Best Action Movies of 1971

When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath. Harry eventually collars Scorpio in the process of rescuing a kidnap victim, only to see him walk on technicalities. Now, the maverick detective is determined to nail the maniac himself.

Traveling businessman David Mann angers the driver of a rusty tanker while crossing the California desert. A simple trip turns deadly, as Mann struggles to stay on the road while the tanker plays cat and mouse with his life.

Diamonds are stolen only to be sold again in the international market. James Bond infiltrates a smuggling mission to find out who's guilty. The mission takes him to Las Vegas where Bond meets his archenemy Blofeld.

Kowalski works for a car delivery service, and takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to drive from Colorado to San Francisco. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours.

Filmed during the annual 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans, Michael Delaney is a Porsche driver haunted by the memory of an accident at the previous year's race in which a competing driver was killed. Delaney also finds himself increasingly infatuated with the man's widow.

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

Cool black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.

Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain - sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.

The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a spacecraft. Intrigued by their intelligence, humans use them for research - until the apes attempt to escape.

Thief Duke Anderson—just released from ten years in jail—takes up with his old girlfriend in her posh apartment block, and makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being recorded on audio and video, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.

Hank Stamper and his father, Henry, own and operate the family business by cutting and shipping logs in Oregon. The town is furious when they continue working despite the town going broke and the other loggers go on strike ordering the Stampers to stop, however Hank continues to push his family on cutting more trees. Hank's wife wishes he would stop and hopes that they can spend more time together. When Hank's half brother Leland comes to work for them, more trouble starts.

While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.

Quincy Drew and Jason O’Rourke, a pair of friends and con men—the former white, the latter a Northern-born free Black man— travel from town to town in the pre–Civil War American West. In their scam, Quincy sells Jason into slavery, frees him, and the two move on to the next town of suckers . . . until a con gone wrong leads Jason into real danger.

People in a small German village in the last valley to remain untouched by the devastating Thirty Years' War try to exist in peace with a group of soldiers occupying the valley.

A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.

The Grissom Gang is a remake of the notorious 1949 British melodrama No Orchids For Miss Blandish. Kim Darby plays a 1920s-era debutante who is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her captors are the Grissoms, a family comprised of sadists and morons, and headed by Ma Barker clone Irene Dailey. One of the Grissoms, played by Scott Wilson, takes a liking to his prisoner, which results in a bloody breakdown of the family unit. Both The Grissom Gang and the original No Orchids For Miss Blandish were inspired by the best-seller by James Hadley Chase, though neither film retains Chase's original ending.

A former mob getaway driver from Chicago has retired to a peaceful life in a Portuguese fishing village. He is asked to pull off one last job - to drive a dangerous crook and his girlfriend to France.

Ross Bodine and Frank Post are cowhands on Walt Buckman's R-Bar-R ranch. Bodine is older and broods a bit about how he will get along when he's too old to cowboy. Post is young and rambunctious and ambitious for a better life than wrangling cows. When one of their fellow cowboys is killed in a corral accident, Post suggests a way into a better life for himself and his friend: robbing a bank. Bodine reluctantly joins in the plan and the two contrive to rob the local bank. They make good their escape initially, but Walt Buckman and his two sons, John and Paul, are incensed at this betrayal by their own trusted employees. John and Paul set out to bring Bodine and Post to justice.

In the poor, desolate northern provinces of the mountainous feudal Sunni kingdom of Afghanistan (before the Soviet-engineered republican revolutions), the status of the proud men and their clans is determined less by wealth or even military power (both rare) then by victories in the ancient, though game of buskashi, a vicious form of polo dating back to Genghis Khan, in which the chapendaz (participating horsemen) use their horse-whips on both mounts and rivals in a ruthless fight for a heavy 'ball', a dead calf, which must be carried a long way, almost impossible with all the others mercilessly assailing. Tursen, a former champion, now holds the status of village notable thanks to his position as stable-keeper of the regional lord Osman Bey, and has finally bred a horse without equal, the white stallion Jahil, in time for the royal tournament on the plain of Bagrami, just outside the capital Kabul...

Scottish orphan David Balfour is betrayed by his wicked uncle Ebeneezer, who arranges for David to be kidnapped and sold into slavery so that he cannot claim his inheritance. The boy is rescued and befriended by Alan Breck, a Scottish rebel fighting on behalf of his country's independence from the British.

A ruthless rancher, and his gang, use extremely long range rifles to kill the men who kidnapped his wife.

