# The 11 Best Directorial Debuts of the 1970s

> Raw, daring first films from a decade that rewrote the rules of American and world cinema. Cast your vote!

*By YPB Team · Published June 5, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-11-best-directorial-debuts-of-the-1970s*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Badlands** — score 1000/1000
   Terrence Malick 1973 debut following a young couple on a murderous road trip through the American Midwest.
2. **Halloween** — score 704/1000
   John Carpenter 1978 debut establishing the slasher genre template with Michael Myers stalking a babysitter.
3. **American Graffiti** — score 487/1000
   George Lucas 1973 debut capturing one night in the lives of California teenagers in 1962.
4. **Saturday Night Fever** — score 228/1000
   John Badham 1977 debut that made John Travolta a star and defined the disco era.
5. **The Duellists** — score 228/1000
   Ridley Scott 1977 debut about two officers obsessively dueling across 16 years of Napoleonic France.
6. **The Conversation** — score 228/1000
   Francis Ford Coppola 1974 paranoid thriller about a surveillance expert haunted by a conversation he recorded.
7. **Mean Streets** — score 227/1000
   Martin Scorsese 1973 debut following young Italian-American men navigating loyalty and violence in Little Italy.
8. **Eraserhead** — score 1/1000
   David Lynch 1977 surrealist debut following a man in an industrial wasteland caring for a monstrous infant.
9. **Duel** — score 1/1000
   Steven Spielberg 1971 TV-movie debut about a traveling salesman terrorized by a faceless truck driver.
10. **Straw Dogs** — score 1/1000
   Sam Peckinpah 1971 controversial debut about an American mathematician forced to defend his home in rural England.
11. **Dawn of the Dead** — score 1/1000
   George A. Romero 1978 sequel debut using a zombie-overrun shopping mall to satirize consumer culture.

Tags: movies, directors, 70s