, James Tien, Maria Yi
Votes: 33,904 | Gross: $1.29M
8. Cabaret (1972)
PG | 124 min | Drama, Music, Musical
A female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin romances two men while the Nazi Party rises to power around them.
Director: Bob Fosse | Stars: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey
Votes: 59,421 | Gross: $42.77M
9. Butterflies Are Free (1972)
PG | 109 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A blind man moves into his own apartment against the wishes of his overprotective mother and befriends the freethinking young woman next door.
Director: Milton Katselas | Stars: Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, Eileen Heckart, Paul Michael Glaser
Votes: 5,962 | Gross: $0.25M
10. The Candidate (1972)
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
Director: Michael Ritchie | Stars: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Melvyn Douglas, Don Porter
Votes: 11,929 | Gross: $0.12M
11. The Cowboys (1972)
GP | 134 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Rancher Wil Andersen is forced to hire inexperienced boys as cowhands in order to get his herd to market on time but the rough drive is full of dangers and a gang of cattle rustlers is trailing them.
Director: Mark Rydell | Stars: John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern, Colleen Dewhurst
Votes: 15,869 | Gross: $16.35M
12. Sisters (1972)
R | 93 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A small-time reporter tries to convince the police she saw a murder in the apartment across from hers.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning, William Finley
Votes: 20,707 | Gross: $0.35M
13. Tales from the Crypt (1972)
PG | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Five strangers get lost in a crypt and, after meeting the mysterious Crypt Keeper, receive visions of how they will die.
Director: Freddie Francis | Stars: Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ralph Richardson, Geoffrey Bayldon
Votes: 13,024 | Gross: $1.70M
14. La maudite galette (1972)
100 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
A robbery at the secluded country home of a wealthy old man goes horribly awry.
Director: Denys Arcand | Stars: Marcel Sabourin, René Caron, Suzanne Valéry, Sophie Carrière
Votes: 279
15. Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)
PG | 121 min | Biography, Drama, History
Dramatization of events in the life of St. Francis of Assisi from before his conversion experience through his audience with the pope, including his friendship with St. Clare.
Director: Franco Zeffirelli | Stars: Graham Faulkner, Judi Bowker, Leigh Lawson, Kenneth Cranham
Votes: 4,947
16. The Last House on the Left (1972)
R | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
Two teenage girls heading to a rock concert for one's birthday try to score marijuana in the city, where they are kidnapped and brutalized by a gang of psychopathic convicts.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln
Votes: 40,305 | Gross: $3.10M
17. What's Up, Doc? (1972)
G | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
The accidental mix-up of four identical plaid overnight bags leads to a series of increasingly wild and wacky situations.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars
Votes: 27,077 | Gross: $10.47M
18. Images (1972)
R | 104 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Whilst writing a children's book, a woman interrupted by images unsure if they may, or may not be real
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Susannah York, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, Hugh Millais
Votes: 7,758
19. Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
R | 144 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The story of the troubled life and career of the legendary Jazz singer, Billie Holiday.
Director: Sidney J. Furie | Stars: Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, James T. Callahan
Votes: 4,848 | Gross: $6.03M
20. Night of the Dark Full Moon (1972)
R | 81 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A man inherits a mansion which once was a mental home. He visits the place and begins to investigate some crimes that happened in old times, scaring the people living in the region.
Director: Theodore Gershuny | Stars: Patrick O'Neal, James Patterson, Mary Woronov, Astrid Heeren
Votes: 4,901
21. Frenzy (1972)
R | 116 min | Thriller
A serial murderer is strangling women with a necktie. The London police have a suspect, but he is the wrong man.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anna Massey
Votes: 49,433 | Gross: $12.60M
22. Last Tango in Paris (1972)
NC-17 | 129 min | Drama, Romance
A young Parisian woman meets a middle-aged American businessman who demands their clandestine relationship be based only on sex.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Maria Michi, Giovanna Galletti
Votes: 58,377 | Gross: $36.14M
23. Play It Again, Sam (1972)
PG | 85 min | Comedy, Romance
A neurotic film critic obsessed with the movie Casablanca (1942) attempts to get over his wife leaving him by dating again with the help of a married couple and his illusory idol, Humphrey Bogart.
