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Ron O'Neal, Carl Lee, Sheila Frazier, Julius Harris, Charles McGregor ... see more see more... , Nate Adams , The Curtis Mayfield Experience , Yvonne Delaine , K.C. , Polly Niles , Jim Richardson , Henry Shapiro , Sig Shore , Shelia Frazier

An African-American man finds that leaving behind his life of crime is harder than he imagined in this groundbreaking crime drama. Priest (Ron O'Neal) is a stylish and successful cocaine dealer who dr... read more read more...ives a fancy car, commands a small army of street salesmen, and lives a life of luxury. However, Priest is just smart enough to know that there's no real future in dealing coke, and one day he makes a proposal to his partner Eddie (Carl Lee) -- they take their 300,000-dollar savings, buy 30 kilos of cocaine, and use their street team to move it out in four months, leaving a million dollar profit for both Priest and Eddie, allowing them to get out of the business for good. Eddie is wary but willing to go along, but Scatter (Julius Harris), a former dealer who set Priest up in the cocaine trade, is both unwilling and unable to sell them that much product. As Priest looks for a new source for his big score, one of his underlings, Fat Freddie (Charles McGregor) is picked up by the police, and under violent interrogation, Freddie tells the cops about Priest's underground empire. When Priest is confronted by the police, however, he learns they're less interested in putting him behind bars than in making him a partner. While Superfly was a box-office smash and (along with Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) one of the key films of the nascent blaxploitation movement of the early '70s, it's best remembered today for the soundtrack composed and performed by Curtis Mayfield, which included the hit songs "Freddie's Dead," "Pusherman," and the title tune. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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69% liked it

5,129 ratings

Critics

90% liked it

21 critics

R, 1 hr. 31 min.

Directed by: Gordon Parks, Carl Lee, Gordon Parks Jr., Charles McGregor, Julius Harris, Nate Adams, Polly Niles, Ron O'Neal, Sheila Frazier, Yvonne Delaine

Release Date: August 4, 1972

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DVD Release Date: January 13, 2004

Stats: 367 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (367)

  • mjgildea
    June 3, 2011
    mjgildea
    Superfly is one of those movies where the soundtrack is better than the actual film, but in this case not by much. (To be fair, Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack is one of the best ever.) Superfly is gritty and one of the high points of the blaxploitation movement from the 70s. Its mo... read morere fun than it is good but that sure doesn't make it a bad movie.
  • cosmo313
    July 24, 2010
    cosmo313
    If I were reviewing just the soundtrack, I'd give it 5 stars easy. Now,since I'm having to review the film as well, things are different. And no, the bulk of the rating isn't just for the music. This movie has some good merits on its own. The cars and clothes are awesome. The gri... read moretty NYC locationwork is great adding a nice touch of realism and relatability, the acting is mostly decent (for what it is), and the same goes for the dialogue. I'm generally very kind to every type of movie I watch, I always try to focus on the positives and be asforgiving andunderstanding as I can with the short comings. For some of those short comings, if they don't impact the overall effect, they aren't a big deal and can be overlooked.

    This is one of the most well known, better made, and influential Blaxploitation. Even though it does have its fairshare of critical and scholarly haters, this film is pretty competently made, and does have some good subtext and deeper stuff going on. For that, I give it more props than I already do. Take some ofthat away, and the movie is still pretty entertaining, even if more shallow. While some of the film's content is responsible for some of the stereotyping that comes along with these films, it's played pretty straight and serious. Oh, there's humor, but it's intentional (most of it- some of the dialogue and racial slurs had me laughing when I probably shouldn't have found it that funny). As far assome of the backlash is concerned- this isn't nearly as violent asI thought it would be, or as it could have been. I will admit that it does glamorize drugs and the drug culture, (something the soundtrack does not do), but it doesn't really get too overboard with it. Honestly, I think this film is entertaining whether you watch it for what it is, or, like me, you want (and have to) read into it. (I'm writing a Master's seminar paper on Blaxploitation).
  • matertenebraum
    October 17, 2009
    matertenebraum
    As far as i'm concerned the street drug cocaine, refined but corrosive WHITE powder, (It is the hydrochloric acid used to make this powder that destroys the nose) is a superb metaphor for the white oppression that the character's in Super Fly are caught up in. The real pusherman ... read morein the film is white, and far more dangerous than any drug. Witness the scene when Scatter is killed with an overdose. A powerful message that seems to have been lost on most of the folks reviewing this film. The black characters in Super Fly are all victims, trying to make the best of what they have, and there is another, just as powerful message, about the emptiness of the white American dream. Priest may want out of the drugs business, not because he hates drugs, but because of the endless hassle that comes with selling anything illegal. When pressed by his lover as to what he intends to do once out of the life, he has no real answer to give. There is no answer. What is there to the modern world other than conformity and brain death. I suspect that a character as intelligent as Priest knows this all too well. Yet such is the addiction of The American Dream, Priest even utters the words "FREE TO THINK", and the audience is left with a feeling of ambiguity. What really happens when you get what you want, it becomes worthless / meaningless more evidence of the humanity present in this film and the position the characters occupy.

