This is another year in which I was not able to go to the movies or remember them if I did as a two-year-old. There are only a couple of these that I saw as a kid and the other three I saw as an adult. We have one more year of this before we get to movies that I did see in the theater and remember the experience. For now, let’s enjoy my terrible twos with more horror movies than should be on a child’s favorite’s list.

If you have not read the introduction to this exercise, I recommend you do so for context regarding what this all is. In short, be nice, these are my favorites based on how I encountered them in my life and what they mean for mean to me. This is not a list of objective best movies in their respective years and if a movie that you love or is considered great does not appear, it does not mean that I think it is shit or that I don’t love it. These are just my favorites for particular personal reasons. Feel free to let everyone know your favorite five for 1977 and why as well. It is also worth mentioning that there will be spoilers here for what are now 48-year-old movies. Let’s dig in!

1.Superman-Richard Donner

Superhero media had existed before Richard Donner’s Superman. Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel (Shazam) in particular enjoyed several serials starting in 1941. Radio shows started even further back than that with the Shadow playing in the ‘30s. But when it comes to the modern super hero movie, the 1978 Superman is what started it all.

Superman set the stage for what was to come and it did it better than just about anything else trying to emulate it until 1989’s Batman. The effects were convincing for the time, the performances were great and added legitimacy to what could be considered a silly man-in-tights kind of picture. Marlon Brando as Superman’s father Jor-El did a lot for this legitimacy, although in retrospect the beefy courtroom drama at the beginning was maybe not the best way to kick off an exciting super-hero epic but if you have Brando and he is willing to actually act in your movie, you use him, even if he was solidly in his lazy phase and titular star Christopher Reeve said he was ‘phoning it in.’ 

Richard Donner filmed this movie and Superman II back-to-back which explains the trial not mattering at all to the rest of the first movie’s story. It also made for some messiness when Donner was removed from the second movie and elements of that film were used in the first one. Regardless, it is hard not to feel like the first act of the movie is slow and clunky. Part of this has to do with decades of familiarity with the Superman origin story. It could be argued that the people of 1978 were less familiar with the lore of Superman and his origins as comics were not wildly accepted as reading material for adults, but as mentioned above, Superman serials had been around since the 40s so it was not an unknown quantity.

Once we get to Clark, going to Metropolis and becoming Superman, things pick up considerably with humor, excitement, and glee. Reeves’s performance as both Clark and Superman is remarkable for just how different each character feels and has become the bar any subsequent Superman actor has to clear (in a single bound would be best). Hypno glasses are not really that necessary to preserve Clark’s identity because he is so different, such a goofball that even if they look alike, no one is going to see Clark and see Superman. Lois, who knows both of them, does not get this same pass and it is really hard to trust her credibility as an investigative journalist that she doesn’t catch on. That being said, Margot Kidder really nails Lois and once again sets the standard for all future Loises.

The actual plot of the movie is about Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor attempting a real estate scam not dissimilar to that found in Chinatown, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and put a plot around Superman’s neck that has hung there like a kryptonite albatross forever after. The prevalence of Superman movie plots involving a real estate scam is weird as shit. When you have the most powerful and most recognizable character ever dealing with land grab schemes, it just feels odd.

Despite having hair, Hackman once again set the standard for what Lex Luthor should be moving forward and played him with an infectious glee that is enormously fun to watch. Gene Hackman is one of my favorite actors full stop, so it is no real surprise that he is also my favorite Luthor (although Michael Rosenbaum and Nicholas Holt are not far behind).

Early superhero movies were often ashamed of the character, not showing them in costumes very much or changing the lore and power set to make it more acceptable to movie audiences. Executives believed that the general audience would not accept or understand characters as they were so fans had to put up with a lot of compromise and taking what they could get. Superman isn’t really like that.

Pacing issues aside, there is not much left on the table in Superman. His abilities are on full display, and he is in full on silly as fuck costume and looks amazing. Clark learning the importance of being responsible with his powers from Pa Kent is here. Superman being weak to kryptonite is here. Superman having heat vision and cold breath, seeing through anything except lead, all of it is here. Some extra stuff like flying around the planet really fast to rewind time is here too but that is okay. I will take extra over less when it comes to superhero movies.

Jonathan Kent’s death in this movie is a bit of a deviation from lore depending on which age and timeline you are talking about but it happening here went a long way to adding emotional weight not just to how Clark feels about himself as a character but to emphasizing Superman’s real vulnerability: the people he loves. He can fly faster than a speeding bullet, he can withstand whatever damage is delt, he can apparently turn back time in a way that would make Cher jealous, but he can’t save his dad from a heart attack, and he has to be careful with the fragility of life. He has to protect the people he loves. He has to stand between his loved ones and danger. He has to use his powers to protect and not be frivolous and selfish. He has to be a hero.

