The films

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Switchblade Sisters

Jack Hill doing Othello with teenage gangs. Much smarter than it needs to be.

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Street Law

Castellari's Death Wish. An ordinary engineer, brutalised and ignored, arms himself.

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Vigilante

Lustig doing it straight. Robert Forster deserves better and knows it.

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Across 110th Street

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

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Thriller: A Cruel Picture

The eyepatch Tarantino copied. Contains real hardcore inserts and a real animal death.

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Rolling Thunder

Paul Schrader script, and the last twenty minutes are perfect.

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Coffy

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

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Ms. 45

Ferrara's best. Zoë Lund is extraordinary and the ending is a genuine image.

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The Exterminator

A flamethrower and a meat grinder. Death Wish with the restraint removed.

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Walking Tall

One sheriff, one hickory club, and the blueprint for every Southern vigilante picture after it.

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Maniac Cop

A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.

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Death Wish 3

Abandons realism entirely. Bronson defends a housing block with a machine gun.

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Assault on Precinct 13

Carpenter remaking Rio Bravo for $100,000. The ice cream scene is still shocking.

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Death Wish

Bronson as a liberal architect who buys a gun. A phenomenon, and reactionary.

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The Warriors

Barely exploitation, entirely brilliant. A subway ride as Greek epic.

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Dirty Harry

The vigilante with a badge. Pauline Kael called it fascist and was not wrong.

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Taxi Driver

The same story told by people who knew the protagonist was unwell.