best movies of 1978
by tinnes-04102 | created - 13 Apr 2020 | updated - 2 weeks ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. Superman (1978)
PG | 143 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
An alien orphan is sent from his dying planet to Earth, where he grows up to become his adoptive home's first and greatest superhero.
Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando
Votes: 187,581 | Gross: $134.22M
2. Straight Time (1978)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
The difficulties of a career burglar to reinsert himself after being released on parole.
Directors: Ulu Grosbard, Dustin Hoffman | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton
Votes: 10,164 | Gross: $9.90M
3. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
R | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A man studies kung fu at the Shaolin Temple to fight back against the oppressive Manchu government.
Director: Chia-Liang Liu | Stars: Chia-Hui Liu, Lieh Lo, Yue Wong, Chia-Yung Liu
Votes: 18,370
4. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes: 306,875 | Gross: $47.00M
extended version
5. The Big Fix (1978)
PG | 108 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
An ex-'60s radical now working as a private eye is hired by an old flame to investigate a political smear campaign. The case becomes more dangerous as it unfolds.
Director: Jeremy Kagan | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Anspach, Bonnie Bedelia, John Lithgow
Votes: 2,399
6. Big Wednesday (1978)
PG | 120 min | Drama, Sport
The lives of some California surfers from the early 1960s to the 1970s.
Director: John Milius | Stars: Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, Gary Busey, Patti D'Arbanville
Votes: 7,373
7. Who'll Stop the Rain (1978)
R | 126 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A Vietnam veteran gets conned into helping an old Marine friend smuggle drugs into the country but ends up having to go on the run with his friend's wife when the deal goes sour.
Director: Karel Reisz | Stars: Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty, Anthony Zerbe
Votes: 3,282
8. Fingers (1978)
R | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Music
A dysfunctional young man is pulled between loyalties to his Italian mob-connected loan-shark father and his mentally-disturbed Jewish concert-pianist mother.
Director: James Toback | Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Michael V. Gazzo
Votes: 2,883
9. Grease (1978)
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Good girl Sandy Olsson and greaser Danny Zuko fell in love over the summer. When they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?
Director: Randal Kleiser | Stars: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway
Votes: 300,671 | Gross: $188.76M
10. The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
PG | 114 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The story of the life and career of the early rock and roll singer, from his meteoric rise to stardom, to his marriage and untimely death.
Director: Steve Rash | Stars: Gary Busey, Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Conrad Janis
Votes: 9,987 | Gross: $14.36M
11. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
R | 109 min | Comedy
At a 1962 college, Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the entire Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.
Director: John Landis | Stars: John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst
Votes: 129,366
12. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 362,327 | Gross: $48.98M
13. Heaven Can Wait (1978)
PG | 101 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die, returns to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire.
Directors: Warren Beatty, Buck Henry | Stars: Warren Beatty, James Mason, Julie Christie, Jack Warden
Votes: 23,529 | Gross: $81.64M
14. The Boys from Brazil (1978)
R | 125 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A Nazi hunter in Paraguay discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer
Votes: 30,583 | Gross: $19.00M
15. Watership Down (1978)
PG | 91 min | Animation, Adventure, Drama
Hoping to escape destruction by human developers and save their community, a colony of rabbits, led by Hazel and Fiver, seek out a safe place to set up a new warren.
Directors: Martin Rosen, John Hubley | Stars: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Ralph Richardson, Michael Graham Cox
Votes: 39,434
16. Drunken Master (1978)
PG-13 | 111 min | Action, Comedy
Wong Fei-Hung is a mischievous yet righteous young man, but after a series of incidents his frustrated father has him disciplined by a master of drunken martial arts.
Director: Woo-Ping Yuen | Stars: Jackie Chan, Siu-Tin Yuen, Jeong-lee Hwang, Dean Shek
Votes: 43,869
17. Days of Heaven (1978)
PG | 94 min | Drama, Romance
A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz
Votes: 62,773
18. The Fury (1978)
R | 118 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A former CIA agent uses the talents of a young psychic to help retrieve his telekinetic son from a shadowy secret government agency.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress, Charles Durning
Votes: 17,330
19. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978)
PG | 104 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
In 1964, six teenagers from New Jersey run off to see The Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in the hope of meeting their idols. However, they don't have tickets. Along the way, they learn new things about friendship and growing up.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco, Marc McClure, Susan Kendall Newman
Votes: 5,620
20. Blue Collar (1978)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
When three automotive factory workers who're struggling financially try to steal from their own labor union, they discover corruption, and reluctantly decide to use this information for blackmail.
