Shaft

Shaft (1971) is Gordon Parks' crime thriller, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Richard Roundtree stars as John Shaft, a Black private detective working the streets of New York on his own terms — beholden to neither the cops nor the mob.

Harlem crime boss Bumpy Jonas has a problem: rivals muscling in on his drug turf have snatched his daughter. The police are useless and Bumpy's own crew only makes things worse, so he turns to the one man who might bring her back. Shaft moves through the whole city, from smoky bars to the apartments of Black militants, and realizes the kidnapping could tip Harlem straight into a race war.

Parks, the first Black filmmaker to direct a major Hollywood feature, set the template for the entire blaxploitation wave. Isaac Hayes wrote the title theme, and that wah-wah guitar groove took home the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a sound of the era. Tough, sharp, and dripping with style. Stream Shaft (1971) online on iFILM.