Killer of Sheep

Killer of Sheep follows Stan, a Black man living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles who works at a slaughterhouse to support his family. The job wears him down and his home life has grown distant, with his marriage strained and his wife feeling shut out. Stan is pulled between the little money he earns and the temptation of easier, dishonest ways to get by, while the world around him offers few ways out. Charles Burnett wrote, directed and produced the film, which was his first feature and the beginning of a career that continued with My Brother's Wedding in 1985 and Selma, Lord, Selma in 1999.

Henry G. Sanders plays Stan, with Kaycee Moore as his wife and Angela Burnett and Jack Drummond as the couple's daughter and son. Charles Bracy and Eugene Cherry round out the cast. Set in a working-class Black community and shot over several years on weekends, the film is a low-key, observational drama rather than a plot-driven story.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.6 out of 10 based on 151 votes, which suggests a modest but steady level of attention for a small independent film from the late 1970s.