1975 Was the Best Year in '70s Cinema
The 1970s are widely seen as the high point of New Hollywood, a decade when filmmakers worked with far less studio control, the Hays Code was dead, and audiences welcomed darker, more revolutionary stories. That environment produced some of cinema's most ambitious works — films that became foundational touchstones for later generations.
As the decade's midpoint, 1975 stands out for releasing several pictures that have since achieved classic status, influencing trends, spawning franchises, and shaping the future of entertainment and politics. François Truffaut's The Story of Adèle H. dramatizes the destructive obsession of Victor Hugo's daughter, with Isabelle Adjani earning her first Oscar nomination and becoming, at twenty, the youngest Best Actress nominee at the time.
Truffaut frames Adèle's fixation as both unhealthy and irresistibly definitive, while Adjani embodies the character's single-minded tragedy with a quietly furious commitment.