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The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Directed by
Ivan Dixon
PG
1973
1h 42m
Action
,
Drama
,
and more
7.2
77%
83%
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A black man plays 'uncle Tom' in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American revolt.
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Where to Watch The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Cultpix
Subscription
Cast of The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Lawrence Cook
Dan Freeman
Janet League
Joy
Paula Kelly
Dahomey Queen
J.A. Preston
Dawson
Paul Butler
Do-Daddy Dean
Don Blakely
Stud Davis
David Lemieux
Pretty Willie
Anthony Ray
Shorty
Colostine Boatwright
Dancer
Byron Morrow
Jack Aaron
Joseph Mascolo
Elaine Aiken
Beverly Gill
Martin Golar
Tom Alderman
Stephen Ferry
Johnny Williams
Doug Johnson
Harold Harris
Ken Orme
Johnnie Johnson III
Larry Lawrence
Ivan Dixon
Director / Producer
Sam Greenlee
Writer / Producer
Melvin Clay
Writer
The Spook Who Sat by the Door Ratings & Reviews
Steve Zodiac
June 22, 2025
A political fantasy that's dead on target which is why it's being kept from easy viewing REALITY BITES...
Sarah G Vincent Views
Sarah Vincent
If you are interested in watching a film that likely influenced films like "Black Panther" (2018) or "BlacKkKlansman" (2018) or just to see a film that was considered so radical, it was almost impossible to find, then you have two weeks to see it
LarsenOnFilm
Josh Larsen
A C.I.A. satire that turns incendiary...
New Pittsburgh Courier
Gregory Mims
[The film] by virtue of its well balanced content and overall intelligence qualifies as one of the better than average films presenting Black realities on screen.
Nashville Scene
Jason Shawhan
The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a scabrous and unforgettable film about a Black man recruited to the CIA for optics who bears down and learns how to unmake white supremacist ideology through violent revolution.
Spliced Personality
Sean Burns
You think you have an idea of how hard this movie's gonna go, then it keeps going. And going.
Los Angeles Free Press
Alis Loewell
I wish I could get as excited about this film as I'd like to be.
The New Yorker
Richard Brody
Dixon launches the film with a satirical tone-mocking white officials who'd rather not integrate the agency-and sharpens it to an edge of restrained precision, aided by Cook's highly pressurized performance.
TV Guide
Unabashedly bigoted, stridently hateful, it wants to be incendiary and controversial, but only manages thuggish and dull.
Film Threat
Peter Hanson
So fiery, smart and entertaining that the lack of finesse hardly matters.
ColeSmithey.com
Cole Smithey
...a document of social revolt that still bristles with a timely, and timeless, impression of righteousness and intelligence.
New York Times
Vincent Canby
It is such a mixture of passion, humor, hindsight, prophecy, prejudice and reaction that the fact that it's not a very well-made movie, and is seldom convincing as melodrama, is almost beside the point.
PopMatters
Cynthia Fuchs
One of the few uncompromised representations of black armed resistance in the United States.
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Possibly the most radical of the blaxploitation films of the 70s, this movie was an overnight success when released in 1973, then was abruptly taken out of distribution for reasons still not entirely clear.
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