Film

Super Fly

Name: Super Fly
Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Thriller
Released: 1972
Cast: Ron O'Neal, Carl Lee, Sheila Frazier, Charles McGregor, Julius Harris

Drug-trade crime

A blaxploitation landmark that turned a drug dealer's exit plan into a slow-motion strut through early-70s Harlem, all wide lapels, cocaine-spoon necklaces and Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack doing half the storytelling. It moves at the pace of its hero's cool, more mood piece than thriller. Watch it for the style, the score, and the uneasy thrill of rooting for a man selling the very thing that's destroying his neighbourhood.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love blaxploitation-era crime films where style, funk score and a cool, unhurried anti-hero carry the weight more than tidy plotting, and you enjoy seeing the grime of 1970s New York rendered with real swagger.

Skip it if you want a tightly plotted thriller with clever reversals; this one is looser, more interested in mood and attitude, and its action beats can feel sporadic and dated.

What it asks of you: It runs about ninety minutes and moves at a deliberate pace, lingering on scenes of hustling and everyday street life before the tension tightens, so settle in rather than expecting constant momentum.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Shaft1971

The other pillar of the genre, released a year earlier, with its own Oscar-winning theme and a private detective just as unbothered by the world's opinion of him as Priest is.

But More conventional detective plotting, less interested in the moral murk that makes Super Fly uncomfortable and interesting.

The French Connection1971

Same city, same year, same drug trade, told from the other side of the law — grimy, freezing, unglamorous New York as the perfect counterweight to Priest's velvet world.

But Cold and procedural where Super Fly is warm and stylised; the chase sequences are the point, not the characters.

Scarface1983

The bigger, louder, more operatic version of wanting out of the business — a hustler's rise dressed in the same excess Priest only flirts with, before it swallows him whole.

But Three hours of relentless escalation and cartoonish violence; subtlety was never on the menu.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Super Fly

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Odds Against Tomorrow1959

Same structural engine — the criminal trying to buy his own exit — but made before blaxploitation existed, stripped down to social-realist bone.

A stark black-and-white heist noir with Harry Belafonte as a man who needs one last score to buy his way out — Super Fly's exact plot, thirteen years earlier, with none of the funk or fashion.

But Slow, moody, and shot through with the era's censorship-era restraint; nothing like Super Fly's visual swagger.

New Jack City1991

Super Fly's spiritual heir, made when crack had replaced cocaine and the stakes got even higher — same kingpin-wants-out shape, harder edges, Wesley Snipes at his most magnetic.

But Leans harder into cop-thriller conventions and a more explicitly moralising ending than Super Fly ever bothers with.

American Gangster2007

A polished, big-budget retelling of the same fantasy — the dealer as businessman, as folk hero — with Denzel Washington doing a version of Priest's icy composure.

But Studio-glossy and long, trading Super Fly's low-budget grit for prestige-picture sheen.

Blow Out1981

A real-life dealer's rise and fall told with the same seductive visual pleasure Super Fly trades in — the good life first, the reckoning later.

But More sprawling biopic than tight character study; two decades covered means less time inside any single moment.

Foxy Brown1974

Pam Grier turns the genre's swagger toward revenge rather than escape, proof the era's style could carry a very different kind of story with just as much heat.

But Rougher production values and a much pulpier, more exploitation-driven tone than Super Fly's smoother cool.

Menace II Society1993

Strips away almost all the glamour Super Fly still trades in and shows the same streets two decades on, with none of the funk-soundtrack cushioning.

But Bleaker and far less stylish by design; there's no fantasy of a clean way out here.

Training Day2001

Flips the badge and the dealer, but the same question sits underneath — how far does someone go to buy their own freedom from a corrupt system?

But A two-hander thriller built around Denzel Washington's performance rather than an ensemble portrait of a scene.

The Corner2000

Same subject, opposite register: where Super Fly sells the dream of getting out, The Corner shows how rarely anyone actually does.

David Simon's miniseries about addiction and dealing in Baltimore, built from real reporting, shows the human wreckage Super Fly's soundtrack glides past.

But Deliberately unglamorous and often devastating — this is the hangover to Super Fly's high, with no funk score to soften it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid1969

Identical premise — the criminal's last job before retirement — smuggled into a completely different genre and a far lighter mood.

Two outlaws want one last big haul before going straight — the same fantasy of a clean exit, told as a sunlit, jokey Western instead of a Harlem crime drama.

But Breezy and romantic where Super Fly is tense and morally loaded; the danger here is almost incidental to the charm.