Richard Roundtree’s 10 Best Movies and TV Shows

The best Richard Roundtree Movies and TV shows include some of the classic exploitation films of the 1970s and some great TV shows of the 2000s. Roundtree was born in 1942 in New York and began his acting career after leaving college in 1963. He worked as a model and also starred in several theater plays before finally getting his break in a 1970 hidden-camera reality movie called What do you say to a naked lady. However, his next role made him an icon.

in 1971, Richard Roundtree took on the role of private detective John Shaft In the exploitation crime thriller Quiet. This created a new franchise, and Roundtree became the face of the new powerful Black Hollywood action hero, creating a new genre in which future action heroes patterned themselves after his iconic role. However, he refused to be pigeonholed into just the role and went on to work in everything from war movies and historical epics to family dramas and, in his later years, comedies too.

10

Maniac Cup (1988)

Richard Roundtree played Commissioner Pike

Richard Roundtree is well suited with exploitation movies and DTV feature films, and this includes the horror movie Maniac Cap. While the film had a limited theatrical release, its B-grade horror aesthetic ensured that it flopped in theaters before becoming a cult classic when it hit home video. Maniac Cap Has a serial killer who is killing people while dressed as a police officer, making regular people afraid of law enforcement. When it turns out that the killer may be superhuman, things take a wild turn.

The film has a great cast, including Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) and Tom Atkins (The fog), and Richard Roundtree also has an important role. Roundtree plays Commissioner Pike, a law enforcement official Who wants to believe it is a cop returning from the dead killing people, and as a result, he ends up as one of the victims. It was great to see Roundtree playing one of the highest-ranking police officers in the movie, even if his lack of faith led to his death.

9

Speed ​​Racer (2008)

Richard Roundtree played Ben Burns

Easily one of the most underrated movies of Richard Roundtree’s career came in 2008 when Lana and Lily Wachowski directed the big screen remake of the cartoon. Speed ​​Racer. The Wachowski sisters took the beloved cartoon and turned it into a bright, loud and vibrant live-action movie that was a box office flop and remained misunderstood by most critics at the time of its release. However, critics and fans re-evaluated the film in later years, and it has since become a cult classic.

Emile Hirsch stars as Speed ​​Racer, and the supporting cast includes tons of familiar faces, including Christina Ricci. John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Matthew Fox. Richard Roundtree stars as Ben Burns, a race commentator and former racing champion. Ben was a Hall of Fame inductee who knew the biggest win of his career was predeterminedMaking him someone that Speed ​​Racer knows is not as honorable as he makes it seem. He is only a minor but memorable character in the film.

8

K (1982)

Richard Roundtree played Powell

Sometimes, the weirdest-sounding movies become cult classics, and Q: The Winged Serpent is a perfect example. When you hear the synopsis, it seems like this is a Godzilla Rip-off, and even though it is in time, it also has enough original ideas that it has become a film that sci-fi monster movie fans look at as a true cult classic. The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (a winged reptilian monster) takes up residence in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. It then turns out to eat people, and the police have no idea what’s going on.

Richard Roundtree plays one of the police officers, a sergeant named PowellWho is one of the first detectives who started to find the dead bodies without any idea that the flying monster really exists. Roundtree is great as the frustrated detective who realizes that there is a real serial killer in the streets and that it is not just the mythical winged creature that the whole city fears. Film critics praised the movie for its performances (especially Michael Moriarty) and the throwback monster fight.

7

Heroes (2006-2007)

Richard Roundtree played Charles Deveaux

Heroes featured a young cast of actors who discovered they had developed superhuman powers and set out to save the world—or at least save the gays and make sure it didn’t end. With the first season premiering in 2006, the show was a huge success, although later seasons hampered its reputation somewhat when the stories became a little less interesting and the mythology a little too complicated. However, it was not only the young cast that led the series, but also some veteran actors.

Richard Roundtree was one of the veteran actors, playing Charles Deveax, the wealthy father of Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress) and one of the first members of the Company. He was someone who wanted to find a way to make the world a better place and confided in his hospice nurse and the main protagonist of the show, Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), at the end of his life. While he died early on, he played an extremely important role in everything that happened in Heroes.

6

Cherish the Day (2022)

Richard Roundtree played MV St. James

Love this day was the last television series Richard Roundtree starred in before his death in 2023. Ava DuVernay produced and created this series about a couple’s relationship, with each episode taking place in one day over five years of their life together. The first season followed Gentle (Xosha Roquemore) and Evan (Alano Miller), and the second followed Sunday (Joey Bryant) and Ellis (Henry Simmons). Each season also has a legend of black cinema as a guest star.

