Best Thriller Movies of 1977

Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.

Australian lawyer David Burton agrees with reluctance to defend a group of Aboriginal people charged with murdering one of their own. He suspects the victim was targeted for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of water, slowly realizes danger may come from his own involvement with the Aboriginal people and their prophecies.

In order to protect the reputation of the American space program, a team of NASA administrators turn the first Mars mission into a phony Mars landing. Under threat of harm to their families the astronauts play their part in the deception on a staged set in a deserted military base. But once the real ship returns to Earth and burns up on re-entry, the astronauts become liabilities. Now, with the help of a crusading reporter, they must battle a sinister conspiracy that will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden.

Phoenix cop Ben Shockley is well on his way to becoming a derelict when he is assigned to transport a witness from Las Vegas. The witness turns out to be a belligerent prostitute with mob ties—and incriminating information regarding a high-ranking figure.

On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.

A pair of young vacationers are involved in a dangerous conflict with treasure hunters when they discover a way into a deadly wreck in Bermuda waters.

After witnessing the killing of his mate and offspring at the hands of a reckless Irish captain, a vengeful killer whale rampages through the fisherman's Newfoundland harbor. Under pressure from the villagers, the captain, a female marine biologist and an Indigenous tribalist venture after the great beast, who will meet them on its own turf.

A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. When thugs invade his home to steal the silver coins he received for his service, they mangle his hand and leave him and his family for dead. Rane survives and becomes obsessed with getting revenge. Aided by his loyal friend Johnny Vohden, Rane, now wielding a hook for a hand, sets out on his mission of vengeance.

Flight 23 has crashed in the Bermuda Triangle after a hijacking gone wrong. Now the surviving passengers must brave panic, slow leaks, oxygen depletion, and more while attempting a daring plan, all while 200 feet underwater.

For those familiar with Bram Stoker's novel, this adaptation follows the book quite closely in most respects. Jonathan Harker visits the Count in Transylvania to help him with preparations to move to England. Harker becomes Dracula's prisoner and discovers Dracula's true nature. After Dracula makes his way to England, Harker becomes involved in an effort to track down and destroy the Count, eventually chasing the vampire back to his castle.

A young terrorist kills and injures patrons of a Norfolk amusement park by placing homemade explosives on the track of one of its roller coasters. After staging a similar incident in Pittsburgh, he sends a tape to a meeting of major amusement park executives in Chicago, demanding $1 million to make him stop.

When one of Regan's snouts complains that his girlfriend's recent suicide was murder, the flying squad detective feels compelled to investigate. He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the heart of the government, and finds himself fitted up, suspended and under the scrutiny of Special Branch.

A dedicated schoolteacher spends her nights cruising bars, looking for abusive men with whom she can engage in progressively violent sexual encounters.

A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.

An Israeli anti-terrorist agent must stop a disgruntled Vietnam vet cooperating in a Black September PLO plot to commit a terrorist attack at the Super Bowl.

A man is convinced that a young girl is the reincarnation of his own daughter Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car accident, along with his wife, two minutes before the girl was born.

A renegade USAF general, Lawrence Dell, escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana and threatens to provoke World War 3 unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War between Dell and the then President's most trusted advisors.

Nicolai Dalchimski, a mad KGB agent steals a notebook full of names of "sleeping" undercover KGB agents sent to the U.S. in the 1950's. These agents got their assignments under hypnosis, so they can't remember their missions until they're told a line of a Robert Frost poem. Dalchimski flees to the U.S. and starts phoning these agents who perform sabotage acts against military targets.

Berlin, 1923. Following the suicide of his brother, American circus acrobat Abel Rosenberg attempts to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

This anthology tells three stories: a man buys a car that takes him back and forth through time; a tale of vampires; and a distraught mother asks for her drowned son to come back to life and gets more than she bargained for.

A minister dispenses justice on three convicts who take his family hostage.

Five doctors go camping in the remote woods of Northern Ontario. When their boots are stolen they begin to suspect they are being stalked.

When French beauty Noelle Page falls in love with American pilot Larry Douglas, she believes he'll marry her. Instead, he returns to the U.S and marries the sweet but naive Catherine. Even though Noelle has found a new lover, an affluent Greek named Constantin, and has started a great career as an actress, she vows revenge on her onetime lover. But once her plan is in motion, she and Larry fall in love and plot Catherine's death.

Recluse Smith is drawn into a revolutionary struggle between guerrillas and right-wingers in New Zealand. Implicated in a murder and framed as a revolutionary conspirator, Smith tries to maintain an attitude of non-violence while caught between warring factions.

