Films are, essentially, artefacts. The history of film is a cumulative record of what people have wanted to say, show, and create, not only for their contemporary audience, but for audiences of the future. The films of past decades do not just exist in the here and now, but act as reminders of the there and then. These artefacts, however, only survive if we in the present know how to see ourselves in them.
As we enter this new year, 1976 is now 50 years ago, and while it is easy for us to use its films as a way to escape backwards in time, tucking ourselves comfortably into a nostalgia for an era that feels so far removed from our own, this should not be their sole purpose. Films are as much records of the past as they are guides for the future, and the films of 1976 feel uncomfortably instructional, shaped by anxieties that still resonate with a student in 2026.
Network, dir. Sidney Lumet
In this satire, news anchor Howard Beale’s gradually deteriorating mental state causes his ratings to rapidly increase until he becomes a modern-day prophet, spouting galvanising diatribes to an entertainment-obsessed America.
It goes without saying that our lives, more than ever, are filtered through screens. We cling to media personalities for guidance. We are hungry for anything that can alleviate our boredom, in the hopes that somewhere amongst all the mess, we will find some kind of wider truth. Media executives respond accordingly and prioritise narratives that prompt emotional engagement, favouring entertainment over facts. This concern within our media culture existed in 1976 much like it does now, and is the underlying theme of Network. Viewers, then and now, are victims of media systems which seek to turn emotion into profit, to the extent that our outrage is their desired product. Howard Beale embodies this attitude, as his ethical rhetoric is absorbed into spectacle, and his sincerity is irrelevant as long as it is beneficial to the Network.
Network is currently available to rent on Apple TV.
Canoa: A Shameful Memory, dir. Felipe Cazals
Eight years prior to the release of this film, five employees of the University of Puebla, Mexico, were victims of a lynching by a mob of villagers, incited by a manipulative right-wing priest who claimed that they were communist students. This story is chillingly reenacted in Felipe Cazals’ Canoa.
Ideological manipulation. Religious fanaticism. Mass violence. These themes transcend Mexico, 1968, and 1976, and map onto today’s world with unsettling precision. We are constantly navigating discourses about who is considered ‘dangerous’, and bombarded with ideologies which thrive on fear, emotionally charged social narratives, and unverified claims. These narratives aren’t merely abstract, as they shape how people act, whom they trust, and whom they are willing to harm. What this film teaches us is that violence is present long before an act of violence is committed. It can be found when fear, haste, and confusion replace rational thinking.
Canoa: A Shameful Memory is not currently available to watch in the UK.
Cría Cuervos…, dir. Carlos Saura
Filmed in the dying days of Francoist Spain, Cría Cuervos… paints the portrait of Ana, an eight-year-old orphan, living with her two sisters. Often retreating into memories from when her mother was alive, she grapples with the death of her parents and the legacy of fascism within her family.
For children living in any time or place, politics is not something you opt into willingly. Authoritarianism conditions people emotionally, through fear, habit, and silence, long before it asserts itself through law. Politics can be a spectacle, but it is often something more atmospheric, embedded in social relationships and absorbed into our private emotional lives. It is no surprise, therefore, that so many of us experience burnout, as political issues that started long before our time increasingly feel like our responsibility. In Cría Cuervos…, Ana inherits emotional damage she does not understand: a historically produced fatigue. Through her we learn that the fatigue we may be feeling is not the result of personal inadequacy, but is instead shaped by the emotional inheritance of unfinished histories.
Cría Cuervos… is not currently available to watch in the UK.
News from Home, dir. Chantal Akerman
Filmmaker Chantal Akerman, after leaving Belgium to live in New York, reads letters from her mother, who remained in Brussels. Accompanying this are elegant but alienating shots of Manhattan, creating a minimalist meditation on dislocation, estrangement, and familial disconnection.
During my first year of university, I rarely and reluctantly called my family. I saw their protectiveness and care as unnecessary as I searched for independence somewhere new. However, as many of us spend more and more time alone, it is important to treasure the humble domestic elements of home that we so often take for granted. As in Akerman’s film, these moments do not resolve distance or uncertainty, but they make them more bearable. Amidst the constant circulation of crisis-driven news and opinion, and the exhaustion that follows from it, it is in the small things that true human connection and fulfilment can be found.
News from Home is currently available to stream on BFI Player.
To look back into the films of 1976 is not to retreat into nostalgia; they are not mere archaisms. These works emerge from a moment similar to our own, marked by political distrust, media saturation, and cultural burnout, and show us that surviving these moments requires more than outrage or endurance alone. Between these four films, there is a thread. Watching them, we can connect the systems that manufacture outrage, the violence that stems from those systems, the fatigue we experience from our constant exposure to that violence, and the importance of preserving human connection despite our fatigue. The value of these films lies not in their distance from us, but in their closeness. They survive not just because they illustrate the past, but because they continue to teach us how to live when the future feels uncertain.
