Death Wish

Death Wish (1974) is Michael Winner's hard-edged crime thriller starring Charles Bronson, now streaming online on iFILM. New York is drowning in street crime. Architect Paul Kersey comes home from vacation to a city that is about to take everything from him.

Thugs force their way into his apartment. His wife is killed, his daughter left broken, and the police have nothing. Kersey, a lifelong gun-shy liberal, picks up a revolver and starts walking the night blocks alone, baiting muggers into making the first move. Each encounter ends in gunfire. Word of a phantom vigilante spreads, muggings drop, and the detectives chasing him quietly wonder whether they really want to arrest the man doing their job. Watch for a young Jeff Goldblum, billed early on as one of the attackers.

Adapted from Brian Garfield's novel, the film launched a five-picture franchise and still splits audiences down the middle: some read it as an honest portrait of urban fear, others as a dangerous pitch for taking the law into your own hands. Bronson's stone-faced calm made him a genre icon right here. It's raw seventies cinema that doesn't soften itself for modern tastes. Stream Death Wish (1974) online on iFILM.