Friday Reflections: Stagflation = Great Movies
- By Bilal Hafeez
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I am an avid movie fan, and the last 15 years have been rough. We have endured the Marvel juggernaut trampling over creativity, and since COVID, the cinema experience has been dismal – half-empty theatres, messy environments, and barely any good films.
But that might be about to change.
We are facing recession fears, rising inflation, and a general collapse of faith in institutions. Sound familiar? It should – it is the 1970s all over again (stagflation, Watergate, etc.). And boy, was that a great decade for movies.
Just look at some of the top-grossing or most iconic films by year:
- 1970: MASH*, Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!
- 1971: The French Connection, Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange
- 1972: The Godfather, Deliverance
- 1973: The Exorcist, The Sting, American Graffiti, Serpico, Enter the Dragon
- 1974: The Godfather Part II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Chinatown
- 1975: Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon
- 1976: Rocky, All the President’s Men, The Omen, Taxi Driver, Carrie, Network
- 1977: Star Wars, Close Encounters, Saturday Night Fever, Annie Hall
- 1978: Grease, The Deer Hunter, Halloween, Superman
- 1979: Apocalypse Now, Alien, Manhattan
It is an incredible run – from all-time classics like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Taxi Driver, to horror masterpieces like The Exorcist, The Omen, and Halloween, to sci-fi legends like Star Wars, Alien, and Close Encounters.
What made this possible? Audiences grew tired of the endless Westerns, historical epics, and musicals of the 1960s. Then, the economic and political turmoil of the 1970s – stagflation and institutional distrust – unleashed a wave of creative energy in cinema.
Today feels eerily similar. People are fed up with the endless stream of superhero and CGI sludge. We are in a period of economic uncertainty and deep scepticism toward authority. And the artistic response is already building: Joker, The Batman, Dune Parts 1 and 2. Big hits like Barbie (a feminist critique) and Oppenheimer (a cerebral blockbuster). Plus underappreciated gems like the Predator prequel Prey, the historical epic The Woman King, and the romcom Rye Lane.
2025 has already delivered the awesome Sinners and the taut thriller Black Bag.
So maybe there is a silver lining in turbulent times. Great art thrives in chaos – and the movies might just be back.
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