Superman is not now and has never been my favorite superhero. Spider-man and Batman are my favorites and have been for as long as I can remember mostly because of what makes them human more than what makes them super. Superman as a character can generally beat any threat and withstand any danger without much fear and it makes him as difficult to relate to as he is to write for over a long series. But I love the idea of Superman.

I have always been more interested in Superman movies or Elseworlds stories about him like what if Superman landed in Russia as a baby (Superman: Red Son), or what if Superman became an authoritarian dick bag (Injustice, or dozens of other characters based on him). Single Superman stories tend to appeal to me more than long standing comic series, although Smallville and Superman and Lois have done a great job serializing Superman in a way that makes sense.

I saw this when I was a kid and loved it. It really encapsulated the things that I loved about Superman as a character and an idea. And while I love Superman II as well, it would be a really long time before I saw another Superman movie that made me feel like this one did (that would be James Gunn’s 2025 Superman). I get weirdly emotional when I watch this movie and teary eyed mostly based on the idea of it, that there is a purely good person out there with the power to save people who will come to your rescue when you need him most.

Many years ago, someone put Five For Fighting’s Superman to clips from 1978’s Superman and it made me cry in a way that made no sense to me at the time. Now I realize that it was a combination of sadness for what ultimately happened to Christopher Reeve and also just this childhood wish for someone like Superman to exist but as well as  how insolating and lonely it would be to actually be someone like Superman.

The 1978 Superman remains one of the best examples of great superhero filmmaking. Even in the current age of superhero dominance and acceptance in film (superhero fatigue be damned), Superman remains, much like Superman himself, the gold standard.

2.Halloween-John Carpenter

Originally beginning as a sequel to Bob Clark’s 1974 slasher Black Christmas, John Carpenter’s Halloween has become something of the urtext of modern slashers. Much like Superman, Halloween was not the first movie of this type, but it has become the defining example of what the genre should be.

Following teenaged Laurie Strode as she and her friends are stalked by Michael Meyers, an escaped mental patient who murdered his sister when he was six, Halloween is a perfect blend of tension, jump scares, and disturbing creepiness. Carpenter’s iconic score did a fair amount of leg work here as well, blending the visuals with sonic foreboding that becomes a perfect mix to terrify. It might not be as violent and gory as the films that came after, but it was enough to scare the shit out of the 1978 audience. Legend has it that the trailer alone gave a lady a heart attack from which she did not survive.

I came to Halloween way late. I was terrified of horror movies until around 5^th grade when I had a comedy-horror epiphany and I managed to learn lucid dreaming so I could turn into Superman and punch Freddy Kruger’s head off. I believe my first introduction to the series was Halloween 4: the Return of Michael Meyers. This was after I had seen Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13^th so it felt like just another slasher, although I liked it. It was several years before I went back and watched the original.

I don’t find Halloween very scary, seeing it as I did after conquering my fears and the visceral effects of slasher movies having dulled to my now cynical senses, but I loved it the first time I saw it and have watched it more consistently  than most other slasher movies. This is because there is more going on here with the story and the characters than in most generic slashers. Jamie Lee Curtis brings both vulnerability and strength to Laurie Strode that has 100% become the template for all Final girls moving forward. Donald Pleasance’s Dr Loomis, a name taken from Psycho in which Jamie Lee’s mother starred, brings a manic, obsessive energy that is almost as unsettling as any of the killings.

Michael Meyers as a character is devoid of feeling or personality and that makes him that much more intimidating. He isn’t going to do a soft shoe routine like Freddy, and he doesn’t have a revenge-based backstory like Jason, he is just wrong. He is evil, he has the devil’s eyes and is a single-minded killing machine. He eats dogs, he creepily hides in bushes, and he knows how to drive a car despite being in a mental hospital since he was six. He is credited as the Shape in the movie because that is all he is: Evil in the shape of a human.

Halloween is infinitely rewatchable and I will never get tired of it. It is slower paced and less bombastic than the sequels and imitators it spawned (Friday the 13^th is EXPLICITY a Halloween ripoff according to Sean Cunningham), but it is just a really good movie and without it, we wouldn’t have the slasher genre as it is now. Also, I have had a low-key crush on PJ Soles since this movie, so there is also that.

3.Dawn of the Dead-George A Romero

Hopping back on the horror train, Dawn of the Dead was another movie I saw much later in my life, and it is easily my favorite of George Romero’s zombie movies, which is saying something as he is the father of the modern concept of ‘zombies.’ I am sensing a theme here with 1978 movies that I love.

