Exploitation movies were once considered low-quality B-grade films which used explicit themes of sex, violence, drug use, nudity, gore, rebellion, mayhem, and absurdity. These films are as old as cinema, with the earliest version seen in the early 1920s. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, the genre was popularized after the relaxation of censorship and taboos in the United States and Europe.
The 1970s saw the boiling pot of exploitation films evolving into several subgenres, including slasher, sharksploitation, martial arts, blaxploitation, rape-revenge, and even carsploitation. The decade was a turning point, changing theatrical experiences and film distribution worldwide. Here are 10 highest-grossing exploitation films of the 1970s that changed American cinema.
10 Jaws
Jaws is the most popular example of the sharksploitation subgenre. The film is considered one of the greatest films of all time and changed the movie-going experience. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and was based on the novel of the same name written by Peter Benchley. The film follows a group of men hunting a man-eating shark that haunts beachgoers at a summer resort town. Roy Scheider plays police officer Martin Brody, who hunts the marine beast with the help of a marine biologist, played by Richard Dreyfuss, and a shark hunter, played by Robert Shaw.
Jaws was the first major motion picture to be mainly shot on the ocean and used mechanical sharks to pose as the antagonist of the film. The making of the film is as intriguing as the film’s legacy as Jaws turned summers into a prime season for blockbuster releases. The film was produced on a budget of $9 million and grossed $476 million, making it one of the highest-grossing films of all time.
9 Shaft
Shaft was path-breaking for several reasons. The blaxploitation crime action thriller was directed by Gordon Parks and followed the private detective John Shaft, played by Richard Roundtree, who helps a Harlem mobster rescue his kidnapped daughter from the Italian mobsters. The film shows Shaft as a debonair black detective, becoming an iconic representation of black masculinity seen throughout blaxploitation films.
The film was produced by MGM with a budget of $500,000 when the production company was struggling financially. The film grossed a shocking $12 million, saving the company from bankruptcy. The film was pivotal in Black representation in cinema. It helped popularize the genre, leading to several other films which retained several elements of the Shaft, including a pimp, gangster, and unpredictable women with a backdrop of inner-city crime and ghetto violence.
8 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The hicksploitation The Texas Chainsaw Massacre combines elements of a slasher film and horror, in telling a story that is based in Southern United States, with characters stereotypical to the region.
The film follows a group of pair of siblings and their group of friends, to investigate the whereabouts of the siblings’ grandfather’s grave. To their horror, they find a group of cannibals living next door to the family’s old farmhouse. Leatherface, who covers his face with a mask made of human skin, attacks the group and the tormented youngsters gather their might to escape the horror.
The film exceeded its budget and was produced on a budget of $1.8 million and grossed $30.9 million at the box office. According to the film’s director Tobe Hooper, the film was inspired by the crimes of Ed Gein and was a commentary on the turbulent state of mind the USA was during the time of the Watergate scandal, 1973 oil crisis, and the Vietnam War. The film has gained cult status over time and has inspired several horror villains and fictional serial killers in low-budget exploitation cinema.
7 Deep Throat
The controversial pornographic film, Deep Throat, was one of the highest-grossing films of 1972. The film was made on a budget of $47,500, and according to the FBI, the film earned $100 million. Deep Throat was directed by adult film director Gerard Damiano, making it the first pornographic film to have a plot, character development, and production design resembling a feature film. The film is considered the best example of the Golden Age of Porn.
The total revenue collection of the film is debated to date as the film was screened in many theaters involved in mob-connected businesses. This resulted in inflated box office receipts as it was used for money laundering in illegal activities. The film revolutionized the porn industry and introduced elements of storytelling in the genre, even after being hounded by controversies, copyright issues, obscenity litigation, and allegations of sexual harassment by the leading female protagonist, Linda Lovelace.
