1. Alien
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.3 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Ridley Scott
Actors: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright
Plot: A space mining ship investigates an SOS on a distant planet. The crew explores and finds a creature?s hive colony and when one of the eggs is hatched the crew has to fend for their lives. The movie stars Sigourney Weaver.
2. Apocalypse Now
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.3 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: War/Drama
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Actors: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Frederic Forrest, Laurence Fishburne, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper
Plot: Special ops Army captain Ben Willard is sent into the dark heart of the Vietnam War on a classified mission to assassinate rogue colonel Walter Kurtz. His journey includes some of the most iconic war scenes put to film, from surf-loving Lt Col Kilgore, and the famous helicopter attack on a Viet Cong village (to the strains of Wagner), the surreal USO jungle show by Playboy Playmates, to the Do Lung Bridge, the US' last outpost, where soldiers are abandoned to their fate and the only sound, besides explosions, is the yelling of the damned for salvation. Like Dante, every mile brings Willard further into hell with a growing suspicion that Kurtz may not be as crazy as the brass need to believe.
3. The Deer Hunter
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/War
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Michael Cimino
Actors: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza
Plot: A bunch of hunting friends must go to Vietnam, who are all from a small
town, change, and don't come back the same.
4. Monty Python's Life of Brian
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Terry Jones
Actors: Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin
Plot: During the time of Jesus, a boy is born in the stable next to the Messiah,
his name is Brian and he is often mistaken for the messiah.
5. Dawn of the Dead
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Horror
MPAA Rating: R
Director: George A. Romero
Actors: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Crawford, David Early
Plot: A group of four people barricade themselves in a mall to hoping to survive against the recently risen dead. A militant motorcylce gang threatens to ruin their plans.
6. Kramer vs. Kramer
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Robert Benton
Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Justin Henry, Jane Alexander, Meryl Streep, JoBeth Williams, Howard Duff
Plot: A divorced couple cope with caring and not caring for their son as the man must battle in court to try to keep him.
7. Manhattan
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Comedy/Romance
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Woody Allen
Actors: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Michael Murphy, Anne Byrne
Plot: A divorced man looks for a romantic relationship away from his teenage lover- who happens to be the mistress of his best friend.
8. Tree of Wooden Clogs, The ( Albero degli zoccoli, L' )
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: Italian
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Ermanno Olmi
Actors: Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi, Omar Brignoli, Antonio Ferrari, Teresa Brescianini, Giuseppe Brignoli
Plot: Ermanno Olmi's epic film charts the destinies of four families in an Italian peasant community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The title refers to the landlord's tree a peasant cuts down so his son can have shoes to go to school.
9. Escape from Alcatraz
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Crime/Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Don Siegel
Actors: Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, Bruce M. Fischer, Paul Benjamin, Roberts Blossom , Frank Ronzio
Plot: A group of incarcerated men discover a way to escape from the unescapeable
Alcatraz Prison in which they try to dig and decoy their way out.
10. Being There
Year of Release: 1979
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Hal Ashby
Actors: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart
Plot: A simple gardener has to leave the only home he has ever known when the owner dies. Out on the D.C. streets alone, only speaking what he has learned from TV, he none-the-less comes into contact with a wealthy lobbyist, who is dying himself. Soon he is the toast of town, but remains the simple man he has always been.
