Perry Henzell’s outlaw film, with one of cinema’s most infectious scores, is back on the big screen in New York. …“The Harder They Come” provided a model for later movies, most notably the 1980 British film “Babylon,” which belatedly opened in New York this spring and itself became a cult film.

Babylon is many things: a movie, a time capsule, a wholly unique experience. That isn’t to say that the film has subjects that have never been explored in other projects, nor is it the only film of its attitude and tenacity to come out of that era of British filmmaking, shaking its fist at systemic cancers.

Retrospectives are always one of the highlights of Locarno Film Festival, and this year it rendered homage to black cinema, with works ranging from Africa to Afro-American, -Brazilian, -British and -French works.

Kino Lorber has announced the Aug. 20 Blu-ray and DVD release of Babylon, about a young reggae deejay in Margaret Thatcher-era Great Britain who pursues his musical ambitions, battling against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbors, police and the National Front.

After premiering at Cannes in 1980, Franco Rosso’s Babylon was suppressed both in its native England and abroad for fear that it would inflame racial tensions, a fate that resulted in decades of obscurity. But over the years this reggae-fueled drama has won its share of ardent fans, and a recent, long-overdue theatrical release in the U.S. has put it back in the spotlight.

From ‘This is Ska’ to ‘Babylon’ — these are the films that helped shape the reggae genre.

Franco Rosso’s reggae sound system film Babylon will be streaming exclusively in North America on TIDAL for the month of June. We caught up with the film’s lead actor, reggae legend Brinsley Forde, to chat about his role in the movie, which tells the tale of a young reggae DJ in late ’70s London named Blue and his Ital Lion sound system crew. Ital Lion are locked in a battle against rival crews — and against the racism inherent in their city.

The film is coming exclusively to TIDAL in June.

Late director Franco Rosso’s Babylon screened to a sold out, standing-room-only crowd at Brooklyn’s BAM — its first-ever U.S. release a mere 40 years after it was made. The excitement of the eclectic crowd was undeniable. Everyone was on the edge of their seats: from young dancehall heads, to septuagenarian types who might’ve seen Bob Marley at his first show in New York, to British expatriates from Brixton, the London neighborhood where the movie takes place.

A Jamaican son of “Saturday Night Fever,” director Franco Rosso’s electrifying “Babylon” is having its extremely belated American theatrical release both 39 years late and depressingly right on time.

A poignant, unflinching slice of British-Jamaican street life, Franco Rosso’s “Babylon” premiered at Cannes in 1980, but was never released in the U.S. and received an X-rating in the U.K. for being too controversial.