Old Hollywood might’ve diedaroundthe end of the 1960s, but by no means did the idea of a movie star die with it. Movies got exciting in a new way around the end of the 1960s and start of the1970s, with some big-name actors continuing to find interesting roles, all the while plenty of fresher faces started making it big, in turn becoming some of the most recognizable movie stars of all time.
Anyway, to focus on the 1970s, these movies all came out in that decade andhad some of the most impressive casts of any film released during that time. If you want to see lots of famous people in a single movie (and being at or near the top of their respective games, too), then all of these are essential watches.
10’Apocalypse Now' (1979)
Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall
Apocalypse Nowdidn’t need to have a bunch of relatively well-known actors in it to excel, given how bold it is as aFrancis Ford Coppolafilm, but the cast here ends up being icing on a rather monumental cake.Martin Sheen,Marlon Brando, andDennis Hopperall make impressions, whileRobert Duvallsteals the brief scenes he’s in,Harrison Ford shows up randomly near the start, and Laurence Fishburne is here at such a young age he’s hardly recognizable.
There are other recognizable actors here, too, but maybethe star of the show remains Coppola, who went all-out making this and has struggled to do anything nearly as good in the decades since. But that’s not too big a problem when the film that’s hard to exceed is as good asApocalypse Now(and the guy had one hell of a run during the 1970s, as a couple of soon-to-be-mentioned films will hopefully further demonstrate).
Apocalypse Now
9’Network' (1976)
Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch
Hey look, it’s another movie that features Robert Duvall:Network. He’s joined here by the likes ofFaye Dunaway,William Holden,Peter Finch, andNed Beatty, and the filmitself is another classic of its decade, being ahead of its time in the way it explored the tension between news being informative and entertaining, painting a bleak portrait of the lengths people in the industry might go to in order to get eyeballs.
Nearly 50 years later, there are still issues in the world that were explored inNetwork, and it’s kind of upsetting how timeless the whole thing has proven to be. Still, that makes it easy to respect, andthe acting is a big part of why the film works as well as it does, and leaves such an impression.
8’The Deer Hunter' (1978)
Starring: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale
The Deer Huntercan also be compared to Apocalypse Now in that it was an early film about the Vietnam War, though things feel much more upsetting emotionally than eerie and unsettling. Both movies unpack the horrors of the conflict in starkly different ways, all the while having another thing in common: casts that are stacked with great actors.
Plenty of people inThe Deer Hunterwere either newly-established stars or up-and-comers in 1978, with actors likeRobert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage, andMeryl Streep all giving career-best performanceshere. Otherwise,The Deer Hunteralso excels on other fronts, being a long, dense, and challenging film, yet also a massively impactful one that pulls very few punches when it comes to the difficult subject matter at hand.
The Deer Hunter
7’The Towering Inferno' (1974)
Starring: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden
Throughout the 1970s, there were a fair few disaster movies that had large ensemble casts with big-name actors aplenty, often to ratchet up suspense and deliver shock value bykilling off characters played by well-known actors. This didn’t always work, but when it did, such films – and their casts – were worth celebrating, and few 1970s disaster movies did the whole thing as well asThe Towering Inferno.
At the center of the film are twotimelessly cool actors:Steve McQueenandPaul Newman, which already makes this stand out as far as casting goes… but wait, there’s more!Network’s William Holden and Faye Dunaway appear here,as do the likes of Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, and two Roberts: Vaughn and Wagner. Oh,O.J. Simpsontoo, admittedly, who ended up being a pretty notable actor after his football career, though by the 1990s, hedid become most closely associated with, you know, something else.
The Towering Inferno
6'1900' (1976)
Starring: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland
1976 was apretty substantial year for Robert De Niro, given that was whenTaxi Drivercame out. Though the cast there was impressive, another De Niro film from 1976 had an even bigger one:1900. Also, the movie as a whole was much bigger, to say the least, having a narrative that spanned most of the 20th century up until that point, covering that monumental amount of time over the course of a comparatively gargantuan runtime: more than five hours, all up.
