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Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

1971 · directed by Melvin Van Peebles · 98 min
24,323 feet · Prominence
730th of 24,106 films scored
Not coveredNo Rewatchables episode on file.

How this film scores

Draw56

Lifetime worldwide gross $15m, re-releases included; about $124m in 2026 money.

Rank2,504 of 11,051In 197111 of 40

How Draw works

Inflation-adjusted worldwide box office, on one global curve, and nothing else. It does not know whether a film was good.

Praise72

Awards claim half the headroom above the critics' score.

Critics72 baseAwards0 signal → +0 lift

No award rows on file, usually missing data rather than missing honours. Wikidata is thin for older and non-English films.

How Praise works

Critics set the score; a tiered award record, Picture and Directing carrying the most weight, claims half the headroom above it. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since.

Legacy62

Judged directly: Registry and Criterion, founded blaxploitation.

Verdict62 of 100IMDb5.5 from 6kWikipedia11k views a monthAge55 years

On the listsNational Film RegistryCriterion Collectionevidence, not an input to the score
Scored beside it · 517 of 4,039 films judged

If it does not belong in this company, the number is wrong.

How Legacy works

Legacy is a judgment, not a formula. A film can be adored by critics and culturally quiet, or lightly reviewed and permanently lodged in the culture, and no arithmetic over IMDb numbers tells the difference. Every signal behind it keeps updating.

draw 56 praise 72 legacy 62averages 63, placing it at24,323 ft
How the three become one number

Added, not multiplied, so a film transcendent on one pillar and weak on another is not zeroed out. A compression curve then squeezes the top, because the seven greatest films ever made should not be four thousand feet apart.

Whose apex this is

▲ Melvin Van Peebles▲ Simon Chuckster

In these careers — elevation for this film

Melvin Van Peebles19,921 ftMario Van Peebles17,947 ftSimon Chuckster17,873 ftJohn Amos17,805 ftJohn Dullaghan17,697 ft