Selected by the Music Branch.

Richard Roundtree is “the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about” in this 1971 classic, which helped to establish a new era of African American cinema and won an Original Song Oscar for the unforgettable title theme by Isaac Hayes, also nominated for his Original Score. Photographer-turned-filmmaker Gordon Parks directed the lively mystery, in which Shaft hunts for a gangster’s kidnapped daughter in authentically gritty Manhattan locations.