Ex-Green Beret hapkido expert saves wild horses from being slaughtered for dog food and helps protect a desert "freedom school" for runaways.

After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance.

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

Moreno (Bronson) is a tough ranch hand on the vast half million acre Garret Ranch. Rich in timber, gas, cattle and oil, the ranch is a major employer of rough rugged cowboys in northern New Mexico. Unexpectedly, Moreno has been accused , and tried for the murder of the daughter of the Garret ranch's popular foreman (Denver Pyle). As luck turns against the Garret ranch, each man endures struggles against nature, competitors, and each other in order to keep the operation profitable.

A Mexican bandit is about to be executed in the United States, so his brother takes over a train and holds the passengers as hostages unless his brother is released. Now both the Americans and Mexicans are baffled as to what to do. One of the passengers — who wrote the letter for their captor — has a suggestion: call mercenaries Hank Brackett and Johnny Reech. They do, and as expected they do come up with a plan, but the president of the railroad is not sure if it will work.

In a vein similar to Bond movies, a British agent Philip Calvert is on a mission to determine the whereabouts of a ship that disappeared near the coast of Scotland.

After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.

Female prisoners in a Phillippine jail are being subjected to sadistic torture. Five of the women--along with the help of two men--plot an escape.

Bette Davis handles the title role in this highly offbeat crime comedy about two aging hippies who elect to rob a bank to restore Bunny O'Hare's financial affairs after she's been unjustly evicted and rendered homeless. When that heist ends up paying off, rather than take off for the border, Bunny opts for a life of crime with her new partner, Bill Green, played by fellow Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine.

Captain Foster plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand- picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector.

When the police discover that their motorcycles are concealing heroin, Waco (Robert Porter) and his motorcycle gang hides out in a desert convent. A highway patrolman (Billy 'Green' Bush) hunts down the gang after they kidnap a nun, Sister Anna (Tippy Walker) and flee the convent. Soon Waco and the young nun fall in love and she is forced to decide whether or not to leave the church for him. (alfiehitchie)

Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.

A down-and-dirty town is forced to shape up when a new marshal (Clint Walker) comes to town. However, when a scheme is launched to destroy the lawman's authority, he must discover the perpetrators and preserve his reputation.

The adventures of the master thief Lupin III and his cohorts as they dive into various escapades, all the while in pursuit by the tenacious Inspector Zenigata.

A Brooklyn mobster and his gang try to rub out their rivals.

A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan. When the monks try to persuade one of the female bikers, Helen, to become a satanic sacrifice the bikers smash up the monastery and leave. The monks have the last laugh, though, as Helen, as a result of the satanic rituals, is now possessed and at night changes into a werewolf, with dire results for the biker gang.

A Green Beret returns home from the Vietnam war to find that a gang of murderous bikers has killed his fiancee. He calls on several of his Green Beret buddies to come and help him take revenge on the gang.

Professional killer is hired by his brother, a gang boss, to wipe out a rival gangster.

Two gunfighters separate and experience surreal visions on their journey through the west.

A hippy couple travelling cross country run foul of a band of mercenaries.

The world's spy networks vie to get a stolen H bomb.

Siblings Kristy and Jeffrey are buying supplies at a remote desert gas station when some members of a biker gang come cruising in. The bikers recognize Kristy, who used to be the main squeeze of the gang's leader before she ran away. The pair get away, but the bikers find out that they're living in a nearby commune, and start making their battle plans to bring Kristy back.

Biker film told from the woman's point of view. The heroine sets out on the road to avenge her brother's murder, toting a shotgun and meaning business.

Biography of the famed motorcycle daredevil, much of which was filmed in his home town of Butte, Montana. The film depicts Knievel reflecting on major events in his life just before a big jump.

A group of Mexican revolutionaries murders a town priest and a number of his christian followers. Ten years later, a widow arrives in town intent to take revenge from her husband's killers.

While on vacation, a woman's husband is taken by the Russian government. After one attempt fails, she begins looking for a suitable spy to capture and trade in exchange for her husband, but she develops an attraction to the one she thinks is a good candidate.

While in Vietnam, a GI promises his dying buddy that he'll take care of his motorcycle, "Baby", when he gets back home. After his discharge, he meets up with his dead friend's girlfriend, gets the bike, and then runs into trouble from some other bikers who don't like the idea of his having the motorcycle or the girl.

Captain Shank is an outcast officer and gets dishonorably discharged. He tries to get back on his feet, but his reputation keeps following him around ruining everything. When he meets some bikers he gets caught up in a life he tries desperately to escape.