1971 - The Finale, Part III - Movie of the Year

Movie of the Year: 1971

The Finale, Part II

The 1971 Film Finale Podcast: One Champion Remains

The 1971 film finale podcast brings the Taste Buds' most ambitious bracket season to its definitive conclusion. Ryan, Mike, and Greg have debated, dismissed, and championed their way through a remarkable field — and now eight films remain. In this episode, four Elite Eight matchups collapse into a single champion, and five major awards close out the season before the final verdict arrives.

Furthermore, this finale caps a season that has included some of the most provocative, challenging, and enduring films ever made. From Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange to William Friedkin's The French Connection, the 1971 bracket has consistently rewarded listeners willing to sit with difficult, boundary-pushing work. The season also covered Straw Dogs, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, and Dirty Harry — each one generating strong arguments before falling short of the Elite Eight.

Additionally, five competitive award categories — Best Sex, Best Violence, Musical Moment, Best Actor, and Best Actress — draw nominees from across the full season. Consequently, this episode stands as the richest and most content-dense installment of the year.

The Elite Eight Matchups

Eight films enter. One leaves as the 1971 champion. The Taste Buds structured the Elite Eight around four head-to-head matchups, and each one forces a different kind of critical argument.

A Clockwork Orange vs. The Devils

Two of the year's most transgressive films meet in the first matchup. A Clockwork Orange arrived as a season-long frontrunner — a Kubrick film operating at the height of his formal powers, one that the Taste Buds covered in depth on their dedicated episode. Ken Russell's The Devils, meanwhile, delivers a fever dream of religious hysteria and state violence that stands as one of the most divisive films the Taste Buds have discussed all season. Moreover, this matchup poses a pointed question: which film earns its provocation more honestly? Both demand something from the viewer. However, only one advances.

Harold and Maude vs. McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Harold and Maude represents the season's most warmly beloved film — a dark comedy about love, death, and radical living that generated some of the most enthusiastic podcast discussion of the year. By contrast, Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller offers a revisionist Western suffused with melancholy and moral exhaustion, its beauty inseparable from its grief. Both films carry passionate advocates among the Taste Buds. Consequently, this matchup ranks among the tightest and most personal bracket debates of the entire season. Above all, it asks whether warmth or ache makes the stronger lasting impression.

Wanda vs. The Conformist

Barbara Loden's Wanda — a micro-budget American independent masterwork — faces Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, a visually ravishing Italian political drama. Notably, both films center on characters adrift in systems designed to diminish them. Nevertheless, they arrive at very different emotional endpoints: Wanda drifts, the Conformist spirals. The Taste Buds' arguments in this matchup reveal as much about their own critical values as about the films themselves. In practice, this is the bracket's most purely cinephile debate.

The French Connection vs. The Last Picture Show

The bracket's most commercially dominant film — The French Connection, winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture — faces Peter Bogdanovich's elegiac The Last Picture Show. In practice, this matchup pits Hollywood's muscular genre filmmaking against its more introspective New Wave ambitions. As a result, the debate cuts to the heart of what 1971 cinema actually achieved. Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle and the dusty streets of Anarene, Texas, represent two entirely different ideas of what a great film should do — and the Taste Buds have strong opinions on which idea wins.

The 1971 Awards

Before the bracket champion is named, the Taste Buds present five awards covering the full sweep of the season. This Movie of the Year 1971 podcast segment features each host nominating the moments they found most memorable, daring, or essential — and the resulting field spans an extraordinary range of films and tones.

Best Sex

The nominees range from the tender to the violent to the surreal, drawing from three different films and three distinct registers of human sexuality.

Jacy and Abilene — The Last Picture Show
The Pool Party — The Last Picture Show
The Rape of Christ — The Devils
The Sex Duel with the Biker Gang — Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Young Sweetback and the Sex Worker — Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Best Violence

The nominees span the full tonal range of 1971 action filmmaking — from Dirty Harry's iconic bank robbery standoff to the slow, aching finality of McCabe dying alone in the snow.

The Car Chase — The French Connection
Harry Foils a Bank Robbery — Dirty Harry
The Kid Kills the Cowboy — McCabe and Mrs. Miller
The Ludovico Technique — A Clockwork Orange
McCabe Dies Alone in the Snow — McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Musical Moment

The nominees here demonstrate just how varied 1971's soundtrack was — Cat Stevens, Beethoven, and Gene Wilder all make the shortlist.

