Death Wish

Directed by Michael Winner, Death Wish stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, an everyman architect in New York who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered by a gang. Tapping into the public's fear of urban crime during the 1970s, birthing the vigilante trope in media in a big way and spawning four sequels. Bronson's steely performance and the gritty low-budget aesthetic has made the film and franchise into a hard-boiled cult classic.