八っ墓村 (Yatsuhaka-mura) ('Village of Eight Graves') (1977)

Author Seishi Yokomizo's convoluted mystery has thankfully been trimmed of several characters and the action streamlined in this ripper adaptation of his book, which connects sixteenth-century feudal events in Japan to a modern-day Japanese murder mystery in the village of Yatsuhakamura (Village of Eight Graves) and, though a mystery, it enthusiastically embraces horror — the body count is exorbitant, there's a chilling link to the real-life 1938 Tsuyama incident, and scenes of maniacal villains chasing victims through labyrinthine limestone caves amid ghastly 70s giallo stylings.

★★★★☆

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Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes (aka 'Death Tolls Seven Times', 'Seven Notes in Black', 'The Psychic') (1977)

When a skeleton is unearthed at her husband's countryside manor, it becomes apparent a woman's visions of murder are not simply her imagination, in this excellent murder mystery for giallo fans featuring ghastly body horror set-pieces, opulent interiors, dread accompanied by Hammond organ, intrigue, and lots of luridly coloured blood.

★★★★☆

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Candleshoe (1977)

There's some dated gender stereotyping and at least one cringeworthy allusion to race, but Disney's Candleshoe is a classic family adventure in which a young Jodie Foster, a year on from her standout Taxi Driver performance, stars as a streetwise kid who inveigles her way into a family mansion by pretending to be a long-lost heir because she wants to get her hands on a hidden treasure.

★★★☆☆

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Capricorn One (1977)

Scripted in 1972 just three years after the moon landing, this slow burn, engrossing suspense takes a conspiracy theory levelled at that real-world event and applies it to a future faked Mars landing with the astronauts involved (James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and, ahem, OJ Simpson) realising themselves in grave danger given they have become keepers of an awfully big government secret while hidden out-of-public-view, supposedly on the red planet.

★★★★☆

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The Gang (Le Gang) (1977)

Based on a book by Parisian Inspector of Police-turned-author Roger Borniche, this wafer-thin crime caper follows a criminal gang in Paris in 1945, the real, historical Gang des Tractions Avant, who, with the suited swagger of Reservoir Dogs and the nonchalance of Ocean's Eleven, take advantage of the city's post-war disorganisation to commit a series of brazen robberies.

★★★★☆

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Oh, God! (1977)

Given in the end it takes God turning up in person in an American courtroom to convince those gathered of his existence, his plan occupying the rest of this comedy - communing exclusively with supermarket manager Jerry Landers and having him spread the Word to people who without exception believe him to be a delusional whack-job - seems a harebrained undertaking longwindedly achieving nothing, but John Denver stars as Landers - so that's interesting for a start - and the movie avoids tiresome God-bothering and the trap of sanctimoniousness or saccharinity and instead, with George Burns as a bespectacled waddling old man of a God, is dryly funny and effortless to watch, even given the idiocy of God's plan.

★★★☆☆

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The American Friend (Der Amerikanische Freund) (1977)

Wim Wender's take on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley is to have Dennis Hopper saunter around Hamburg in overalls, a cowboy hat and a Willy Wonka haircut, but if you can get past this incongruity and accept Dennis Hopper's sharp edges and surface madness in place of the literary Ripley's sophisticated sociopathy, there is lots to enjoy about this story of a sick man coerced into a series of murders and who ends up with a strange new friend and abettor.

★★★☆☆

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