6 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasss Song became an essential watch for members of the Black Power organization Black Panther. Such is the film’s legacy, which is known to create the blaxploitation genre. The film is led by Melvin Van Peebles, who wrote, co-produced, scored, edited, directed, and also acted as the film’s leading protagonist. Peebles plays a black orphan named Sweet Sweetback, raised in a brothel, who works there as an adult. He becomes an easy target of a murder and is arrested by two white policemen. Sweetback kills them and decides to escape to Mexico as a massive manhunt conspires to target him.
The film is known for its stylistic editing and was made on a budget of $150,000, partly self-funded by Peebles and a loan of $50,000 from Bill Cosby. The film earned $15.2 million, marking the arrival of Black storytellers in commercial American cinema.
5 Mad Max
The Australian dystopian action film is the best example of the carsploitation subgenre, which became popular in the 1970s. The genre fetishizes racing cars and features sports cars, muscle cars, and car wrecks, all of which is seen in Mad Max. The film was made on a budget of $400,000, grossing $100 million at the box office, making the film one of the highest-grossing films released in 1979.
The film stars Mel Gibson as Mad Max Rockatansky, a police officer in a dystopian Australia set in the future. After the world has been depleted by war, famine, and oil depletion, Max is reduced to his survival instincts and revenge. He wages war when his wife and son are murdered by the leader of a vicious biker gang. The film is a commentary on societal collapse and has impacted pop culture for its post-apocalyptic themes, which is visible in several dystopian films of the 21st century.
4 Fist of Fury
Martial Arts films like Fist of Fury marked the rise of Asian films in America. In 1972, Fist of Fury became the highest-grossing Hong Kong film, collecting $100 million worldwide against a budget of $100,000. It was surpassed by The Way of the Dragon the same year. Both films starred Bruce Lee as the protagonist. The martial artist and actor was influential in Hong Kong action cinema, and became an icon for popularizing martial arts worldwide.
Fist of Fury stars Lee as Chen Zhen, a student of Huo Yuanjia, who fights for justice for his master’s death. Lee’s death in the following year led to the Bruceploitation sub-genre, where several look-alike actors and martial artists took advantage of Lee’s popularity and worked on upcoming martial arts films.
3 Gone in 60 Seconds
Gone in 60 Seconds is another carsploitation film written, directed, produced, and starred American stunt driver Henry Blight Halicki as Maindrian Pace. The character moonlights as a car thief and is assigned to steal 48 cars in five days by a drug lord for $400,000. When he steals a car named Eleanor in Long Beach, the film embarks on an epic car space odyssey across Southern California between Pace and the police.
The film is known for one of the longest car chases in film history, where 93 cars were wrecked in a 40-minute car chase sequence. It is reported that a total of 127 cars were destroyed in the making of the film. Gone in 60 Seconds was made on a budget of $150,000, grossing $40 million. Unfortunately, Halicki was killed in an accident while shooting a dramatic stunt for the film’s sequel.
2 Deliverance
Rape revenge films became an integral part of exploitation cinema, where a character is raped and dehumanized but survives to fight back the perpetrator. Deliverance is considered to be the originator of the genre where a man is raped in the woods by a mountain man. The film follows four friends from the city who go canoeing in rural Georgia. They are confronted by the locals who attack them for entering their land. The friends plan to escape the woods but are trapped by a madman and harsh rapids of the forest.
The film was made on a budget of $2 million and grossed a $46.1 million, becoming the fifth highest grossing film of 1972. The film was critically acclaimed and received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing.
1 Halloween
The 1978 film Halloween popularized the slasher film genre, which was started by the Canadian film Black Christmas. Halloween was directed by John Carpenter and shows a Halloween night in 1963, where a six-year-old boy named Michael Myers brutally murders his teenage sister with a chef’s knife. He is arrested and imprisoned for 15 years. The film leaps to 1978 when a 21-year-old Michael Myers is transferred for a court date. He steals a car and returns to his hometown in Illinois to hunt for his next prey.
The film is known for establishing popular tropes seen in slasher films. For example, a masked villain, a group of teenagers haunted by the villain, using isolated locations for committing crimes, and a dysfunctional family of the villain, etc. The film was made on a budget of $325,000 and grossed a revenue of $70 million, making it one of the most successful horror films of all time.
