Time for a new occasional feature! Enhanced by the increase in movie watching at home I’ve undergone in the past five years, I’ll pick a year from the last century (not in chronological order), list my ten favorite films, a few honorable mentions and five titles I haven’t seen but want to watch. Kicking this off by turning back the clock to my birth year—1975’s often seen as a nadir of pop culture, but as a possible refutation, look at this list:

1. Monty Python and The Holy Grail
2. Dog Day Afternoon
3. Nashville
4. Grey Gardens
5. Night Moves
6. The Passenger
7. Picnic At Hanging Rock
8. Fox and His Friends
9. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
10. Smile

Honorable Mentions: Jaws, Jeanne Dielman, Mirror, Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

For My Watchlist: The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, At Long Last Love, A Boy and His Dog, Cooley High, The Story of Adele H.

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Of course Monty Python and The Holy Grail would always end up my number one given the impact it had on my film vocabulary but Dog Day Afternoon is a close second. I revisited it about two years ago and noted that anyone looking to make a heist picture or a character study should retain all of it for future reference. Al Pacino should have also won the Oscar that year (Jack Nicholson, winner for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest arguably gave a worthier performance in The Passenger, possibly my favorite Antonioni after Red Desert) and the film’s handling of his character’s fluid sexuality is decades ahead of its time.

Nashville could’ve also been a serious contender for #2 but unlike Dog Day Afternoon, I haven’t seen it in nearly two decades. I could also stand to revisit Grey Gardens although I’m staunch (S-T-A-U-N-C-H!) in the feeling that I could remember it by heart. Night Moves, a more recent first-time watch was nearly Royal Tenenbaum, PI and I hope it’s becoming more widely seen given Gene Hackman’s recent passing. May Michael Ritchie’s perceptive beauty pageant satire Smile achieve the same status once Bruce Dern inevitably kicks the bucket.

Some may scoff at Rocky Horror’s inclusion but I’ve come to appreciate it as a genuinely good film with great music and iconic performances whose only sin is that it can’t sustain such more-ness all the way through to its somewhat ridiculous final act. It’s certainly classier than the two go-for-broke stinkers Ken Russell (whose other work from this period will likely make some of my top tens!) released this year: the overrated kitsch-fest Tommy and the justly obscure Lisztomania.

Someday I’ll give Sight and Sound grande dame Jeanne Dielman another viewing; I’ve recognized its worth but have also struggled with its endurance-test construction;  I’ll likely check out Francois Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H. first or even Gene Wilder’s directorial debut which I have measured expectations for despite his singularity as a performer.