Best 1970s Movie Posters UK — New Hollywood's Greatest Decade

Rocky · Raging Bull · Star Wars · The Godfather — the decade that transformed cinema forever — museum-grade prints from £3

The 1970s is the decade most film historians consider the finest in American cinema: the New Hollywood movement produced a generation of directors (Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, De Palma, Bogdanovich, Friedkin) who had been trained in the European art cinema tradition and applied it to studio budgets and mainstream audiences. The decade opened with The Godfather (1972) and Cabaret (1972), continued through The Exorcist (1973), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Taxi Driver (1976), Rocky (1976), Annie Hall (1977), Star Wars (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Raging Bull (1980). At 98types Camden, confirmed 1970s film poster products include Rocky (1976, Best Picture Oscar), Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980 — the final film of the New Hollywood era), the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back poster and The Godfather Theme Song Print. From £3, buy 3 get 1 free, same-day dispatch from Market Hall, Camden Lock Place, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8AL.

🎥 New Hollywood — The Decade That Broke the Rules

The New Hollywood movement (roughly 1967–1980) was enabled by the collapse of the Hollywood studio system's Production Code and the end of block-booking that had guaranteed studio films an audience regardless of quality. When studios could no longer guarantee returns through distribution agreements, they were forced to compete on quality — and they turned to a generation of directors who had studied the French New Wave, the Italian neo-realism, the Japanese golden age, and applied those lessons to American stories. The result was the most critically concentrated thirteen-year period in Hollywood history.

The New Hollywood decade produced: The Godfather (94/100 Metacritic), The Godfather Part II (90/100, Best Picture), Chinatown (98% RT), Network (93% RT), Apocalypse Now (98% RT), Taxi Driver (98% RT), Annie Hall (96% RT), Jaws (97% RT), Rocky (93% RT), Raging Bull (98% RT). These are not the scores of a commercially cautious studio system — they are the scores of a decade that permitted its directors to make uncompromising films.

Rocky (1976) — The Film Sylvester Stallone Wrote in Three Days

Rocky (1976) won three Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director (John G. Avildsen) and grossed $225M worldwide against a $1M budget. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in 3.5 days after watching Muhammad Ali vs Chuck Wepner and refused to sell it unless he could play the lead, despite producers offering $350,000 for the script without him. Rocky Balboa — a small-time Philadelphia club fighter given a shot at the world heavyweight title — is the purest expression of the American Dream narrative in any film of the decade. The final 15 minutes — the fight, Bill Conti's Gonna Fly Now, the "Yo, Adrian!" conclusion — is cinema's most reliable emotional release.

Raging Bull (1980) — The End of New Hollywood

Raging Bull (1980), directed by Martin Scorsese and shot in black and white, is ranked #4 in the AFI's 100 Greatest American Films and is the film for which Robert De Niro won his second Academy Award for Best Actor. De Niro gained 60 pounds to play the older, bloated Jake LaMotta — the first major Hollywood actor to undergo such a physical transformation for a role. The film's black-and-white photography (by Michael Chapman) was a deliberate choice to distinguish it from contemporary boxing films and to reference the newsreel footage of LaMotta's actual fights. Raging Bull is conventionally regarded as the final film of the New Hollywood movement.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — The Finest Star Wars Film

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), directed by Irvin Kershner from Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan's script, received 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and is consistently ranked as the finest Star Wars film — and one of the finest science fiction sequels in cinema history. The film's three-act structure — the Battle of Hoth, the Dagobah training, the Cloud City confrontation — and its central plot revelation (Darth Vader's identity) are the most perfectly constructed elements of any Star Wars film. The Empire Strikes Back poster at 98types represents the cultural peak of the Star Wars franchise.