Exploitation films

Penitentiary

Prison-boxing blaxploitation that out-grossed every indie of its year and got forgotten anyway.

Petey Wheatstraw

Rudy Ray Moore makes a deal with the Devil to come back from the dead. Deranged and delightful.

TNT Jackson

Cirio Santiago's Manila blaxploitation at full tilt, remembered for one fight staged in the dark.

Willie Dynamite

A flamboyant pimp fights to stay on top as everything closes in. Sharper and sadder than most.

Detroit 9000

A biracial cop pairing hunts jewel thieves in Detroit. Tarantino re-released it for a reason.

Three the Hard Way

Brown, Williamson and Kelly against a plot to poison the water supply.

Sugar Hill

Revenge via Haitian zombies. The best of the blaxploitation horror crossovers.

The Mack

Half drama, half documentary of 1970s Oakland. The real players are in it.

Ganja & Hess

An art film that was sold as a vampire picture. Recut and buried for decades.

J.D.'s Revenge

A dead 1940s gangster possesses a mild law student. Blaxploitation crossed with the supernatural.

Abby

The blaxploitation Exorcist. A minister's wife is possessed by a sex demon. Warner Bros sued.

Dolemite

Technically inept and completely irresistible. Boom mics in every other shot.

Scream Blacula Scream

The rare sequel that adds Pam Grier and a shred of dignity.

Trouble Man

Cool to the point of refrigeration, scored by Marvin Gaye the one time he ever bothered.

Truck Turner

Isaac Hayes in front of the camera for once, and Nichelle Nichols swearing.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door

The most political film the blaxploitation boom made, pulled from cinemas and buried for thirty years.

Black Belt Jones

Jim Kelly karate-chops the mob to save a Watts dojo. Blaxploitation meets kung fu, joyfully.

Black Mama White Mama

The Defiant Ones with Pam Grier, shot in the Philippines by a Filipino who actually knew the terrain.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

Two Harlem detectives chase a stolen fortune hidden in a bale of cotton. The one that opened the door.

Hell Up in Harlem

Larry Cohen's weekend sequel to Black Caesar, rougher and more berserk than the original.

Black Caesar

Larry Cohen shooting Harlem guerrilla-style. James Brown scores it.

Cleopatra Jones

Tamara Dobson, six feet two, government agent. Shelley Winters overacts gloriously.

Across 110th Street

Grim, well acted, and the best film in the cycle by some distance.

Super Fly

Curtis Mayfield's score critiques the film it's in. Remarkable object.

Coffy

Pam Grier's arrival. Jack Hill knows exactly what he has.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Financed independently, structured like nothing else, and it changed the industry.

Foxy Brown

Coffy again, louder and worse written. Grier is still magnetic.

Blacula

William Marshall plays it completely straight and almost saves it.

Shaft

Gordon Parks directs a solid detective film. Isaac Hayes does the rest.