Best Drama Movies of 1973

12-year-old Regan MacNeil begins to adapt an explicit new personality as strange events befall the local area of Georgetown. Her mother becomes torn between science and superstition in a desperate bid to save her daughter, and ultimately turns to her last hope: Father Damien Karras, a troubled priest who is struggling with his own faith.

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Frank Serpico is an idealistic New York City cop who refuses to take bribes, unlike the rest of the force. His actions get Frank shunned by the other officers, and often placed in dangerous situations by his partners. When his superiors ignore Frank's accusations of corruption, he decides to go public with the allegations. Although this causes the Knapp Commission to investigate his claims, Frank has also placed a target on himself.

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl—who may or may not be his daughter—and the two forge an unlikely partnership.

In a futuristic resort, wealthy patrons can visit recreations of different time periods and experience their wildest fantasies with life-like robots. But when Richard Benjamin opts for the wild west, he gets more than he bargained for when a gunslinger robot goes berserk.

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison, but decide to show him one last good time along the way.

An aging hood is about to go back to prison. Hoping to escape his fate, he supplies information on stolen guns to the feds, while simultaneously supplying arms to his bank robbing chums.

Recounts the last days of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, his betrayer. As Jesus' following increases, Judas begins to worry that Jesus is falling for his own hype, forgetting the principles of his teachings and growing too close to the prostitute Mary Magdalene. After Jesus has an outburst in a temple, Judas turns on him.

"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.

Two drifters bum around, visit earthy women and discuss opening a car wash in Pittsburgh.

The young D'Artagnan arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a king's musketeer. He meets and quarrels with three men, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, each of whom challenges him to a duel. D'Artagnan finds out they are musketeers and is invited to join them in their efforts to oppose Cardinal Richelieu, who wishes to increase his already considerable power over the king. D'Artagnan must also juggle affairs with the charming Constance Bonancieux and the passionate Lady De Winter, a secret agent for the cardinal.

Two desperate people have a wonderful romance, but their political views and convictions drive them apart.

A Shakespearean actor takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition.

Laura and John, grieved by a terrible loss, meet in Venice, where John is in charge of the restoration of a church, two mysterious sisters, one of whom gives them a message sent from the afterlife.

Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.

Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandoned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness.

A free-spirited young woman, Breezy, hitches a ride with an aging real estate salesman, Frank. Sensing that she just wants to use him he tries to have nothing to do with her. She's not that easy to shake, however, and over time a bond forms between them.

A burned-out British police detective finally snaps while interrogating a suspected child molester.

Sinbad and his crew intercept a homunculus carrying a golden tablet. Koura, the creator of the homunculus and practitioner of evil magic, wants the tablet back and pursues Sinbad. Meanwhile Sinbad meets the Vizier who has another part of the interlocking golden map, and they mount a quest across the seas to solve the riddle of the map.

An aging Southern belle's preoccupation with her past and her dreams for her children's futures threaten to smother her painfully shy daughter and her aspiring writer son.

A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game. The game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.

The stunning chronicle of two male friendships and the homosexual "experiment" that changed their lives forever.

This sprawling, surrealist comedy serves as an allegory for the pitfalls of capitalism, as it follows the adventures of a young coffee salesman in modern Britain.

After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.

An epic six-hour adaptation of Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Most famously filmed by Wojciech Has, this four part adaptation has the advantage of a vastly expanded running time, allowing for more of the novel to be incorporated >> shot on film, it was clearly a very expensive production and is equally spectacular in its own way.

A short Arizona motorcycle cop gets his wish and is promoted to Homicide following the mysterious murder of a hermit. He is forced to confront his illusions about himself and those around him in order to solve the case, eventually returning to solitude in the desert.

A first-year law student struggles with balancing his coursework and his relationship with the daughter of a stern professor.

Hobos encounter a sadistic railway conductor that will not let anyone "ride the rails" for free.

Set in Los Angeles, Brothers tells the story of Vince, a brooding, mustachioed stud who’s visited by his kid brother Rick, a soldier serving in Vietnam. During Rick’s stay, the two siblings slowly confront their mutually hidden desires.

A black man plays Uncle Tom in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American Revolution.

Addie tries to invite her father's sworn enemy over for Thanksgiving dinner in the hopes of ending their long-standing feud.

A lonely Navy sailor falls in love with a Seattle hooker and becomes a surrogate father figure for her son during an extended liberty due to his service records being lost.

A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death. Earl Macklin is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother.

A businessman's professional struggles begin to conflict with his personal life over the course of two days.

Set in 1912, inside a dive bar named The Last Chance Saloon, its destitute patrons eagerly await the arrival of Hickey, who arrives annually and props everyone up with free drinks and spirited stories of his travels. However, when Hickey does show up this year, it is with a message of temperance and an exhortation to give up hopeless dreams and face reality.

Buford Pusser's a wrestler, whose wife wants him to settle down, so they go to his home town in Tennessee, where he plans to get into business with his father. But he is shocked to discover all sorts of graft and corruption going on. And when he is a victim of it and decides to strike back by running against the corrupt sheriff. And he wins and wages his own little war against them

An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.

The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.

Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.

Albert Steptoe and his son Harold are rag-and-bone men, complete with horse and cart to tour the neighbourhood. They also live amicably together at the junk yard. Always on the lookout for ways to improve his lot, Harold invests his father's life savings in a greyhound who is almost blind and can't see the hare. When the dog loses a race and Harold has to pay off the debt, he comes up with another bright idea. Collect his father's life insurance. To do this his father must pretend to be dead.

A tough detective who is part of an elite New York City unit is trying to find out who killed his partner, but uncovers a plot to kidnap mobsters for money.

Rogue intelligence agents, right-wing politicians, greedy capitalists, and free-lance assassins plot and carry out the JFK assassination in this speculative agitprop.

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park, where he discovers a world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called rock & roll.

Goldie returns from five years at the state pen and winds up king of the pimping game. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt white cops and a crime lord who wants him to return to the small time.