Shaft

#1130

Visionary director Gordon Parks introduced audiences to the ultimate blaxploitation hero in this blockbuster with an iconic soundtrack by Isaac Hayes
While the Black Power movement was reshaping America, trailblazing director Gordon Parks made this groundbreaking blockbuster, which helped launch the blaxploitation era and gave the screen a new kind of badder-than-bad action hero in John Shaft (Richard Roundtree, in a career-defining role), a streetwise New York City private eye who is as tough with criminals as he is tender with his lovers.

After Shaft is recruited to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem mob boss (Moses Gunn) from Italian gangsters, he finds himself in the middle of a rapidly escalating uptown vs. downtown turf war. A vivid time capsule of seventies Manhattan in all its gritty glory that has inspired sequels and multimedia reboots galore, the original Shaft is studded with indelible elements—from Roundtree’s sleek leather fashions to the iconic funk and soul score by Isaac Hayes.

Special Edition Features
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural and stereo soundtracks
"Shaft’s Big Score!", the 1972 follow-up to Shaft directed by Parks
New program on the Black detective and the legacy of John Shaft, featuring novelist Walter Mosley
New and archival interviews featuring Parks, Hayes, Roundtree and the film's crew
New making-of documentary, behind-the-scenes footage, and more