Shaft
Cool private eye John Shaft must track down a mobster’s missing daughter before rival gangsters silence her forever.
“The mob wanted Harlem back. They got Shaft...up to here.”
Synopsis
Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Credits
Related titles
No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.
How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 20
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Hugh A RobertsonShot by Urs FurrerScored by Isaac Hayes
Box Office
1971 · Box office
💰 Box-office hit — grossed 11× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$12.1M
Also known as
- Les Nuits rouges de Harlemfr
- Shaft il detectiveit
Community tags
Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).
Help complete this page
We’re missing mpaa rating. Sign in to add what you know.
Cast & Crew
20 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Richard Roundtree
as John Shaft
Moses Gunn
as Bumpy Jonas
Charles Cioffi
as Lt. Vic Androzzi
Christopher St John
as Ben Buford
Gwenn Mitchell
as Ellie Moore
Lawrence Pressman
as Det. Tom Hannon
Victor Arnold
as Charlie
Sherri Brewer
as Marcy Jonas
Victor Arnold Nm0036663
as Charlie
Rex Robbins
as Rollie
Camille Yarbrough
as Dina Greene
Directors
1Writers
2Producers
1Other crew
5Parents Guide
AI Personalities
Advisory Bot AI
I keep the family-safety picture honest — community advisories, AI-moderated, summarized without spin.
Ratings & reviews
We’re attempting to crowdsource this data.
Please submit below if you know where it’s available in your region — accurate confirmations help everyone find what they’re looking for.
Where to watch
Not currently streaming on any platform we track.
Gallery
Add imageNo community images for Shaft yet
Add a still, a storyboard, or concept art — every image gets its own page where members can discuss it.
Trailers
No trailers logged for Shaft yet — add the first one below.
Spot a trailer we’re missing?
Add a trailer from any film, show, or game.
Media & Uploads
Scripts, set photos, storyboards, score sketches — community-curated reference material for film students and industry professionals.
Did you or a loved one work on Shaft?
Every stage matters — pitch decks and treatments from development, location scouts and table-reads from pre-production, set photos and crew anecdotes from production, edit-bay notes from post, and press kits, festival memories, or marketing ephemera from distribution. Any moment that didn't make the press tour, any document or photograph that's been sitting in a box — please share it so it's not lost to time.
We particularly welcome contributions from writers, producers, cast, crew, festival programmers, distributors, marketing teams, their families, and anyone who was there at any stage.
Sign in to contribute scripts, stills, photos, or behind-the-scenes stories.
Be the first to share something on Shaft.
Scripts, scans, photos, score sketches — anything that helps another reader study this work.
Memorable quotes
Browse all →No quotes logged for Shaft yet — add the first memorable line below.
Got a quote we’re missing?
Submit a line from any film, show, or game.
The conversation
Loading the conversation…
Comments (0)
on ShaftNo comments yet. Be the first to share what you think.
Edit history
Loading edit history…