In the weekly column Extra Credit, Charles Bramesco recommends supplemental viewing for moviegoers whose interests have been piqued by a given week’s big new release.

During the height of the blaxploitation micro-genre’s popularity in the 1970s, actress Pam Grier reigned as its unchallenged queen. Smart, sexy, and strong as hell, she quickly asserted herself as an icon of not just black femininity, but an emergent strain of modern womanhood. (The done-to-death “don’t need no man” cliché pretty much begins here.) Her mighty, perfectly spherical Afro inspired fear in drug pushers, street crooks, and other nefarious agents of the The Man during her string of starring vehicles, and her influence has persisted to this day.

Case in point: Proud Mary, a rip-roaring and inexplicably under-promoted new thriller starring Taraji P. Henson as a lethal contract killer, in theaters this weekend. Starting from the basic premise right on through to the font on the theatrical poster, the legacy of Grier is all over this project, so what better time to look back on some of her classic roles? Give Tarantino’s blaxploitation homage Jackie Brown a rest (even though it rules) and go back to the source with these five highlights you can stream right now.

Gallery – Best Action Movie Posters:

 

 

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