    The characters in this film are not one dimensional, they have great depth and like all real humans, are flawed, that is what gives the human race it's humanity and it is this humanity which is under threat. Witness the scene when Priest is approached by a group of activist's, who see him as a threat to themselves and their future, a future which is little more than the chance to get along with ones oppressors. Priest tells them that if they come back with an armed black America he will be only too happy to join them. Though they are misguided as a nation under oppression is the same no matter what colour skin your oppressor has. Priest knows this and so do the activist's. Another masterstroke of this film is to cast an actor who is neither black or white, but of mixed race, thus allowing any reasonable audience, to identify with the character. Which also makes him something of an outsider, straddling the world of blacks and whites a world we all know to be made of grey. Just as the ending is grey, Priest may have escaped his immediate oppressor, but his future is unclear. The final image of the film is one of the greatest of any film ever. The camera rests on the peek of a skyscraper, which looks all to like a junkie's needle topped syringe, a symbol of the addiction that is capitalism and the threat that capitalism holds over the entire planet.

    This film has so much to say about modern life, our struggle for personal identity, the pursuit of happiness and the endlessly shrinking line between freedom and enslavement that i could easily fill a book on it.

    At a time when on-screen human beings are being reduced to the level of silicone. Super fly is a breath of sanity in a world rapidly loosing it's mind, to the evil of control. The 1970's seem to me to be the most honest period of film making the screen has ever seen. It would be impossible to make such a film today.
  • Saxia
    July 1, 2008
    Saxia
    I'm not really a fan of this one, but the soundtrack was awesome :) Curtis Mayfield is a legend!!!

    ... read morechiave/cover_superfly.gif" border="0" alt="Curtis Mayfield">
  • DrBenway
    June 16, 2008
    DrBenway
    One of the earliest, roughest-made and best above other "blaxploitation" films that followed, this film is going to make an excellent addition to libraries of film lovers. As African-American critics bashed its' influence on cocaine use and the glorification of criminals, the fi... read morelmmakers observed that they were just telling it like it was.

    Superfly has it all, and hasn't a useless moment in it's running time which consists of slow scenes for fans of drama, enough action for thrillseekers, naturalistic dialogue, the charismatic Ron O'Neal and some badass fashion. Hardly a hero, he deals coke to his people, but wants to pull himself out of the scene and runs into trouble when greed and betrayal push him in a corner.

    Then there's the soundtrack layed down by Curtis Mayfield that no other film in the genre could match.
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  • Chiefilms
    March 1, 2008
    Chiefilms
    If Pimpin' was this easy I don't even know man. One of the best soundtracks ever, love Curtis.
  • dhetteix
    November 10, 2007
    dhetteix
    A bit stretched thin, but it takes all of the standard blaxploitation conventions (crooked white cops, drugs, etc.) and mixes them into what is considered an unusual pro-drug sentiment (at least, for this particular genre, which likes to adopt the "crack-is-whack" standpoint.)

    B... read moreut the pro-drug sentiment overblown: it is the racial commentary: that drug-dealing is really all that "the system" lets inner-city blacks do with their own ambition, which is what the films drug-plot really revolves around. Because of that, it's message and morality comes the closest to Sweet Sweetback out of any other blaxploitation movie I've seen thus far, and for that, it gets high marks, despite its slow pacing and lack of much dialog or action.
  • rayman0071
    August 14, 2006
    rayman0071
    A Blaxploitation classic. Watching Ron O'Neal in the title character was poetry in motion,not to mention that classic Curtis Mayfield's Grammy winning soundtrack.
  • lesleyanorton
    August 29, 2009
    lesleyanorton
    Early blaxploitation film, about a sophisticated drug dealer running One Last Big Deal in order to get out of the life, while partners and corrupt police try to keep him.in. Cheaply made, and oh-so-seventies, wiith one of the greatest soundtracks of all time soaring above the act... read moreion.
  • jonnycrumley
    March 24, 2010
    jonnycrumley
    Excellent movie, with and awesome soundtrack, great story, and a wonderful hero. Superfly is well worth searching for.

View All Superfly Reviews

Critic Reviews

Roger Greenspun
May 9, 2005
Roger Greenspun, New York Times

A very good movie. Full Review

Douglas Pratt
February 5, 2004
Douglas Pratt, Hollywood Reporter

Super Fly, one of the most significant blaxploitation films ever made, is as fascinatingly entertaining as it is ethically wrongheaded.

Dave Kehr
January 1, 2000
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Gordon Parks Jr. was one of the greatest casualties of the collapse of blaxploitation cinema, a director with a distinctive, tightly packed visual style nd a remarkably bitter vision for this supposed... Full Review

March 13, 2007
TV Guide's Movie Guide

The moral ambiguity of the film may disturb some viewers, but the film smacks of realistic grit throughout. Full Review

Geoff Andrew
June 24, 2006
Geoff Andrew, Time Out

One of the most successful of the early '70s blaxploitation cycle. Full Review

Dennis Schwartz
June 8, 2006
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Probably the best film of the blaxploitation experience. Full Review

Christopher Null
June 15, 2004
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

Drug dealer, big score, wants to get out of the biz. Yawn. Full Review

John Beifuss
February 2, 2004
John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

O'Neal functioned as a suave but deadly post-Poitier antihero for an increasingly militant urban audience...

May 24, 2003
Film4

The likes of 'Pusherman' and 'Freddie's Dead' provide the film with heart and depth that would otherwise be absent. Full Review

Marjorie Baumgarten
March 10, 2003
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

Curtis Mayfield's sizzling score may be the most enduringly superfly aspect of this blaxploitation classic. Full Review

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