The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025
55. 1971 - Klute
Honourable Mentions: Dirty Harry, The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange
Director Alan J. Pakula's most iconic film from the 1970s was the Watergate thriller All the President's Men. It was also the conclusion of a thematic trilogy the director had forged in the first half of the decade - the "Paranoia Trilogy" - the first two parts of which were 1971's Klute and 1974's The Parallax View.
These films were built around themes of surveillance, corruption, and of course paranoia, capturing the Warren Commission zeitgeist of suspicion and fear with stories that dwelled on surreptitious stalking, assassination and conspiracy. Klute, however, is the most unnerving of the bunch - a neo-noir romance punctuated by pure voyeuristic terror.
Jane Fonda won an Academy Award for her performance as Bree Daniels, with the late, great Donald Sutherland the eponymous PI who crosses her path. Pakula set the tone for the modern thriller with his film, which also boasts perhaps the eeriest score of all time, composed by Michael Small.