In the first season, it was Cicely Tyson as Miss Luma Lee Langston, and In season two, it was Richard Roundtree as Mandeville “MW” St. Jacob. His character in the series is a proud and loving former judge who is the father of Bryant’s Sunday. It is when Sunday returns home to see her aging father that she reconnects with Ellis. It’s a smaller role, but his humor and charisma help Roundtree’s character stand out in a series that received mostly positive reviews and great word of mouth.

5

Root (1977)

Richard Roundtree played Sam Bennett

One of the most important miniseries of the 1970s is the 1977 historical saga Roots. The series was based on Alex Haley’s novel that tells the story set during and after the era of enslavement in the United States. It aired over eight consecutive nights and was a massive ratings success. It also earned 37 Primetime Emmy nominations and won nine of them. It also won a Peabody and Golden Globe Award and had one of the most watched finales in television history.

The cast was large, with LeVar Burton, Louis Gossett Jr., Ed Asner, James Earl Hones, Lorne Green, Burl Ives, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen and Richard Roundtree, among many others. Roundtree only appeared in one episode as Sam Bennett, But he was a very memorable addition to the cast. In the series, he romances Leslie Uggam’s Kizzy in a section set in the early 19th century. It was easily his most iconic and important television role in a career with many choices.

4

bridge (2005)

Richard Roundtree played as Truman

Years before, he directed Star Wars: The Last JediRian Johnson tries himself with the neo-noir mystery thriller Brick. The movie was unique in that it was set in a modern day high school, but everyone talked like they were straight out of a classic pulp mystery novel by Dashiell Hammett. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Brendan, a high school student whose girlfriend disappears, and he goes to find out what happened to her. This puts him in the sights of the school’s drug dealer and other shady characters.

While the main cast involves mostly people playing high school students, Richard Roundtree also had a role in the film as assistant VP Trueman. Of course, as the name suggests, this makes him the vice principal of the school, but as with the rest of the characters, he plays more of a crime thriller archetype, this time someone who wants to work with Brendan to get information and things. Done. Roundtree is fantastic in the role, delivering the same rapid-fire slang as the younger cast.

3

Se7en (1995)

Richard Roundtree played Martin Talbot

In 1995, David Fincher directed the crime thriller Se7en. The film stars Brad Pitt as a young police officer named David Mills, who has a beautiful wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) but remains obsessed with his work as a homicide detective. He ends up with Somerset, a veteran officer played by Morgan Freeman, who has become disillusioned with his job as a police officer. The two are forced to work together to solve a murder case involving the seven deadly sins.

The killer reveals himself late and the ending is one of the most shocking in cinema history. Richard Roundtree stars in the movie as Martin Talbot, the district attorney Who wants the case solved, and the suspect brought in before more people end up dead. It’s a small role, but Roundtree is in great form here as one of the officials who continue to push David and Somerset harder to find the killer, making things even more devastating when the tragic se7en end rolls around.

2

Quiet (1971)

Richard Roundtree played John Shaft

Richard Rondtree’s second-ever movie role was the film that made him an iconic star, And this is the role he was best known for over the next five decades of his acting career. In 1971, Roundtree took on the role of John Shaft in the movie Quiet. John is a private detective who quickly gets into trouble when he learns that some gangsters are looking for him. This is when he learns that one high-level gangster’s daughter has been kidnapped, and he wants Shaft’s help to find her.

The Quiet The franchise continued, first with Roundtree maintaining the role and later with Samuel L. Jackson took on the role and Roundtree returned in smaller roles in the newer films. The film, which was popularized as part of the 1970s blaxploitation genre, was added to the National Film Registry in 2000 by the Library of Congress, and is one reason Roundtree enjoyed his long career in movies and television. It was also his only Golden Globe nomination (Most Promising Newcomer).

1

Thelma (2024)

Richard Roundtree played Ben

The last movie in which Richard Roundtree was released after his death. The 2024 release is Thelma, And it stars June Squibb as Thelma, a 93-year-old who lives alone in Los Angeles, even though she has a grandson who often comes back to make sure she has what she needs. However, while she loves her grandson, she remains someone who finds his help annoying because she wants to take care of herself and feels that she does not need constant help.

When a fraudster pretends to be her grandson and claims that he has been arrested, Thelma sends money to get him out, only to learn that it is a fraud. Angry, she sets out to get her money back. Richard Roundtree Star as Ben, a widower who lives in assisted living and the only person Thelma can find to help her. The film has a high 98% fresh score, and this is largely thanks to the incredible performances of Squibb and Roundtree and their incredible chemistry.