OK, even if true, that's only one movie :) I mean, ask any person from that era and they'll tell you it's their favorite. Kind of unfair to compare the only shining example to the "Hollywood average".
Diamond Hand too.
It would be ridiculous if the same were true about Hollywood.
A Russian asks an American what movies to watch, and 8 out of 10 people go back to 1969 to recommend the same one? Impossible.
You’d get everything from Citizen Kane to Hitchcock to Rocky, etc. But you’d also get about 150 great picks from the 80s and 90s, and another dozen from after 2000.
And forget the greats. You’d get Zoolander, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Gremlins, Scream, John Wick, Legally Blonde even… there’s such a wide pool of fun iconic popcorn movies for any person.
Not to mention your Star Wars/Trek/Gate.
These movies aren’t “good” in the sense of being art. They’re good in the sense of people wanting to watch them.
Every n years I rewatch Commando, Con-Air, The Last Starfighter, etc just for kicks. It’s not pure nostalgia- they’re fun movies.
With int’l movies from any given country the list of recommendations is extremely shallow. It’s always one or two iconic revelations from a given decade. Or a couple auteur directors who won all the awards for their think-pieces about the human condition.
That list includes everything from the Wes Anderson-esque "Beware of the Car" to the gritty Western-in-the-East "White Sun of the Desert", to "Come and See", a truly disturbing war drama. Lots to choose from, and many notable omissions still remain, like the wonderful 1977 comedy "Mimino" about a rural helicopter pilot who dreams of flying large airliners, and the "Peculiarities of the National Hunt" from 1995 depicting a Finn with overly romanticized expectations coming to Russia to learn about the traditional hunting customs.
