# Death Wish (film series)
**Death Wish** is an American vigilante action film series centered on Paul Kersey, a New York architect who turns to extralegal violence after his wife is murdered and his daughter is assaulted. It comprises five theatrical films released between 1974 and 1994, all starring [Charles Bronson](https://www.edgepedia.org/charles-bronson), plus a 2018 remake with [Bruce Willis](https://www.edgepedia.org/bruce-willis), and it grew out of Brian Garfield's 1972 novel *Death Wish*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/death-wish)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First film | *Death Wish* (1974), directed by Michael Winner, written by Wendell Mayes, produced by Hal Landers and Bobby Roberts for Dino De Laurentiis Corp., distributed by Paramount[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) |
| Source novel | Brian Garfield's *Death Wish*, published in New York in 1972[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) |
| Box office trajectory | $22 million domestic for the 1974 film, falling to $6,880,310 for *Death Wish 4: The Crackdown* (1987) and $1,711,424 for *Death Wish V: The Face of Death* (1994)[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Death-Wish) |
| Sequel distributors | *Death Wish 3* and *Death Wish 4* by Cannon Film Distributors; *Death Wish V* by 21st Century Film Corporation[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) |
| Remake | *Death Wish* (2018), directed by Eli Roth, starring Bruce Willis as a Chicago surgeon, released nationwide March 2, 2018[4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_I4zqC7GN8) |
| Author's verdict | Brian Garfield said the 1974 film garbled his message, that his lead character became a psychopath once he took the law into his own hands, and later called it "a dangerous film"[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) |
## The 1974 film
The first *Death Wish* was shot on location in New York City, Tucson, and Honolulu between January 18 and early April 1974, with a New York opening on July 24, 1974.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) Charles Bronson, then 53, plays Paul Kersey, a design consultant and self-described bleeding-heart liberal whose wife Joanna ([Hope Lange](https://www.edgepedia.org/hope-lange)) is beaten to death and whose daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan) is raped and left in shock by three intruders who followed the women home from a grocery store.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/death-wish) After a business trip to Tucson, where the gun-enthusiast developer Aimes Jainchill ([Stuart Margolin](https://www.edgepedia.org/stuart-margolin)) introduces him to firearms and Old West imagery, Kersey returns to New York armed with a .32-caliber Colt and begins posing as a vulnerable citizen to lure and kill muggers.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/death-wish-returns-once-more-boil-our-blood) [Vincent Gardenia](https://www.edgepedia.org/vincent-gardenia) plays the detective Frank Ochoa assigned to the vigilante killings, Herbie Hancock wrote the musical score, and a young Jeff Goldblum appears as one of the thugs in his film debut.[2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/death-wish)
**Reception and controversy.** Reviews were generally negative. The *New York Times* critic Vincent Canby called the film "irresponsible," Variety's reviewer labeled it "a bird-brained movie to cheer the hearts of the far-right wing," and the Los Angeles Times reviewer described a preview audience that "stomped, applauded and bayed with delight" at each killing.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [6](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html) The Catholic Church's Division for Film and [Broadcasting](https://www.edgepedia.org/broadcasting) complained that the film fed "the silent majority's paranoia" and catered to racial stereotypes.[7](https://www.americanexperiment.org/magazine/article/virtue-or-vigilante/) Audiences disagreed with the critics. The Numbers records $22 million domestically, [Le Monde](https://www.edgepedia.org/le-monde) reports a $150 million gross, and a *New York Times* piece titled "What Do They See in 'Death Wish'?" found theaters bursting into applause whenever Kersey killed someone.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Death-Wish) • [6](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html) • [8](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/01/archives/what-do-theysee-in-death-wish-women-applaud-the-vigilante-actions.html) The success helped make Bronson a top-ten box-office star.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021)
Garfield himself objected. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in December 1975, he complained that the movie had distorted his point, namely that its protagonist turned into a psychopath after becoming a vigilante, and in 1976 he voiced public approval when broadcasters in [Pittsburgh](https://www.edgepedia.org/pittsburgh) and San Francisco pulled what he labeled "a dangerous film" from the air.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) The film's final scene, in which Kersey cocks his hand in the shape of a gun, became an iconic American cinematic moment.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021)