The story is simple: Zombie outbreak happens and a group of survivors hide out in a mall which is infested with zombies who have returned to the life they knew before, which was endlessly shuffling in a monument to consumerism. Zombies are often used as social commentary and this is no different with Romero commenting on the hold that consumerism has on society and how we’ve all become mindless drones going from one shopping experience to the next.

My intro into zombie media was with Return of the Living Dead which was a bit of an offshoot of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead that exists mostly because Romero and writer John Russo had different takes on what a sequel should be with Romero focusing on different times of the day for the dead and Russo ultimately leading to a horror comedy version of the zombie story with the Living Dead series. I love those movies. They are silly, hilarious, and are responsible for people thinking zombies just want to eat brains. Dawn of the Dead is not that.

As it stands now, I think Dawn of the Dead might be the best zombie movie ever made and I say that as a lover of zombie movies. It manages to comment on excess while also providing a tense and claustrophobic story that exemplifies what makes zombies scary in the first place. They just keep coming and if they get you, they assimilate you and you lose who you are entirely…except for your most deeply engrained habits, which in this case is shopping.

I went to the Monroville Mall where Dawn of the Dead was filmed last year and it kind of felt like a pilgrimage. It doesn’t look much like it once did but the horror museum in it had a lot of things from the film up to and including the elevator and it really deepened my appreciation for the movie. The mall has been purchased by Walmart so who knows how much longer it will exist and that is as clear a statement of the theme of this movie as you can imagine: being assimilated into a soulless collective with only the goal of consuming everything it can. Fitting.

4.Jaws 2 Jeanost Szwarc

I put Jaws 2 on this list mostly because the first movie came out before I was born so I couldn’t have it. It is more or less a retread of the first film and is in no way as good as the original, but I still really dig it. I saw this as a kid just as much as the first Jaws and I loved that I got to watch a shark do shark shit. I cried when the shark died at the end just like in the original, because I love sharks and I guess I was just cosigning on a bunch of drunk dipshits being eaten by them.

Looking at Jaws 2 now, it looks a bit different for a very important reason: the fucking mayor from the first Jaws is STILL the mayor in Jaws 2. Jaws was always about what happens when people put money ahead of other people’s lives but when you add Jaws 2 and watch it in modern times, it becomes an unheeded warning that foretold the coming of death and despair because people focus on the wrong things when they vote, if they vote at all.

I don’t want to get on a political rant here, but it is impossible to watch these first two Jaws movies without the sinking despair of what happens when people don’t pay any fucking attention the first time and make the same goddamn mistakes over again, this time to much greater death and carnage. The villains of the Jaws movies are not the two killer sharks but rather greed and complacency. If you can’t see the parallels then you are part of the problem.

5.Drunken Master- Yoon Woo-ping

Drunken Master is a fairly early Jackie Chan kung fu movie that is at once just as dumb and ridiculous as other cheesy kung fu pictures of the era and is a masterpiece of choreography and martial arts prowess. This is especially true if you are watching the dubbed version with the goofiest and most hackneyed dialogue available. That being said I will never get tired of one dude telling another dude that their kung fu is lousy (shout out to Shaolin vs Lama from 1983 for the best ever version of this).

Jackie Chan is playing the brash punk-ass son of a respected kung fu teacher who embarrasses his father one too many times by disrespecting women and fighting local crime thugs, and is subsequently sent to learn from his uncle, a drunken kung fu master who teaches him the ways of discipline and alcohol. When his father is targeted by the assassin known as Thunderleg, Jackie’s character has to defend his father’s honor with drunken kung fu, a style that actually exists although without the practitioner actually being drunk.

I am not sure that Jackie Chan’s character really learns personal lessons here as much as he just gets better at kung fu, but the movie is a slapstick comedy as much as it is a martial arts movie so there is only so seriously one can take it. The real reason to watch this is that the fight choreography and execution of that choreography is nothing short of amazing.

Yoon Woo-ping is best known by Westerners as the fight choreographer behind the Matrix movies, but has a plethora of more traditional output that puts those fights to shame. As a director he utilizes his brother for the choreography and his father as a performer (as the drunken master himself) to make this all a family affair. Jackie Chan shines here as both a comedic performer and an action performer. He does not do much of the stunt work that he became most famous for later in his career, but holy shit does he move with unbelievable grace and precision. All of the martial arts actors are incredible here and it is enough to get you past the cheesiness.

I saw the sequel to this movie first and it is also a miraculous work of martial arts choreography, but this one is probably even better for the insane choreography and direction that makes it stand apart from other martial arts movies at the time. Even if you hate the goofiness and perhaps morally dubious character growth, if you like martial arts movies, you owe it to yourself to see this. It is incredible.