Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American filmmaker. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue often with profanity, and references to popular culture.
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American actor. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing actor of all time. In 2022, he received the Academy Honorary Award as "a cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide".
Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation crime action thriller film directed by Gordon Parks and written by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black. It is an adaptation of Tidyman's novel of the same name and is the first entry in the Shaft film series. The plot revolves around a private detective named John Shaft who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her. The film stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, alongside Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John and Lawrence Pressman.
Jackie Brown is a 1997 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on the 1992 novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. It stars Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who smuggles money between the United States and Mexico. Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, and Robert De Niro appear in supporting roles.
Shaft is a 2000 American action crime thriller film co-written, co-produced, and directed by John Singleton and starring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role with Vanessa Williams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale, Dan Hedaya, Busta Rhymes, Toni Collette and Richard Roundtree. It is a sequel to the 1971 Shaft film, in which Jackson plays the nephew of John Shaft. The film opened at the number-one position at the box office when it debuted June 16, 2000. It received mixed to positive reviews on Metacritic, with the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes praises Jackson's charisma.
Richard Arnold Roundtree was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft and four of its sequels, Shaft's Big Score! (1972), Shaft in Africa (1973), its 2000 sequel and its 2019 sequel, as well as the eponymous television series (1973–1974). He was also known for featuring in several TV series, including Roots, Generations, and Desperate Housewives.
John Shaft is a fictional private investigator created by author/screenwriter Ernest Tidyman for the 1970 novel of the same name. He was portrayed by Richard Roundtree in the original 1971 film and in its four sequels—Shaft's Big Score!, Shaft in Africa, Shaft (2000) and Shaft (2019)—as well as in the seven 1973–74 Shaft television films. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed his son, named John Shaft II, in Shaft (2000) and Shaft (2019), and Jessie Usher portrayed the character's grandson in Shaft (2019). The blurb on the paperback on which the original film is based states Shaft is "Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt."
Shaft in Africa is a 1973 American blaxploitation film directed by John Guillermin, and the third film of the Shaft series, starring Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. Stirling Silliphant wrote the screenplay. The film's budget was $1.5 million, but the film was a box office flop, grossing just $1 million. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer quickly sold the property to television, but the television series was cancelled after just seven episodes.
Shaft's Big Score! is a 1972 American blaxploitation action-crime film starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft. It is the second entry in the Shaft film series, with both director Gordon Parks and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman reprising their roles from the first film. Moses Gunn and Drew Bundini Brown also return from the previous film, alongside new appearances from acting veterans Joseph Mascolo, Julius Harris and Joe Santos. Composer Isaac Hayes turned down an offer to score the film, so Parks, also a musician, composed and performed the score himself.
The Legend of Zorro is a 2005 American Western swashbuckler film directed by Martin Campbell, produced by Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Lloyd Phillips, with music by James Horner, and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. It is the sequel to 1998's The Mask of Zorro; Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their roles as the titular hero and his spouse, Elena, and Rufus Sewell stars as the villain, Count Armand. The film takes place in San Mateo County, California and was shot in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, with second-unit photography in Wellington, New Zealand. The film was theatrically released on October 28, 2005, by Columbia Pictures, and earned $142.4 million on a $65 million budget.
Q – The Winged Serpent is a 1982 American monster horror film written, co-produced and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. The film follows a petty swindler (Moriarty) who accidentally intrudes in a case involving a winged deity monster that poses a threat to New York City. He is the only person who has information that can help the police to stop the creature.
Shaft is a television series that aired along with Hawkins during 1973–74 television season on The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. Broadcast every third week, the series is a follow-up continuation of the three feature films that preceded its release. Starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft, it serves as the fourth installment overall in the Shaft franchise. Ed Barth costars as Al Rossi.
The DC Universe Animated Original Movies are a series of American direct-to-video superhero animated films based on DC Comics characters and stories. From 2007 to 2022, films were produced primarily by Warner Bros. Animation but subsequently fell under DC Studios. Many films are usually stand-alone projects that are either adaptations of popular works or original stories. From 2013 to 2024, the DC Animated Movie Universe was a subset of this series. The first story arc featured several films that took place in a shared universe, influenced predominantly by "The New 52". Following the first arc's conclusion with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020), the "Tomorrowverse" series was launched beginning with Superman: Man of Tomorrow that same year and ended with a three-part trilogy, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (2024).
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Quentin Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer who has directed ten films. He first began his career in the 1980s by directing and writing Love Birds In Bondage and writing, directing and starring in the black-and-white My Best Friend's Birthday, a partially lost amateur short film which was never officially released. He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1988), and briefly appeared in Eddie Presley (1992). As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote, and appeared in the violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992), which tells the story of six strangers brought together for a jewelry heist. Proving to be Tarantino's breakthrough film, it was named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Tarantino's screenplay for Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award. Also in 1993, he served as an executive producer for Killing Zoe and wrote two other films.
Django Unchained is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles.
Jessie Thezeire Usher Jr. is an American actor. He is known for playing Lyle on the series Level Up, Cam Calloway on the series Survivor's Remorse, and Reggie Franklin / A-Train in the series The Boys. His film appearances include When the Game Stands Tall (2014), Teenage (2013), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Shaft (2019), and Smile (2022).
The DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) is an American media franchise and shared universe of animated films distributed between 2013 and 2024 by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment. Based on characters from the DC Universe, the franchise is part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line.
Shaft is a 2019 American action comedy film directed by Tim Story and written by Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow. The film stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, and Richard Roundtree. It is the fifth film in the Shaft series, a sequel to the 2000 film with the same title and was also Roundtree's final portrayal of the original eponymous character John Shaft Sr. before his death in 2023.
Dracula is a British horror film series produced by Hammer Film Productions. The films are centered on Count Dracula, bringing with him a plague of vampirism, and the ensuing efforts of the heroic Van Helsing family to stop him. The original series of films consisted of nine installments, which starred iconic horror actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as Count Dracula and Doctor Van Helsing, respectively. The series is part of the larger Hammer horror oeuvre.
