Death Wish (1974) poster
1974 · crime · thriller · action

Death Wish

Directed by Michael Winner1h 33m1974
ElsewhereIMDb6.945kRT66%Metacritic51TMDB6.9956
  • heavy
  • brisk
  • intense
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, kinetic, extreme crime / thriller, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.

Our read · Death Wish (1974) reads as a heavy, kinetic, grounded crime · thriller · action entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
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The shape of Death Wish

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want gritty seventies vigilante rage that sparked decades of moral debate.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakenbuilds to a gut-punch finalegrips from the openattention 4/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upsexual violencegraphic violence

Skip it tonightSkip if sexual assault trauma or celebrating street justice will wreck your night.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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