The 1970s were a golden age for thrillers. It was an era of paranoia and disillusionment, and many filmmakers leaned into that with their movies. Whether focusing on political assassinations or shark attacks, several directors channeled the anxieties of their time and turned them into gripping cinematic works of art that endure as masterpieces today.
With this in mind, this list looks at the finest thrillers of the 1970s. The titles below come from established filmmakers whose names have become synonymous with quality, and they all pushed boundaries in tone, style, and subject matter, while still serving up tense, compelling stories. They still hit hard today, contributing to their decade’s significant standing in the history of cinema and as remarkable works on their own.
10
‘Sisters’ (1972)
“What the Devil hath joined together let no man cut asunder.” Sisters marked the beginning of Brian De Palma‘s reputation as a master of psychological thrillers. It showcases his Hitchcockian influences as well as his willingness to push them into stranger, bloodier territory. The story centers on a model (Margot Kidder) with a dark secret involving her twin sister, and the amateur journalist who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth after witnessing a murder.
The opening setup is familiar, but the execution is anything but. Aesthetically, De Palma revels in split screens, voyeuristic camerawork, and lurid suspense. The result is a thriller that straddles exploitation and art, using gore and shock as vehicles for genuine unease. While De Palma would go on to more polished masterpieces, Sisters remains one of his rawest and most unsettling works. Interesting bit of trivia: the climax of Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with its knife-wielding Manson killer, pays visual homage to Sisters.
9
‘Three Days of the Condor’ (1975)
“Somebody or something is rotten in the Company!” This conspiracy thriller perfectly captures the paranoia and malaise of the post-Watergate era. Robert Redford stars as a low-level CIA analyst who narrowly survives an office massacre and stumbles into a shadowy plot that puts him on the run from his government. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse chase through New York City, where no one seems to be trustworthy.
Opposite Redford, Faye Dunaway adds depth in an unusually complex “femme fatale” role, where you’re never quite sure where her character stands. In terms of directing, Sydney Pollack keeps the tension simmering with a mix of grounded realism and slick pacing. The edits and shots are stylish without being over-the-top. In the end, Three Days of the Condor succeeds as both a gripping piece of entertainment and a snapshot of a disillusioned nation. If anything, public distrust of authority has only grown since then, making this movie ever relevant.
8
‘Klute’ (1971)
“I’ve done terrible things, I’ve killed three people.” Klute is another thriller that goes way beyond genre fare, becoming a surprisingly deep character study. Jane Fonda, in an Oscar-winning performance, plays Bree Daniels, a call girl who becomes entangled in a missing-person case investigated by small-town detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland). What begins as a procedural unfolds into something far more interesting. Director Alan J. Pakula uses the mystery elements to explore themes of surveillance and exploitation.
The imagery is striking. Gordon Willis‘ cinematography cloaks New York in shadow, creating a visual landscape of menace where danger feels omnipresent. That said, the highlight is undoubtedly Fonda. She plays Bree with a believable mix of intelligence, fragility, and resilience, and her work significantly elevates the film. In a lesser performer’s hands, Bree might have been little more than a plot device or stock character. Instead, thanks to Fonda, she’s as central to the suspense as the mystery itself.
7
‘Don’t Look Now’ (1973)
“Nothing is what it seems.” Nicolas Roeg delivered several gems in the ’70s, but the finest is Don’t Look Now. It’s one of the most haunting thrillers ever made, a meditation on grief wrapped in supernatural dread. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a couple mourning the accidental death of their daughter. They relocate to Venice in hopes of healing, but instead, they become ensnared in a web of psychic visions and mysterious warnings while a killer stalks the canals.
While the plot is clever and compelling, it’s really the atmosphere that reels the viewer in. Venice itself becomes a character, a maze of canals and shadows that seems to swallow the grieving couple whole. Plus, Roeg’s fragmented editing style and disorienting imagery further amplify the unease. Don’t Look Now is also highly symbolic, with repeated motifs and images that come to hold deeper meaning or hint at future events. This approach was highly influential, drawing praise from subsequent storytellers like Ryan Murphy and Danny Boyle.
6
‘The Parallax View’ (1974)
“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” Alan J. Pakula strikes again. The Parallax View features Warren Beatty as a journalist investigating a shadowy corporation linked to political assassinations. Once again, this is a movie that very much reflects the mood of the time, with a public still reeling from the Watergate revelations. Pakula leans into that, stripping away all comfort and presenting a world where truth is elusive and power is invisible yet absolute. This bleakness, right down to its devastating ending, distinguishes it from more conventional thrillers of the era.
