Directed By:Morgan Neville
Breakdown: 1975
Metascore
Mixed or Average
49
User score
Generally Favorable
6.1
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
33% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
50% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
17% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Dec 18, 2025
100
With Breakdown 1975, Neville isn’t asking us to consider whether the year was pivotal. He’s making the case that it was.
Dec 17, 2025
80
Breakdown: 1975, like the best films of that period, never lets up on entertainment as it pursues a serious end. We don’t get just Network and Harlan County, USA; we also get The Towering Inferno and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. All contribute to sharp analysis of a body politic apparently unaware of its own psychological instability.
Dec 19, 2025
50
If you’re an aficionado of ’70s cinema, there’s probably not much new here. The films covered are certainly a murderer’s row of masterpieces, but they’re familiar to cinephiles. Yet despite its lack of depth, there’s value to Breakdown: 1975 as an introduction to an era, particularly for younger people or newer movie lovers who might relish learning about the films of the time and the ways they weave into history.
Dec 19, 2025
50
It ends up being little more than a rambling, undisciplined clip show that misfires as both history and entertainment.
Dec 19, 2025
50
I love a good film-clip movie as much as the next cinemaniac, and “Breakdown” provides plenty of great moments snatched out of what has been called the New American Cinema of the ’70s—the Scorsese-Coppola-Polanski-Malick heyday. But Mr. Neville is going for something deeper. Deeper even than what is usually attributed to the zeitgeist. Or its cousin, coincidence.
Dec 16, 2025
25
At its best, it captures the last-days-of-Pompei feeling that was in the air at the time — a mix of frenetic celebration, paranoia and despair. But alas, the documentary soon derails into bogus history, specious arguments and a self-blinding variety of political bias.
User score
Generally Favorable
43% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
43% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
14% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Dec 19, 2025
7
"Breakdown: 1975" is a fun documentary look at the films and trending topics of a tumultuous American year. The individual bursts, the famous scenes and celebrated voices, are vivid and exciting, but the constantly shifting view makes it difficult to grasp the larger picture.
Dec 22, 2025
4
I'll have to agree with the critics on this; lot of great scenes from great movies and nothing much else to say - well-trod ground. Like we needed this to tell us that multiple academy award winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was amazing as was its lead actor, the legend, Jack Nicholson. All it did for me was add a few classics back into the rotation as I hadn't seen them in a while. WTF is Seth Rogan doing in this?
