Black Caesar (stylized as Black Cæsar and released in UK cinemas as Godfather of Harlem) is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris.

He wages a gang war with the Italian mobsters of New York City and begins to establish a criminal empire, keeping a ledger book of all his dealings as leverage over his business associates, including McKinney.

Retrieving the ledger, a badly wounded Tommy returns to the house where he grew up, but a street gang attacks, robs and, presumably, kills him.

According to Larry Cohen, Davis "wanted to do a picture in which he was the star, instead of being a flunky to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

"[5] Cohen wrote a treatment for $10,000 but when he finished Davis could not pay due to some trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.

Then Cohen was approached by Samuel Z. Arkoff of American International Pictures, who were interested in doing an action film that could star a black actor.

[6] Cohen says when he filmed in Harlem the local gangsters threatened to disrupt the shoot unless they were paid off.

Cohen says "The picture did so well that they called me immediately and said, “You’d better get a sequel going before these actors decide they want an enormous amount of money to reappear.” So I said, “You know I don’t have a script, but I can start shooting something, and make it up as I go along.” That’s more or less what we did.

"The Boss", which is the background music for a scene in which Tommy Gibbs is shot while crossing a street corner, was sampled for Ice-T's "You Played Yourself", Trick Daddy's "Take It To Da House"), Prodigy's album Return of the Mac and Nas' "Get Down" on the album God's Son.

The film is name-checked in Public Enemy's song "Burn Hollywood Burn"; when the cinema announces the movie to be Driving Miss Daisy, guest rapper Big Daddy Kane suggests leaving, saying "I got Black Caesar back at the crib."