A look back at the blaxploitation era through 2018 eyes

With the massive success of "Black Panther" and "Get Out" - and even the raunchy comedy "Girls Trip" - Hollywood is experiencing a renaissance in black film. Stars from Chadwick Boseman to Tiffany Haddish and directors from Jordan Peele to Ava DuVernay are enjoying an unprecedented mix of box office supremacy and cultural significance.

But Stephane Dunn, author of "'Baad Bitches' and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films," notes the industry has been here, at least in some sense, before.

Just look at "the diversity of the moment of the late '60s to late '70s," she said, pointing to films including Gordon Parks' "The Learning Tree," the Oscar-nominated "Sounder" and "Lady Sings the Blues" and Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep," which all premiered during that period.

And occupying theaters at the same time were a string of flashy and hugely profitable genre films, indie and studio-produced B-pictures including "Shaft," "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" and "The Mack" that captured a form of black life that hadn't been seen before on screen.

Eventually placed under the umbrella of "blaxploitation," these films developed surprising cult-like audiences full of black folks with "mad love" for the characters,