The best Richard Roundtree movies and TV shows feature some of the classic exploitation films of the 1970s and some great television shows of the 2000s. Roundtree was born in 1942 in New York and started his acting career after dropping out of college in 1963. He worked as a model while also starring in some theater plays before he finally got 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 Shaft. This created a new franchise, and Roundtree became the face of the new strong 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 only into that role and still worked in everything from war movies and historical epics to family dramas and, in his later years, comedies as well.
10 Maniac Cop (1988)
Richard Roundtree Played Commissioner Pike
Richard Roundtree fit in well with exploitation movies and DTV feature films, and this included the horror movie Maniac Cop. While the film had a limited theatrical release, its B-grade horror aesthetic ensured that it flopped at the theaters before becoming a cult classic when it hit home video. Maniac Cop has a serial killer who is murdering people while dressed like a police officer, making regular folks scared of law enforcement. When it turns out that the killer is possibly superhuman, it takes 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 as well. Roundtree plays Commissioner Pike, a law enforcement official who refuses to believe there is a cop returned from the dead killing people, and as a result, he ends up as one of the victims. It was great seeing Roundtree playing one of the highest-ranking police officials 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 Lilly 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.
Richard Roundtree stars as Ben Burns, a race commentator and former racing champion.
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 that the biggest win of his career was predetermined, making him someone that Speed Racer knows is not as honorable as he makes it seem. He is only a minor yet memorable character in the film.
8 Q (1982)
Richard Roundtree Played Powell
Sometimes, the most bizarre-sounding movies become cult classics, and Q: The Winged Serpent is a perfect example. When hearing the synopsis, it seems like this is a Godzilla rip-off, and while it is at times, 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) begins living in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. It then sets out to eat people, and the police have no idea what is happening.
Richard Roundtree plays one of the police officers, a sergeant named Powell, who is one of the first detectives to start finding the dead bodies without any idea the winged 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 isn’t just the mythical winged creature that has the entire city scared. Film critics praised the movie for its performances (especially Michael Moriarty) and the throwback monster action.
7 Heroes (2006-2007)
Richard Roundtree Played Charles Deveaux
Heroes featured a young cast of actors who learned they had developed superhuman powers and set out to save the world—or at least to save the cheerleader and ensure 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 complex. However, it wasn’t just the young cast that carried the series, but some veteran actors as well.
He was someone who wanted to find a way to make the world a better place and confided in his hospice nurse and the show’s main protagonist, Peter Petrelli
Richard Roundtree was one of these veteran actors, playing Charles Deveax, the wealthy father of Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress) and one of the founding 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 show’s main protagonist, 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
Cherish the Day was the last TV 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 single day throughout five years of their lives together. The first season followed Gently (Xosha Roquemore) and Evan (Alano Miller), and the second followed Sunday (Joy Bryant) and Ellis (Henry Simmons). Each season also had a legend of Black cinema as a guest star.
Cherish the Day
was the final television appearance for both Cicely Tyson and Richard Roundtree.
In season one, it was Cicely Tyson as Miss Luma Lee Langston, and in season two, it was Richard Roundtree as Mandeville “MV” St. James. 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 dad that she reconnects with Ellis. It is 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 Roots (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 told 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.
It was easily his most iconic and important television role in a career with plenty of choices.
The cast was great, 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 Uggams’ Kizzy in a section set in the early 19th century. It was easily his most iconic and important television role in a career with plenty of choices.
4 Brick (2005)
Richard Roundtree Played VP Trueman
Years before he directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson proved himself with the neo-noir mystery thriller Brick. The movie was unique in that it took place at a modern-day high school, but everyone spoke like they were straight out of a classic pulp mystery novel by Dashiell Hammett. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Brendan, a high schooler whose girlfriend disappears, and he sets out to find out what happened to her. This puts him in the sights of the school’s drug dealers and other shady characters.
Roundtree is fantastic in the role, delivering the same rapid-fire slang as the younger cast.
While the main cast involves mostly people playing high school students, Richard Roundtree also had a place in the film as Assistant V.P. Trueman. Of course, as the name indicates, this makes him the vice principal of the school, but as with the rest of the characters, he plays more like 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 partnered with Somerset, a veteran officer played by Morgan Freeman who has become disillusioned with his work as a police officer. The two end up 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 this case solved, and the suspect brought in before more people end up dead. It is a small role, but Roundtree is on great form here as one of the officials who keep pushing David and Somerset hard to find the killer, which makes things even more devastating when the tragic Se7en ending rolls around.
2 Shaft (1971)
Richard Roundtree Played John Shaft
Richard Rondtree’s second-ever movie role was the film that made him an iconic star, and it is the role he remained best known for throughout the next five decades of his acting career. In 1971, Roundtree took on the role of John Shaft in the movie Shaft. John is a private detective who quickly gets into trouble when he learns 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 in finding her.
Shaft
was added to the National Film Registry in 2000 by the Library of Congress.
The Shaft franchise continued on, first with Roundtree maintaining the role and later with Samuel L. Jackson taking on the role and Roundtree returning 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 it is a reason that Roundtree enjoyed his long career in movies and TV. It was also his only Golden Globe nomination (Most Promising Newcomer – Male).
1 Thelma (2024)
Richard Roundtree Played Ben
The last movie that Richard Roundtree ever appeared in 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, although 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 as she wants to care for herself and feels that she has no need for constant assistance.
The film has a high 98% fresh score, and that is largely thanks to the incredible performances by Squibb and Roundtree and their incredible chemistry.
When a scammer pretends to be her grandson and claims he was arrested, Thelma sends money to get him out, only to learn it is a scam. Angry, she sets out to get her money back. Richard Roundtree stars 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 that is largely thanks to the incredible performances by Squibb and Roundtree and their incredible chemistry.
