The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

Honourable Mentions: The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Young Frankenstein

1974 is in contention to be one of the greatest years in film history, so any film that ends up topping that year is also in contention to be one of the greatest films ever made. While the aforementioned honourable trio are all masterpieces in their own way, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is more akin to a force of nature - a film that inspires and horrifies in equal measure, the former because of its guerrilla ingenuity and technical beauty, and the latter due to the sheer visceral quality of its imagery.

Many will make the argument that The Godfather Part II is the definitive picture of the 1970s, but Texas Chain Saw is that and so much more. It's a Vietnam-era treatise on the trauma of the Cold War generation, a rattling death howl on the inexplicable nature of the decade's violence, and finally, a cathartic return to endurance despite it all.

All of this, accomplished with a few thousand dollars and a relatively meagre cast and crew, makes it all the more incredible.