9 Blaxploitation Films You Need To See

From the first moment he walks out of a subway station to the thumping title track by Isaac Hayes to the last moment where he fades into the night, John Shaft is the man.

A gun-toting, ass-kicking, window-smashing, turtle-neck-rocking, bad mother (shut your mouth!) Richard Roundtree's portayal of the private dick, who's a sex machine to all the chicks, is still as fresh today as it was some forty seven years ago.

Raking in thirteen million on a five hundred thousand budget, as well as being the first film from a major studio to cast a black actor in a lead role, Shaft would spawn two sequels.

There was also the not completely awful remake as well as rumours of a Son of Shaft due in 2019, but the original still stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Urban, gritty and as cool as a polar bears dangly bits, with a cleverly written script and violent set pieces, it raised the bar for all action movies to come to a height that very few since have managed to clear.