How does retired cop Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones) get two career criminals, Manny Durrell (Sidney Poitier) and Dave Anderson (Bill Cosby), to follow the straight and narrow? Con them into helping juvenile delinquents turn over a new leaf. But how? Burke has never been able to nail the duo, but he uses what he knows of their seedy past to blackmail them into volunteering.

At a party, someone goes insane and murders three women. Falsely accused of the brutal killings, Jerry is on the run. More bizarre homicides continue with alarming frequency all over town. Trying to clear his name, Jerry discovers the shocking truth...people are losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths and the connection may be some LSD all the murderers took a decade before.

Bizarre nightmares plague Regan MacNeil four years after her possession and exorcism. Has the demon returned? And if so, can the combined faith and knowledge of a Vatican investigator and a hypnotic research specialist free her from its grasp?

Roy Tucker, a Vietnam war veteran with excellent shooting skills, is serving a long prison sentence when a mysterious visitor promises him that he will be released if he agrees to carry out a dangerous assignment.

An undercover policewoman finds herself framed for murder. Forced to flee for her life, she determines to clear her name and bring the real killers to justice.

This is the story of Buford Pusser's final days; not only of his life, but also as Sheriff. It seems that times are changing, and the once adoring people of Pusser's town now fear him and feel like it's time to make a change. There are also some officials who feel the same way and are using every means to get rid of Pusser.

The police chief of a small town begins an investigation after a young woman, who was supposed to have died several months previously, starts appearing around town just before her parents are found mysteriously dead.

George Manning is a well-to-do businessman, husband, and father. While his family is away on his birthday, he invites a pair of rain-soaked young women into his house to wait out an evening thunderstorm. The two girls seduce Manning and ultimately kidnap and torture him in his own home.

A babysitter is menaced by mysterious and frightening phone calls.

A disturbed young man threatens violence at the World Series after failing to make the Houston Astros.

On an English farm, six reckless children play at being a fierce band of Apache warriors, unaware of the many dangers to which they are exposed. (Public information short film produced on behalf of the British Government to warn children living in rural areas about the risks of playing near farm machinery.)

A psychopathic plastic surgeon transforms a young accident victim into the spitting image of his missing daughter.

A Native American travels around a resort town, murdering cops and rich people with a high-powered crossbow, while demanding that the town's richest residents pay him money to stop the killings.

When a schoolboy's day-dream of a fantasy sports day includes events where acts of vandalism and trespass are required, dire consequences ensue. Originally created as an educational film, this somewhat surrealist short has a serious message at its core. This won't be a lesson you'll forget in a hurry.

A policeman devises an unorthodox plan for bringing criminals to justice after his partner is brutally gunned down.

The depletion of the earth's ozone layer causes animals above the altitude of 5000 feet to run amok, which is very unfortunate for a group of hikers who get dropped off up there by helicopter just before the quarantine is announced.

John Cleese is hilarious as the descendant of Sherlock Holmes in this modern detective drama of international power politics and intrigue. Unlike his illustrious grandfather however, he only succeeds in bungling every job he organizes. Also stars Arthur Lowe as the "bionic" grandson of Dr. Watson, Stratford Johns as the Commissioner of Police, and Connie Booth as Mrs. Hudson.

An alcoholic London ex-cop becomes involved in a kidnapping drama and tries to free the daughter of a friend from a brutal gangster mob.

A murderer on parole victimizes a family against whom he holds a grudge.

A housewife flees from a policeman's killer on the road between Phoenix and Denver.

Recruited by the Russians during their days at Cambridge, three young Englishmen rise to become high-ranked MI5 agents until their exposure in 1949.

Truck driver searches for his brother, who has disappeared in a town run by a corrupt judge.

A lakeside resort comes under attack by a seemingly infinite hoard of flesh-eating ants.

Siberia 1953: Ilsa is now working in a Gulag prison camp. Her mission is to "retrain the minds" of those who don't agree with the communists.

Nine people sail a yacht to a deserted rocky island for a holiday in old Uberto's villa. The host is accompanied by a group of family members. The men's only thought seems to be having sex with anyone else's wife. One by one, the guests are killed by an unidentified assailant; Elisabetta, half-mad, claims it's the ghost of Charlie, her lover, who had been killed twenty years before by Uberto and his two sons. The survivors cannot leave the island ( the yacht has disappeared) and are easy prey for the murderer. Vincenzo, now the only one left, discovers the truth...