Top 10 Films of 1978

1. "The Deer Hunter" (Michael Cimino, USA)

2. ''Martin'' (George Romero, USA)

3. ''Preparez vos mouchoirs'' (Bertrand Blier, France)

4. "Co mi zrobisz jak mnie zlapiesz" (Stanislaw Bareja, Poland)

5. ''Pretty Baby'' (Louis Malle, USA)

6. "Wodzirej" (Feliks Falk, Poland)

7. ''The Boys From Brazil'' (Franklin J. Schaffner, USA)

8. "La Cage aux Folles" (Edouard Molinaro, France)

9. ''Halloween'' (John Carpenter, USA)

10. "Grease" (Randal Kleiser, USA)

Other great films:

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (Czechoslovakia)

Animal House

Autumn Sonata (Sweden)

Avere vent'anni (Italy)

Bez znieczulenia (Poland)

Bilbao (Spain)
The Brink's Job
The Buddy Holly Story
Days Of Heaven

Debbie Does Dallas 
Drunken Master (Hong Kong)

Emanuelle And The Girls Of Madame Claude

Empire Of Passion (Japan)

Eraserhead

Felicity (Australia)

Frauen fur Zellenblock 9

Gates Of Heaven
A Hunting Accident (Soviet Union)

In Praise Of Older Women (Canada)

Interiors

Just Like Home (Hungary)
The Last Waltz
The Lord Of The Rings

Pretty Peaches
Revenge Of The Pink Panther

Seven Freckles (East Germany)

The Shout (UK)

Slave Of The Cannibal God

Spirala (Poland)

Stay As You Are (Italy)

An Unmarried Woman

Up In Smoke

Violette Noziere (France)

Watership Down

A Wedding

Who'll Stop The Rain
The Wiz

Women Against Women (Italy)

You Are Not Alone (Denmark)

Short Top 3:

1. "Double Strength" (Barbara Hammer, USA)

2. "Burial Path" (Stan Brakhage, USA)

3. "The Flight Of The Gossamer Condor" (Ben Shedd, USA)

Other great shorts:

The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey

Rzepka (Poland)

Vampiros da Miseria (Colombia)

Top Music Video:

"Bicycle Race" (Dennis De Vallance, UK)

Other great music videos:

Sur des musiques erotiques (France)


Top Commercial:

"Coke Adds Life" (Coca-Cola)

TV Top 3:

1. "WKRP In Cincinnati: Turkeys Away" (Michael Zinberg, CBS)

2. "Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Gwiazda" (Olga Lipinska, TVP, Poland)

3. "Columbo: The Conspirators" (Leo Penn, NBC)

Other great TV shows:

07 zglos sie 2 (Poland)
Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Kontrola (Poland)

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Premiera (Poland)

Cartoon Top 3:

1. "Special Delivery" (John Weldon, Eunice Macaulay, NFB)

2. "Satiemania" (Zdenko Gasparovic, Yugoslavia)

3. "Tale Of Tales" (Yuri Norstein, Soviet Union)

Other great cartoons:

The Small One

Tout rien (Canada)
Why Me ? (Canada)

Weak films of 1978:

California Suite
Caravans
Comes a Horseman

Coming Home
Crippled Avengers (Hong Kong)
Despair

Heaven Can Wait

Midnight Expess

Same Time Next Year
Superman
The Swarm
The Tree Of Wooden Clogs (Italy)
War Of The Robots (Italy)

Weak shorts:

An Encounter With Faces
Salome (Spain)
Xenogenesis

Weak cartoons:

Afterlife (Canada)
Entre chiens et loup (Canada)

Weak TV shows:

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Komisja (Poland)

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Rury (Poland)

Top Musical of 1978

"Grease" (Randal Kleiser, Paramount)

'The Boys From Brazil (1978) ****

Wodzirej (1978) ****

Pretty Baby (1978) ****

Co mi zrobisz jak mnie zlapiesz (1978) ****

Preparez vos mouchoirs (1978) ****

Martin (1978) ****

The Deer Hunter (1978) ****

One of the greatest films about the Vitnam War, a timeless classic.