Director: Herbert Ross | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Jerry Lacy
Votes: 28,002 | Gross: $2.30M
24. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Not Rated | 95 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
In the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Helena Rojo, Del Negro
Votes: 62,320
25. Sleuth (1972)
PG | 138 min | Mystery, Thriller
A man who loves games and theater invites his wife's lover to meet him, setting up a battle of wits with potentially deadly results.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Alec Cawthorne, John Matthews
Votes: 50,184 | Gross: $4.08M
26. Indian Summer (1972)
132 min | Drama, Romance
In Italy, gambler and poetry professor Daniele Dominici arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months at a high school, replacing another teacher. His ... See full summary »
Director: Valerio Zurlini | Stars: Alain Delon, Giancarlo Giannini, Sonia Petrovna, Renato Salvatori
Votes: 2,615
27. Cries & Whispers (1972)
R | 91 min | Drama
When a woman dying of cancer in early twentieth-century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long-repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin
Votes: 37,010 | Gross: $1.74M
28. What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)
R | 107 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A teacher who is having an affair with one of his students is reluctant to present an alibi when his lover witnesses the first in a series of murders connected to their school.
Director: Massimo Dallamano | Stars: Fabio Testi, Karin Baal, Cristina Galbó, Joachim Fuchsberger
Votes: 5,926
29. Beware! The Blob (1972)
GP | 87 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
A technician brings a frozen specimen of the original Blob back from the North Pole. When his wife accidentally defrosts the thing, it terrorizes the populace, including the local hippies, kittens, and bowlers.
Director: Larry Hagman | Stars: Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb
Votes: 2,399 | Gross: $0.05M
30. Eolomea (1972)
82 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
Eight space cargo-ships disappear without a trace within three days. And the orbit station "Margot" has suddenly fallen silent. The space council is faced with a mystery and the scientist ... See full summary »
Director: Herrmann Zschoche | Stars: Cox Habbema, Ivan Andonov, Rolf Hoppe, Vsevolod Sanaev
Votes: 635
31. Horror Express (1972)
R | 88 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
While on the Trans-Siberian Express, an anthropologist and his rival must contain the threat posed by the former's cargo: a prehistoric ape which is the host for a parasitic life-form.
Director: Eugenio Martín | Stars: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alberto de Mendoza, Telly Savalas
Votes: 12,771
32. Night of the Lepus (1972)
PG | 88 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Giant mutant rabbits terrorize the south-west.
Director: William F. Claxton | Stars: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley
Votes: 5,456
33. 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: 31,477 | Gross: $0.69M
34. 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: 13,915 | Gross: $0.57M
35. 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
36. Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)
Not Rated | 105 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
When a southern Italian town is rocked by a string of child murders, the police and two urban outcasts search for the culprit amid scapegoating within the superstitious community.
Director: Lucio Fulci | Stars: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian, Irene Papas
Votes: 10,703
37. Endless Night (I) (1972)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A working-class young Englishman marries an affable American heiress, but their marital bliss is soon interrupted when they begin constructing a home on land alleged to be cursed.
Director: Sidney Gilliat | Stars: Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson
Votes: 2,414
38. Images (1972)
R | 104 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Whilst writing a children's book, a woman interrupted by images unsure if they may, or may not be real
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Susannah York, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, Hugh Millais
Votes: 7,758
39. Tales from the Crypt (1972)
PG | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Five strangers get lost in a crypt and, after meeting the mysterious Crypt Keeper, receive visions of how they will die.
Director: Freddie Francis | Stars: Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ralph Richardson, Geoffrey Bayldon
Votes: 13,024 | Gross: $1.70M
40. You'll Like My Mother (1972)
PG | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Francesca Kinsolving, a very pregnant widow whose husband was recently killed in action in Vietnam, travels to visit her late husband's mother in a snowy Minnesota town and gets snowed in ... See full summary »
Director: Lamont Johnson | Stars: Patty Duke, Rosemary Murphy, Richard Thomas, Sian Barbara Allen
Votes: 863
41. Alfredo, Alfredo (1972)
R | 98 min | Comedy, Romance
Alfredo, a timid young Italian, lusts after and woos the beautiful Maria Rosa. But when he manages to marry her, he discovers life is not nearly so blissful as he expected.
Director: Pietro Germi | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Stefania Sandrelli, Carla Gravina, Saro Urzì
Votes: 1,184 | Gross: $0.15M
Tell Your Friends