Shaft
Why this pick
Its streetwise Harlem detective, cool forward momentum, and sharply observed Black urban world make it a natural companion, though it plays the crime stakes more straight.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
Why this pick
Its streetwise Harlem detective, cool forward momentum, and sharply observed Black urban world make it a natural companion, though it plays the crime stakes more straight.
Why this pick
Matches the politically charged, witty Black-cinema energy and 1970s city texture, using a confident genre frame to deliver pointed institutional satire.
Why this pick
A brisk, character-led con-game crime picture with lively banter and a skeptical eye toward hustles, corruption, and survival in the urban underworld.
Why this pick
Its playful detective plotting, flamboyant pulp style, and charismatic heroine preserve the original's mix of community texture, comic snap, and crime-caper momentum.
Why this pick
A loving, exceptionally sharp spoof of 1970s Black action cinema that recreates the era's visual swagger, righteous humor, and increasingly outrageous crime plotting.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
"Reverend" Deke O'Malley, a conman, is selling shares at a Harlem rally, for the purchase of a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called ''The Black Beauty''. During the rally, several masked gunmen jump out of a meat truck and steal $87,000 in donated cash from the back of an armored car. Two Harlem Detective, Gravedigger Jones and "Coffin" Ed Johnson chase the car, and a bale of cotton falls out of the vehicle, unremarked at the time. Uncle Budd, a scavenger, finds the bale of cotton and sells it for $25 to a junk dealer, but later buys it back for $30. There is a reward out for the $87,000, and Gravedigger and Coffin deduce that the money was probably hidden inside of the bale which had fallen out of the getaway vehicle during the chase. After accusing Reverend O’Malley of stealing the money and taking him captive, Detectives Jones and Johnson are able to blackmail Tom, a mob leader, to give them $87,000 - to be restored to the original donors - after discovering that Uncle Budd has run off with the stolen money and emigrated to Ghana, to live in retirement with his ill-gotten gains.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME

Gravedigger Jones

Coffin Ed Johnson
Iris

Mabel

Goodman
Lt. Anderson

Calhoun
Jarema