In this sense, The Parallax View broke new ground for political thrillers and wrote a playbook that subsequent filmmakers have borrowed from. On top of the dark mood, the movie also shines with some truly inspired visuals. The famous “Parallax test” is a montage designed to brainwash recruits, showing a flash of images of Richard Nixon, Lee Harvey Oswald, Thor, and Hitler, along with words like “LOVE”, “ENEMY”, and “ME”.
5
‘Straw Dogs’ (1971)
“You’re a coward.” One of the most controversial thrillers of the ’70s, Straw Dogs is a brutal examination of violence, masculinity, and morality. Dustin Hoffman leads the cast as David, an American academic who relocates with his wife (Susan George) to rural England, only to find himself at odds with the local men. The tension escalates into shocking violence, culminating in a siege that forces David to confront his capacity for brutality. It was directed by The Wild Bunch‘s Sam Peckinpah, a filmmaker infamous for his visceral violence.
This infamy is most evident in Straw Dogs‘ harrowing sexual assault sequence, which courted controversy on release and remains divisive all these decades later. Yet Straw Dogs is no mere exploitation flick. Beyond its controversy, it’s a genuine dissection of human savagery. It examines the thin veneer of civility that masks primal instincts. Love it or hate it, Straw Dogs is impossible to ignore, a film that pushes the thriller to its most provocative extremes.
4
‘The French Connection’ (1971)
“Never trust anyone!” The French Connection set a new standard for crime thrillers, blending gritty realism with pulse-pounding action. Gene Hackman gives a career-defining performance as Popeye Doyle, a relentless New York cop obsessed with taking down a French heroin smuggling ring. The film’s documentary-style cinematography immerses viewers in the grime of early ’70s New York, while its morally ambiguous characters reflect a world where the line between justice and obsession is increasingly blurred. Indeed, Doyle is troubling as he is heroic.
William Friedkin was at the top of his game here, crafting several sequences that still hit hard today. Chief among them is the legendary car chase beneath an elevated train. It’s one of the greatest action sequences ever, combining raw energy with nerve-shredding suspense. Not for nothing, The French Connection took home that year’s Oscar for Best Picture, forever redefining the urban thriller and setting the tone for decades of gritty cop dramas.
3
‘Sorcerer’ (1977)
“I don’t care where he is or what it costs.” Another banger from Friedkin. A loose remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot‘s The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer follows a group of desperate men tasked with transporting unstable dynamite through treacherous South American terrain. What follows is two hours of nerve-shredding suspense, as Friedkin turns every obstacle, including collapsing bridges, jungle mud, and rainstorms, into life-or-death set pieces. This culminates in a masterfully tense sequence where the trucks attempt to cross a rickety rope bridge.
The film’s intensity lies not in shootouts or conspiracies but in the sheer physical danger of its journey. Every bump in the road represents a potential catastrophe. A sense of impending doom hangs over the whole thing, exacerbated by Tangerine Dream’s pulsating electronic score. All this makes Sorcerer one of the most thrilling survival stories of its era. Though it flopped on release (overshadowed by Star Wars), it has since been reappraised as a masterpiece.
2
‘The Conversation’ (1974)
“He’ll kill you if he gets a chance.” It’s a testament to Francis Ford Coppola‘s greatness that he churned out this quiet masterpiece in between the two Godfathers. The Conversation is a slow-burn thriller that trades action for suffocating paranoia. Gene Hackman carries most of it single-handedly as Harry Caul, a surveillance expert whose obsession with a cryptic recording leads him into a spiral of guilt and fear. The movie builds this premise into a sharp statement on privacy, morality, and the cost of professional detachment.
Coppola crafts The Conversation with minimalist precision, using sound design as a weapon. Snippets of dialogue warp and distort, leaving both Harry and the audience unsure of the truth. He’s assisted by a fittingly complex performance from his star. Hackman’s portrayal of Caul as a man both brilliant and broken anchors the movie’s slow descent into despair. All this adds up to a thriller defined not by explosions but by silences, where the danger is in what we hear and what we can’t.
1
‘Jaws’ (1975)
“This was no boat accident.” With Jaws, Spielberg crafted the ultimate blockbuster thriller. The premise is simple — a great white shark terrorizes a small seaside town, forcing a police chief, a marine biologist, and a grizzled fisherman to hunt it down — but the execution is masterful, using restraint and suggestion to build unbearable tension. The malfunctioning shark famously forced Spielberg to imply more than show, which only heightened the suspense. As a result, every ripple of water radiates pure dread.
Every element is bolted into its right place, serving the whole. More than just a monster movie, Jaws is a masterclass in pacing, character, and escalation. The standout is arguably the music. John Williams‘ iconic two-note score ranks among cinema’s all-time scariest tunes. The movie has since been absorbed so thoroughly into the public consciousness that it’s easy to take it for granted now, but, in 1975, Jaws was visionary stuff.
