Raw rage predominantly drove this era. An unabashedly entertaining phase of Bollywood, which witnessed a lanky lad called Amitabh Bachchan emerge as the phenomenal face of anger.

Even as raging superstar Rajesh Khanna tried his best to ward off the 'angry young man' fever, AB dished out one blockbuster after another through Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra capers.

Hema Malini became the darling of the masses, instantly acquiring the title of 'Dream Girl,' others like Jaya Bachchan (then Bhaduri), Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil surfaced as complete naturals. But most memorable was how Rekha graduated from an indifferent starlet to a sparkling beauty with a terrific screen presence.

A fecund decade for prolific filmmakers like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Yash Chopra, Ramesh Sippy, Gulzar and Basu Chaterjee, it also marks a noticeable rise in the movement of parallel cinema what with visionary Shyam Benegal (Nishant, Ankur), more or less, pioneering the cause of meaningful, issue-based filmmaking to the obviously thrilled viewer.

Musically too, 1970s heard some exceptional melody from the likes of Sachin Dev and Rahul Dev Burman, Khayyam, Shankar Jaikishan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Salil Choudhary and Kalyanji-Anandji.

Lots of action. Tons of dialogue-baazi. Loads of Big B. Impossible to ignore, eager to please, that's the 1970s show, alright!

rediff.com presents its list of Ten Must-Watch Hindi Films of this mind-blowing decade.

PS: Clearly, one had to omit an overwhelming number of par excellence movies to narrow it down to a brief 10. But we value your opinion and would like to know which films you deem worthy of featuring on the list. Write in!

Text: Sukanya Verma

Also Read: Landmark movies of the 1960s

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