Maude Sings "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" — Harold and Maude
Opening Funeral March — A Clockwork Orange
"Pure Imagination" — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
"Singin' in the Rain" — A Clockwork Orange
The Tango — The Conformist

Best Actor

The five nominees represent the full range of 1971 male performance — from Hackman's coiled rage to Wilder's heartbreaking wonder. Additionally, this category generated some of the most contested debates in the entire 1971 film podcast season.

Warren Beatty — McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Gene Hackman — The French Connection
Oliver Reed — The Devils
Jean-Louis Trintignant — The Conformist
Gene Wilder — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Best Actress

Five performances across five very different films close out the awards portion of this 1971 finale podcast. Moreover, the nominees include two performances from the same film — a testament to how thoroughly McCabe and Mrs. Miller dominated the season's acting conversation.

Julie Christie — McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Jane Fonda — Klute
Ruth Gordon — Harold and Maude
Barbara Loden — Wanda
Cybill Shepherd — The Last Picture Show

Why the 1971 Film Finale Podcast Still Matters

This 1971 film finale podcast is more than a bracket conclusion — it is a sustained argument about what cinema can achieve. The eight films that reached the Elite Eight represent a genuine cross-section of 1971's richest work: Hollywood genre filmmaking at its most visceral, European art cinema at its most seductive, American independent film at its most raw, and British provocation at its most uncompromising.

Furthermore, the awards categories reflect the full range of what made 1971 such a singular year. The Best Violence nominees alone — from Gene Hackman's frantic elevated car chase to McCabe dying alone in the snow — demonstrate how differently filmmakers approached physical conflict on screen. The Musical Moment category, meanwhile, spans Cat Stevens, Beethoven, and Gene Wilder, and each nominee makes a completely different emotional argument.

According to RogerEbert.com, several of these films — particularly The French Connection and A Clockwork Orange — remain benchmark achievements in their respective genres, and critics consistently cite them among the best films ever made. Nevertheless, the Taste Buds treat the bracket as a live debate rather than a history lesson. A lean, uncompromising film like Wanda goes toe-to-toe with a five-time Oscar winner, and the argument carries genuine stakes.

Ultimately, this episode rewards listeners who have followed the full season — and serves as an ideal entry point for anyone discovering Movie of the Year for the first time. Above all, it makes the case that 1971 stands among the most consequential single years in cinema history.

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FAQ: 1971 Film Finale Podcast

About This Episode

What is the Movie of the Year 1971 finale episode about?

The Movie of the Year 1971 finale covers four Elite Eight matchups and the championship round, crowning the best film of 1971. Ryan, Mike, and Greg also present five major awards — Best Sex, Best Violence, Musical Moment, Best Actor, and Best Actress — before naming the season champion.

Which films competed in the 1971 Elite Eight?

The four Elite Eight matchups were: A Clockwork Orange vs. The Devils, Harold and Maude vs. McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Wanda vs. The Conformist, and The French Connection vs. The Last Picture Show.

What awards are presented in the finale?

Five awards are presented: Best Sex (Battle 90), Best Violence (Battle 91), Musical Moment (Battle 92), Best Actor (Battles 93–94), and Best Actress (Battles 93–94). Each award draws nominees from across the full 1971 season, with each Taste Bud contributing their personal picks.

Who are the Taste Buds?

The Taste Buds are Ryan, Mike, and Greg — the three co-hosts of Movie of the Year on the PopFilter podcast network. Each season they debate and rank films through a bracket tournament until one film earns the title of Movie of the Year.

About the Films and the Year

What film won Movie of the Year 1971?

Listen to the Movie of the Year 1971 finale to find out which film the Taste Buds crowned as the best of 1971. No spoilers on this page.

Is The French Connection the best film of 1971?

The French Connection won five Academy Awards in 1972, including Best Picture and Best Director for William Friedkin — making it the year's consensus critical and commercial champion. However, the Movie of the Year bracket asks whether that consensus holds up against deeper cuts like McCabe and Mrs. Miller or Wanda. Listen to the finale to hear how the argument lands.

What are the best movies of 1971?

The Movie of the Year 1971 bracket covered a remarkable field: The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show, Harold and Maude, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Wanda, The Conformist, The Devils, Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The finale crowns the Taste Buds' pick for the best of the year.

Is Wanda (1970) eligible as a 1971 film?

Wanda premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1970 but received its wider U.S. release in 1971 — the year the Movie of the Year bracket covers. Barbara Loden wrote, directed, and starred in the film. Critics widely regard it as a landmark of American independent cinema.

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