Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Some movies capture a historical moment so perfectly that in retrospect it is impossible to unravel which came first: wisecracking disco Lotharios or Saturday Night Fever (1977). Set in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the furthest horizon is limited by the tenement across the street, this paean to unrealized, unarticulated ambition presents John Travolta in his legacy-ensuring role as a handsome, rhythmically blessed Italian youth whose main claim to fame is that he routinely wins the weekend dance contests at his local disco. From this humble premise, as from the Travolta character’s apparently simple yearning to make his mark, is woven a tale of human struggle so profound as to rank among the classic drama of our time, destined to persevere as the tragedies of antiquity have for long-gone Greeks. Plus, unlike those stuffy old buggers of yore, Saturday Night Fever is propelled by an unstoppable disco beat.