Programmed September 2025

’70s Thrillers

Suspicion hung in the air like stale smoke throughout the 1970s. In the shadow of Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the public’s unraveling faith in its institutions, American filmmakers crafted taut, paranoid narratives that echoed the disillusioned national mood. This collection brings together some of the era’s most incisive works by leading directors like Sidney Lumet ( The Anderson Tapes ), Robert Altman ( The Long Goodbye ), Alan J. Pakula ( The Parallax View ), and Arthur Penn ( Night Moves ), films in which surveillance is omnipresent, authority is suspect, and truth is a moving target. Updating classic Hollywood models—including film noir and Hitchcockian mystery—for their anxious time, these thrillers remain just as urgently unsettling in our own age of disinformation and institutional erosion.