1970s

If ever there was a watershed movie George Lucas’s would top the list:  American Graffiti went from un-releasable to becoming one of the benchmark movies of the decade,  establishing George Lucas as a visionary to be reckoned with, and becaming a launching pad for more future movie stars than any film in history: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, MacKenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford, Kathleen Quinlan, Kay Lenz, Suzanne Sommers, all of whom went on to notable careers.  Lucas - who would, of course, follow it up with Star Wars- had a hard time interesting any studio in the project.

Roger Ebert perhaps said it best:  "I am not sure exactly what reasons people will have for seeing this movie because it's a raw and painful experience. Are people so numb they need movies of this intensity in order to feel anything at all?" The answer was a resounding “Yes!”, since The Exorcist become one the highest grossing films of all time and the mother of all supernatural horrors.

Bob Fosse’s film came out of nowhere. The show it was based on was a qualified success.

The Italian-American crime/mafia/family saga The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola, who wrote the script with Mario Puzo (author of the novel), became one of the most viewed and celebrated movies of all time. It was followed by The Godfather Part II (1974), also an artistic and commercial triumph, and many years later by the less fortunate The Godfather Part III.

One of the world’s best-loved musicals was brought to the screen by Norman Jewison, who had directed two previous Golden Globe winners, In the Heat of the Night and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!. Fiddler was to be his pièce de resistance.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the HFPA and Gene Hackman: with The French Connection, the Golden Globe winner for Best Picture – Drama. In 1972, the actor won his first Golden Globe as Best Actor, the first of eight Globes nominations throughout his career; Hackman subsequently won two more Globes, for Unforgiven and The Royal Tenenbaums, and in 2003 he was honored with the Cecil B.

It was a new decade and a new Hollywood. 1970 was the year when Five Easy Pieces won the New York Critics Award as the best film of the year, and the Hollywood Foreign Press chose an irreverent comedy from an unknown director as the year’s best musical or comedy.

With the line: "Love means never having to say you're sorry”, voted as the #13 all-time movie quote by the American Film Institute, Love Story conquered the world and made even President Nixon weep like a baby. With its five Golden Globes awards out of seven nominations, Arthur Hiller's film marked a change of pace in the drama section, dominated in the previous years by sumptuous historical dramas.

Stanley Kramer’s win for Best Comedy or Musical was neither a critical nor box office success, even though it was based on a best-selling novel.  But the award served as a fitting close to a glorious career of one of Hollywood’s most creative producers.

After the victory of The Lion in Winter in 1968, once again a British historical drama about the king and his kingdom, Anne of the Thousand Days, was a big winner, taking four Golden Globes out of seven nominations. This time around the focus is on Henry VIII of England (Richard Burton) at odds with his wife, Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas), who has failed to produce a male heir; he discards her in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn (French actress Geneviève Bujold).