Not to sound like an old codger, but movies aren’t as good as they used to be.  Oh sure, they’re more technically dazzling than ever, and there is still a fair amount of quality among the dross.   But film today is less interesting, surprising, or engaging than at any other time I can remember.

This observation raises an interesting question, though: when was American cinema at its peak?  More precisely, if one had to pick a single year as the best ever for Hollywood, what would it be?

For many cinephiles, the answer to this question is 1939, and a strong argument can be made in its favor.  Film highlights from that year include timeless works like Gone With the Wind (still the biggest ticket-seller of all time) and The Wizard of Oz, both of which remain frequently viewed today.   The year also featured classics in genres like the Western (Stagecoach, directed by John Ford) and the sophisticated romantic comedy (Ninotchka), as well as the film perhaps most emblematic of Frank Capra, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

While 1939 is impressive by any standard, for my money Hollywood’s greatest year was 1974.  The “New Hollywood” was well-established by then and churning out an astonishing number of innovative, challenging movies.  Of course, this era is controversial, and some of the supposedly landmark New Hollywood films can be rightly criticized for perversely celebrating anti-heroes (hello, Bonnie and Clyde) or random nihilistic rebellion (Easy Rider).   But 1974 was a year when Hollywood was making movies for adults about adults, quite often complex, ambiguous adults caught in tricky and difficult situations.  Films from that year that fit this description include:

• The Godfather Part II The greatest sequel of all-time and arguably better than the original.  It is simply essential filmmaking, which extends the plot of The Godfather both backward and forward in time and embeds the story of one Mafia family into the sweep of 20th century history.   The Godfather Parts I and II are more than just two outstanding movies, made just two years apart; they’re an American epic.
• The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola won the Best Director Oscar for The Godfather Part II (amazingly, he didn’t win for The Godfather), but he also directed this intriguing little movie which received a Best Picture nod.  The story is about a surveillance expert recording a couple on behalf of a client, who slowly begins to suspect that something criminal is afoot.  The movie uses sound both aesthetically and as a plot device in a unique and fascinating way.   Gene Hackman is terrific in the lead but wasn’t nominated for an Oscar because there were so many other strong performances by actors in that year.
• Chinatown Its closing line (“Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown”) may be even more famous than Casabalanca’s, but the script sparkles from the beginning.   The casting is also close to perfection: can you imagine anyone else playing Jack Nicholson’s or John Huston’s roles, or even Faye Dunaway’s?  A brilliant updating of classic Hollywood film noir.
• Lenny Dustin Hoffman plays the talented but troubled comedian Lenny Bruce, in a bravura performance.   Bob Fosse directed in his typical razzle-dazzle style (perfectly suited to Bruce’s finger-snapping comic rhythms), but spices the story with documentary-type commentary from others.  A warts and all-portrait that is compelling but sometimes not easy to watch.
• Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore An atypical film from Martin Scorsese, about a recently widowed woman who moves to the Southwest to pursue her dreams and ends up becoming a waitress.  Ellen Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar.  Unfortunately, this movie is forever tainted by the horrendous TV series “Alice” that it spawned, but that shouldn’t stop it from being in your Netflix queue.
• Harry and Tonto A quirky little flick about an old man who gets kicked out of his New York apartment and ends up travelling across the country with his cat Tonto.  A lot of humor, some bittersweet, and encounters with eccentric characters ensue.  The title character was played by Art Carney, who is best known for his role as Ed Norton in the TV series The Honeymooners.  Carney received his one and only Oscar nomination for the film and, remarkably, he won, beating out the four other heavyweight contenders (Nicholson, Pacino for Godfather Part II, Hoffman, and Albert Finney for Murder on the Orient Express).  Harry and Tonto is almost completely forgotten today but shouldn’t be.
• The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Another mostly forgotten movie that featured a great script and manic performance from Richard Dreyfus, in his first lead role.  Dreyfus plays the ambitious and often unlikeable lead character, doing whatever he can to get ahead.
• The Taking of Pelham One, Two Three A gritty urban thriller about a group taking over a New York subway train and demanding to be paid a huge ransom or passengers will die.  The criminals go by color-based code names, a device that Quentin Tarantino later incorporated in his first film Reservoir Dogs.  Walter Matthau plays the detective simultaneously negotiating with and attempting to catch the crooks.

There are many other worthy, offbeat films in that year, including The Gambler (James Caan, never a great actor, was near-great here), The Sugarland Express (Spielberg’s first feature film), Blazing Saddles (the only time Mel Brooks was funny?), Bring Me the Head of Alredo Garcia, and Freebie and the Bean (a guilty pleasure).

Finally, no discussion of 1974 would be complete without mentioning disaster movies.  The mini-genre of the 1970s disaster movie was kicked off with Airport in 1970 and taken up a notch in 1972’s Poseidon Adventure.  This cycle came to a kind of completion in 1974, when the top-grossing film for the year was The Towering Inferno, which was also nominated for Best Picture.  The number four-grossing movie of the year was Earthquake, another disaster film.

The disaster genre seemed to go dormant for a while after 1974, but it’s probably more accurate to say it was transformed the following year with the mega-success of Jaws. Of course, Jaws was a pivotal film in several ways.  It’s the movie that put Steven Spielberg on the map, where he’s been the industry’s single most dominant figure ever since.  Relatedly, Jaws’ financial success was so huge and unexpected that it changed Hollywood’s business model.   Studio executives became far less interested in financing small and moderately successful films like The Conversation and more focused on making the next blockbuster (a trend that was soon intensified with Star Wars).  But it’s also possible to see Jaws as the apogee of the 1970s disaster movie, which was paved by the success of movies like The Towering Inferno. This makes 1974 not just a great year for movies, but a pivotal one as well.  In 1974, the “New Hollywood” tide of filmmaking was cresting, while the movie-making model that’s still with us today was being born.

This is true in another respect as well.  Before 1974, movie sequels that didn’t involve James Bond were generally disdained.  The Godfather Part II helped to change that since it was an indisputably great film that grew out of another film, not a book or original screenplay.  Sequels became far more common – in my opinion, somewhat of a plague – after The Godfather Part II’s artistic and financial success.  Ironically, this is another way in which the great cinematic year of 1974 has proven to be consequential.