One of the best of all blaxploitation flicks.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 29, 2023

Oozing masculinity with his streetwise manner towards suspects, Shaft is a triumph...

| Feb 22, 2023

Quintessential blaxploitation that launched a thousand imitators, Gordon Parks’s Shaft is much more than a rollicking crowd-pleaser, as it’s also a snapshot of a bygone era.

| Aug 2, 2022

There has been a slew of lesser imitations of Park’s film, but none have cut it close. Shaft has become incontestably Roundtree’s own through a performance that seems not only natural and off-the-cuff but imbued with a sense of street life...

| Jul 12, 2022

both revolutionary black film with unprecedented imagery of a strong black protagonist and Hollywood product clearly shaped to appeal to both black and white audiences

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 12, 2022

Pop culture transcendence.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 28, 2022

A fascinating and unique crime drama which provides a snapshot of a time and place in history.

| Jun 23, 2022

Whether watching it to see a fun detective story or get a handle on the Blaxploitation era, Shaft is still and has always been one cool cat to follow.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 16, 2022

Most of the characters are poorly cast and unconvincing. And except for some souped-up violence, especially at the end, there just isn't much to the movie.

| Jan 25, 2022

Even when interactions remain low-key, Shaft's screen presence and larger-than-life attitude are enough to spice things up.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 31, 2020

A good, gutsy crime yarn in the 'forties style.

| Jun 8, 2020

Violence, some sex, profanity in '70s classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 11, 2019

If Shaft were indeed a hard-hitting, fast-paced, action-packed detective thriller, as it was meant to be, then it would be an acceptable entertainment. But it isn't.

| Jun 25, 2018

If you're a fan of this sort of caper, worth owning.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 10, 2017

There are a lot of movies from that era that do basically the same things... but not many of them do them as well.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 11, 2014

Nearly every frame of Shaft is intent on doing one thing: establishing its hero as a powerful, independent, innately good yet still devilish man in control of his own destiny.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 15, 2012

An efficient cop thriller, with a charismatic performance from Roundtree as "the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about...Shaft!" Can you dig it?

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 3, 2012

A blaxploitation pic that's never quite as cool as its theme song.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2012

Though Ossie Davis's elaborate buddy comedy "Cotton Comes to Harlem" arrived a year earlier, Gordon Parks's "Shaft" (1971) was the movie that put Blaxploitation on the map.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 26, 2009

Excellent cast, headed by newcomer Richard Roundtree, may shock some audiences with heavy dose of candid dialog and situation.

| Mar 26, 2009