Alongside De Niro,1900alsostars the likes of Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, andDonald Sutherlandin a villainous rolethat’s unfortunately hard to forget, once seen. Actually, the movie as a whole is very in-your-face, uncomfortable, and uncompromising, but it’s still impressive in scope, and novel for the fact that even though it was extreme and out-there, it nevertheless amassed a remarkable cast.
5’Murder on the Orient Express' (1974)
Starring: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery
Just as the suspense in disaster movies can be amplified by an all-star cast, so too can murder-mystery movies be improved immensely by having lots of famous people playing potential murderers. Ifevery character is played by a recognizable actor, it accentuates the feeling that anyone could be a murderer. It’s an expensive but reliable way to level the playing field, so to speak.
This is on full display in the 1974 adaptation ofMurder on the Orient Express, withAlbert Finneyappearing as Hercule Poirot, and the rest of the cast being rounded out bythe likes of Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, John Gielgud, Michael York, and Vanessa Redgrave, among others. Who knew that a single train could hold so many iconic actors on board it?
Murder on the Orient Express
4’Nashville' (1975)
Starring: Ned Beatty, Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall
Robert Altmanmade a career out ofcrafting movies that had remarkable ensemble casts, though to be fair, he also directedSecret Honor(1984), which starred just one actor:Philip Baker Hall, portrayingRichard Nixon. So, Altman had range; it’s not fair to pigeonhole him. But his big movies are usually his most well-known, and few films of his prove as expansive on a casting front asNashville.
This one runs for more than 2.5 hours and follows well over 20 “main” characters, all of whom play some kind of role in the music scene in the titular Nashville. The cast includes actors likeKeith Carradine,Geraldine Chaplin, Ned Beatty,Karen Black,Shelley Duvall,Henry Gibson,Scott Glenn,Michael Murphy, andLily Tomlin, among others. Hell, evenJeff Goldblumis in it.He kind of just rides around on a weird motorcycle and says very little. It’s that kind of movie.
3’The Godfather' (1972)
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
BeforeApocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola had already made a handful of movies with impressively star-studded casts, including 1972’sThe Godfather.Marlon Brandois at the centerof this one, playing the aging patriarch of the Corleone family, and is backed by a cast that also includes the likes of Al Pacino,James Caan, Robert Duvall,Diane Keaton, andTalia Shire, to name just a few.
It’s one of the best-acted films of the 1970s, and stands out not just for how many acclaimed actors – both well-established and up-and-coming – were in it, but also for how great those actors were.The Godfatheris justexpertly balanced overall and more or less timeless, but its sequel had an arguably even stronger cast, so that’s worth mentioning too…
The Godfather
2’The Godfather Part II' (1974)
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
…It’s worth mentioning right here. Yeah, it’sThe Godfather Part II. It’s pretty much the sequel to which all other sequels are compared, expertly building upon what came before while doing something ambitious and different from the first. It went darker andmore introspective, as a sequel, all the while also working as a prequel, flashing back to Brando’s character’s early years.
Here, Vito Corleone is played by Robert De Niro, while most of the key players from the first movie who didn’t have their characters killed off return here. Alongside De Niro,The Godfather Part IIalso features the likes ofBruno KirbyandDominic Chianese, whileJon Cazale, playing Fredo Corleone, gets a much bigger role to play here than he did in the first movieand, in turn, makes an even stronger impression, portraying arguably the most tragic character inThe Godfathertrilogy.
The Godfather Part II
1’A Bridge Too Far' (1977)
Starring: Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman
While it’s not quite one of the very best war movies ever made,A Bridge Too Farcan call itself one of the most impressive as far as casts are concerned. Honestly, it feels like pretty much every well-known male actor in their 30s or 40s who could’ve feasibly played a soldier during World War II appears here. Like, not literally, because there are some acting heavyweights who don’t show up here… but it feels like there aren’t many.
This movie is about Operation Market Garden, and theensemble cast includesthe likes of Michael Caine,Sean Connery,Gene Hackman, Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Dirk Bogarde,James Caan,Anthony Hopkins,Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, Ryan O’Neal, and Liv Ullmann. It’s wild. Famous people just don’t stop showing up, even though the whole movie is very long. It was fittingly directed byRichard Attenborough, whoseJurassic Parkcharacter continually mentioned sparing no expense, and this movie sure didn’t either, when it came to getting big-name actors.