Director: Paul Schrader | Stars: Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Ed Begley Jr.
Votes: 10,650
21. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Unrated | 127 min | Horror, Thriller
During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Votes: 128,636 | Gross: $5.10M
22. Hooper (1978)
PG | 99 min | Action, Comedy
Aging Hollywood stuntman Sonny Hooper wants to prove that he's still got what it takes to be a great professional in this risky, under-recognized line of work.
Director: Hal Needham | Stars: Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field, Brian Keith
Votes: 7,895 | Gross: $78.00M
23. September 30, 1955 (1977)
PG | 101 min | Drama
When Jimmy's idol, James Dean, dies on September 30, 1955, the small-town Arkansas college undergraduate goes berserk. He and five of his friends hold a vigil which turns into a drunken debauch--and, finally, a tragedy.
Director: James Bridges | Stars: Richard Thomas, Susan Tyrrell, Deborah Benson, Lisa Blount
Votes: 458
1978 USA release date
24. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
R | 135 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A proud strip club owner is forced to come to terms with himself as a man when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Robert Phillips
Votes: 14,762
1978 director cut
25. Pretty Baby (1978)
R | 110 min | Drama
A preteen girl lives as a prostitute in New Orleans in 1917.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, Frances Faye
Votes: 12,841 | Gross: $5.79M
26. The Lord of the Rings (1978)
PG | 132 min | Animation, Adventure, Fantasy
The Fellowship of the Ring embark on a journey to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron's reign over Middle-earth.
Director: Ralph Bakshi | Stars: Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, John Hurt
Votes: 35,884 | Gross: $0.92M
27. The Brink's Job (1978)
PG | 104 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A fictional retelling of the infamous Boston Brink's Company robbery on January 17th, 1950, of $2.7M, and cost the American taxpayers $29M to apprehend the culprits with only $58,000 recovered.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates
Votes: 3,516 | Gross: $9.40M
28. The Stingiest Man in Town (1978 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 60 min | Animation, Drama, Family
This version of the story is told from the perspective of B.A.H. Humbug. After Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to assist the poor or have Christmas Dinner with his nephew, he is visited by the ... See full summary »
Directors: Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr. | Stars: Walter Matthau, Tom Bosley, Theodore Bikel, Robert Morse
Votes: 553
29. The Wild Geese (1978)
R | 134 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A British banker hires a group of British mercenaries to rescue a deposed African President from the hands of a corrupt African dictator.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen | Stars: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy Krüger
Votes: 14,179
30. The End (I) (1978)
R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama
Slapstick black comedy about a man (Reynolds) who finds that he hasn't much longer to live and has bungled his attempts at suicide.
Director: Burt Reynolds | Stars: Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Dom DeLuise, Strother Martin
Votes: 4,385
31. The Big Sleep (1978)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Grizzled American private detective in England investigates a complicated case of blackmail turned murder involving a rich but honest elderly general, his two loose socialite daughters, a pornographer and a gangster.
Director: Michael Winner | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Candy Clark
Votes: 5,436
32. Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
PG | 114 min | Action, Comedy
The San Fernando Valley adventures of trucker turned prize-fighter Philo Beddoe and his pet orangutan Clyde.
Director: James Fargo | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Beverly D'Angelo
Votes: 30,052 | Gross: $106.00M
33. Witch's Night Out (1978 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 28 min | Animation, Family
A witch, disgruntled by the fact that no one takes Halloween seriously anymore, decides to stir things up and disrupt the social gathering in her old house as well as turn a couple of kids who love monsters into actual monsters.
Director: John Leach | Stars: Gilda Radner, Bob Church, John Leach, Naomi Leach
Votes: 470
34. Battlestar Galactica (1978)
PG | 148 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, the last major fighter carrier leads a makeshift fugitive fleet on a desperate search for the legendary planet Earth.
Directors: Richard A. Colla, Alan J. Levi | Stars: Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson Jr.
Votes: 10,765
35. Return from Witch Mountain (1978)
G | 95 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Tia and Tony visit Los Angeles, but he's quickly kidnapped by an evil scientist, leaving her to desperately search for him.
Director: John Hough | Stars: Bette Davis, Christopher Lee, Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann
Votes: 5,679
36. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Family, Sport
A small-time hustler takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best Little League baseball team, sparking off a series of adventures and mishaps.
Director: John Berry | Stars: Tony Curtis, Jackie Earle Haley, Tomisaburô Wakayama, Antonio Inoki
Votes: 3,275 | Gross: $14.00M
Tell Your Friends