## The sequels, 1982 to 1994
[Michael Winner](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-winner) directed the first three films, all of which continued the vigilante theme.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) *[Death Wish II](https://www.edgepedia.org/death-wish-ii)* (1982), released by Filmways, moves Kersey to Los Angeles, where his housekeeper is assaulted and his daughter is killed after a second attack; Vincent Gardenia reprised the role of Lt. Ochoa.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [9](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/images/18261332.0061.503.pdf) One retrospective account describes it as largely a retelling of the first story with much more brutal violence, produced by the low-budget house Cannon Films.[10](https://www.looper.com/84215/untold-truth-death-wish/)
*Death Wish 3* (1985), released by Cannon Film Distributors, was filmed for three weeks in New York and then seven weeks in London's Lambeth borough beginning May 8, 1985.[11](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/57567) In it, Kersey defends a New York neighborhood abandoned by the police against hordes of punks and bikers, carrying out a televised clean-up with a heavy machine gun; at other points he deploys grenades and a .50-caliber machine gun.[6](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html) • [12](https://escholarship.org/content/qt9hc9g65x/qt9hc9g65x_noSplash_c89b9f0c9f6da6ea86adf1e1b978e412.pdf?t=nd9yt7) Later commentators treat it as the point where the series abandoned realism: one account notes that the film strips away Kersey's original character traits and turns him into a "superhuman terminator" whose gun is, in his own boast, bigger than [Dirty Harry](https://www.edgepedia.org/dirty-harry)'s.[13](https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark%3A/67531/metadc1011874/m2/1/high_res_d/COLLINS-THESIS-2017.pdf) Roger Ebert, reviewing it, wrote, "I guess it's supposed to be heartwarming to see whites, blacks and Latinos working side by side to rape, pillage and murder."[14](https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=jcu1399144923&disposition=inline)
*Death Wish 4: The Crackdown* (1987) sends Kersey after a Los Angeles drug cartel after his girlfriend's daughter dies from a fatal overdose.[15](https://kinolorber.com/film/the-death-wish-collection) *Death Wish V: The Face of Death* (1994), released by 21st Century Film Corporation, was Bronson's final feature film appearance; Kersey, now using the name Paul Stewart, returns to New York when his fiancée's business is threatened by a mobster.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021) • [15](https://kinolorber.com/film/the-death-wish-collection)
## Decline of the franchise
The box office fell with each entry. The Numbers records $22 million domestic for the 1974 film, $6,880,310 for *Death Wish 4* (released November 6, 1987), and $1,711,424 for *Death Wish V* (released January 14, 1994).[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Death-Wish) A scholarly account of the vigilante genre cites this trajectory as illustrating a general decline in the significance and quality of the genre from the 1974 starting point to the final film.[16](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781501364105_A43258037/preview-9781501364105_A43258037.pdf) Reviewers of the later entries noted the loss of the first film's qualities: Metacritic's summary of *Death Wish V* criticism records that although the entry was competently directed, the series had lost "the zip and flashes of wit that made the first Death Wish so memorably repellent."[17](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/death-wish-v-the-face-of-death/critic-reviews/)
## The 2018 remake
A remake directed by [Eli Roth](https://www.edgepedia.org/eli-roth) and starring Bruce Willis was released nationwide by MGM on March 2, 2018.[4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_I4zqC7GN8) Willis plays Dr. Paul Kersey, a Chicago trauma surgeon who hunts the criminals who murdered his wife and left his daughter in a coma.[18](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-2018) The setting moved from New York to Chicago, and the film's opening montage cites real 2016 statistics, "762 murders, more than 3500 shootings," to establish the city as lawless.[19](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956051.2021.1957337) The project had a long development: [Sylvester Stallone](https://www.edgepedia.org/sylvester-stallone) had earlier attempted a reboot that stalled in development, and credited writer [Joe Carnahan](https://www.edgepedia.org/joe-carnahan) was reportedly not involved in the project since 2013.[20](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/24-frames/story/2012-01-28/the-grey-director-joe-carnahan-has-a-death-wish) • [5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/death-wish-returns-once-more-boil-our-blood)