Grease (1978) ****

An enormously popular musical starring John Travolta, Olivia Newton-Johns and Stockard Channing. Superb songs include:

"Grease" ***
"Summer Nights" ***
"Look At Me, I'M Sandra Dee" *
"Hopelessly Devoted To You" **
"Greased Lightnin'" **
"Beauty School Dropout" ***
"Rock 'n Roll Is Here To Stay" **
"Tears On My Pillow" **
"Hound Dog" *
"Born To Hand-Jive" ***
"Blue Moon" *
"Sandy" *
"There Are Worse Things I Could Do" *
"You're The One That I Want" ***
"We Go Together" ***
"Grease" (reprise) ***

Animal House (1978) ***

Halloween (1978) ***

An Unmarried Woman (1978) ***

A Wedding (1978) ***

Drunken Master (1978) ***

A Hunting Accident (1978) ***

Autumn Sonata (1978) ***

An Ingmar Bergman film starring Ingrid Bergman.

The Buddy Holly Story (1978) ***

A musical biopic about the famous singer.

La Cage aux Folles (1978) ***

Classic French farce about a gay couple (Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi) pretending to be straight.

Eraserhead (1978) ***

David Lynch's feature film debut.

Gates Of Heaven (1978) ***

Unique documentary about a pet cemetary.

Interiors (1978) ***

Woody Allen is imitating Ingmar Bergman, but he is imitating him well.

The Last Waltz (1978) ***

Martin Scorsese's documentary about the final concert of The Band.

Revenge Of The Pink Panther (1978) ***

The last Pink Panther film starring Peter Sellers. It was followed by "Trail Of The Pink Panther" (1982) that used archive footage of Peter Sellers, and then by other Pink Panther films, starring, respectively, Roger Moore (1983's "Curse Of The Pink Panther), Roberto Benigni (1993's "Son Of The Pink Panther") and Steve Martin (2006's "The Pink Panther").

Up In Smoke (1978) ***

Amusing comedy starring Cheech and Chong.

Watership Down (1978) ***

Very intresting animated feature.

Days Of Heaven (1978) ***

Visually gorgeous film with about Prairie farm workers. Nestor Almendros won a well deserved Oscar for cinematography. Ennio Morricone also should have won an Oscar for his absolutely magnificent score.

The Lord Of The Rings (1978) ***

Directed by Ralph Bakshi. J.R.R.Tolkien's fantasy saga is given a short shrift, but the film is remarkable for its mix of rotoscoping and traditional animation.

Who'll Stop The Rain (1978) ***

Michael Moriarty and Nick Nolte star in this complex and tense drama about corruption, heroism and loyalty.

The Wiz (1978) ***

This musical starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson has plenty of flaws, but impressive art direction and a couple of very good songs save it from being a failure. Musical numbers include:

"The Feeling That We Have"
"He's The Wizard" **
"Soon As I Get Home"
"You Can't Win" *
"Ease On Down The Road" ***
"What Would I Do If I Could Feel"
"Slide Some Oil To Me" *
"I'M A Mean Old Lion"
"Be A Lion" *
"Don't Bring Me No Bad News" ***
"Brand New Day" *
"Believe In Yourself"
"Home"

The Brink's Job (1978) ***

Violette Noziere (1978) ***

Bilbao (1978) ***

Women Against Women (1978) ***

Stay As You Are (1978) ***

Spirala (1978) ***

Empire Of Passion (1978) ***

Seven Freckles (1978) ***

Bez znieczulenia (1978) ***

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978) ***

Just Like Home (1978) ***

You Are Not Alone (1978) ***

Crippled Avengers (1978) *

The title says it all. It's a chop-socky flick from Hong Kong about a bunch of handicapped kung fu fighters.

The Tree Of Wooden Clogs (1978) *

A terminally boring film about Italian peasants. Praised by many critics, but extremely difficult to watch without falling asleep.

Avere vent'anni (1978) ***

War Of The Robots (1978) *

Horrible Italian science-fiction flick about vicious humanoid robots in Outer Space. It makes even the worst TV episode of "Star Trek" look like "Citizen Kane" by comparison.

Felicity (1978) ***