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76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
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53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
xx
Fantastic Mr. Fox
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
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66
Afterschool
xx
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58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
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76
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86
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13
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70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
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76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
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70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
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62
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65
Coco Before Chanel
69
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59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
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75
Crude
82
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67
Departures
xx
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71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
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55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
66
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Shaft

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime
Written by:
Ernest Tidyman (novel)
John Singleton (also story)
Shane Salerno (also story)
Richard Price
Directed by: John Singleton
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 16, 2000
DVD: December 12, 2000
Running Time: 99 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong violence and language
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Vanessa L. Williams, and Jeffrey Wright
A murderer tries to kill the only witness to his last crime. Shaft (Jackson) and his sidekick (Williams) are trying to catch the murderer.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 2 Fast 2 Furious Baby Boy Boyz N the Hood Four Brothers Higher Learning Poetic Justice Rosewood
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Boston Globe Jay Carr
With Jackson leading the way, Shaft has style, punch, and street cred. It's a hot cool update.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Shaft is what summer action flicks should be... thanks to superior writing, acting and direction.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
It's fast, easy on the eyes, full of funny putdowns and cast well enough to have two memorable villains.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Shaft has everything --smart writing, shrewd direction and a handful of performances that are first-rate by any standard.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Violent, cool and street-smart, Shaft supplies everything you want in a summer movie.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
There's good trash: throwaway, intellectually undemanding action movies that, despite their heavy body counts and hard edges, are executed with a touch of class and a sunny disposition.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Shaft is still enormously involving. It's popcorn, but very fresh.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
The new movie, like its predecessor, is a crime thriller with a moral viewpoint, an eye and ear for street color and a taste for macho movie fantasy.
Read Full Review >Variety Robert Koehler
Samuel L. Jackson instantly takes the mantle from Mr. Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree, and runs with it on pure style and charisma.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Essentially works, even though the script is a mess and John Singleton's direction is often clumsy and heavy-handed to an annoying degree.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
The movie's primary narrative weakness is that its racism plot points seem ripped from the headlines of a "Geraldo" newsletter and stretched into a string of terribly executed car chases.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Phoebe Flowers
It's not easy to forgive a movie that so ungratefully wastes its potential with such a poorly structured plot, but Shaft has a few redeeming moments up its sleeve after all.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Is this a good movie? Not exactly; too much of it is on automatic pilot, as it must be, to satisfy the fans of the original Shaft. Is it better than I expected? Yes.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's a bad sign when audience enthusiasm peaks during the credits sequence.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Shaft scores by lacing ba-da-boom action with social pertinence.
TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin
Singleton's lack of influence makes Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" look far funkier in comparison.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
This avenging cat gets no action whatsoever. Neither does the movie, despite a terrific cast and a heap of street style.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
Shaft? Not in this splashy-but-empty remake he isn't.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
As an action flick, Shaft is clumsy out of the gate and overfond of hurtling stuntmen through windows.
Read Full Review >Film.com Tom Keogh
Shaft is a decent popcorn movie and Jackson rises to the responsibility of appearing bigger than life.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The storyline goes from bad to worse as one-dimensional characters gradually flatten out into pure stick figures, and the crime plot goes from hokey to implausible.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
(If) you're one of those killjoys who demands logic, coherence and a semblance of human life from a movie, this one will leave you cold.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
A pretty good action flick -- twisty, marvelously acted, and energetically (if not always coherently) staged.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
As an action thriller with music by Isaac Hayes it's not bad.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The main thing the new Shaft gets right is casting for the title role. It's too bad the rest of the film doesn't hold your attention the way he does.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
This may be the first movie that runs under two hours and yet has no attention span. Characters are abandoned and picked up; narrative threads dissolve before your very eyes.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
This is not necessarily an improvement, but it's not a total disaster either.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The plot is a shameless plea for vigilante violence, and the dignity of the black hero is outweighed by the ethnically marked evil of his Hispanic antagonist. Beneath its crisp veneer, much of the movie is a high-energy hymn to hate.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
What Jackson's Shaft can't do is talk the talk, or much of anything else, in director John Singleton's feature-length insult to one of the more cherished modern screen icons.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Singleton's version is cynical and silly--one long set-up to a closing scene that promises, or threatens, a sequel.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tarik T. gave it a 10:
This movie is the best movie ever.
Ryan M. gave it a 1:
Awful, graphic and horrible remake by a brilliant director, who in my opinion, completely wasted his time.