Critical reaction to the remake closely resembled the response to the 1974 original. The Guardian called it a "woeful remake" and "an unwholesome celebration of American gun culture"; RogerEbert.com argued that presenting Chicago as crime-ridden in 2018, when most major cities had their lowest violent crime rates since the late 1950s, amounted to "a negative form of wish-fulfillment."[21](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/05/death-wish-review-bruce-willis-eli-roth) • [18](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-2018) Le Monde reported that the film did not triumph but still performed respectably at the box office.[6](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html)
## Cultural standing
The series is a touchstone of the vigilante film genre that gained prominence in 1970s American cinema, where urban development, liberal reform, and social progress were offered as explanations for waves of violent crime.[19](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956051.2021.1957337) Scholars have read the films as transplants of the Western revenge narrative into the urban crime film, with the frontier myth's male vigilante script informing a wave of 1970s and 1980s urban crime dramas.[22](https://journals.ub.uni-koeln.de/index.php/genderforum/article/view/2559) The franchise's political charge has persisted in public debate: in 2015, Donald Trump invoked the film's subway scene at a campaign event, and the crowd chanted "Death Wish!"[6](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html) Garfield also wrote a follow-up novel, *Death Sentence*, published a year after the 1974 film's release.[23](https://ijr.com/x/death-wish-Q841961)
## References
1. [Death Wish (1974), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/54021)
2. [Death Wish, Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramount.com/movies/death-wish)
3. [Death Wish Franchise Box Office History, The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Death-Wish)
4. [Death Wish | Official Trailer, MGM (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_I4zqC7GN8)
5. [Death Wish returns once more to boil our blood, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/death-wish-returns-once-more-boil-our-blood)
6. [How Trump's 'Death Wish' politics shapes his stance on gun rights, Le Monde (English edition)](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/summer-reads/article/2024/08/28/how-trump-s-death-wish-politics-shapes-his-stance-on-gun-rights_6722908_183.html)
7. [Virtue or vigilante?, American Experiment](https://www.americanexperiment.org/magazine/article/virtue-or-vigilante/)
8. [What Do They See in 'Death Wish'?, The New York Times (September 1, 1974)](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/01/archives/what-do-theysee-in-death-wish-women-applaud-the-vigilante-actions.html)
9. [Journal of Cinema and Media Studies article on Death Wish II](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/images/18261332.0061.503.pdf)
10. [The Untold Truth Of Death Wish, Looper](https://www.looper.com/84215/untold-truth-death-wish/)
11. [Death Wish 3, AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/57567)
12. [University of California thesis on Death Wish's representation of urban crime, eScholarship](https://escholarship.org/content/qt9hc9g65x/qt9hc9g65x_noSplash_c89b9f0c9f6da6ea86adf1e1b978e412.pdf?t=nd9yt7)
13. [It's All Coming Back to You: 1980s Retro Film Culture and the Masculinity of Cult, University of North Texas thesis](https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark%3A/67531/metadc1011874/m2/1/high_res_d/COLLINS-THESIS-2017.pdf)
14. [JERoskos MA thesis on vigilante films, OhioLINK ETD](https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=jcu1399144923&disposition=inline)
15. [The Death Wish Collection, Kino Lorber Theatrical](https://kinolorber.com/film/the-death-wish-collection)
16. [Introduction to a study of the Death Wish franchise, pageplace preview PDF](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781501364105_A43258037/preview-9781501364105_A43258037.pdf)
17. [Death Wish V: The Face of Death critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/death-wish-v-the-face-of-death/critic-reviews/)
18. [Death Wish (2018) movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-2018)
19. [Make America Hate Again? The Politics of Vigilante Geriaction, Journal of Popular Film and Television](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956051.2021.1957337)
20. [Joe Carnahan hired to write and direct a Death Wish remake, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/24-frames/story/2012-01-28/the-grey-director-joe-carnahan-has-a-death-wish)
21. [Death Wish review, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/05/death-wish-review-bruce-willis-eli-roth)
22. [Outlaw Territories: Negotiations of Gender and Race on the American Inner-City Frontier, gender forum](https://journals.ub.uni-koeln.de/index.php/genderforum/article/view/2559)
23. [Death Wish, news, coverage & facts, IJR](https://ijr.com/x/death-wish-Q841961)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license