Writer-director John Singleton’s groundbreaking and politically astute portrait of three young men growing up in South Central Los Angeles. Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr) is sent to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne), in tough South Central Los Angeles. Although his hard-nosed father instills proper values and respect in him, and his devout girlfriend Brandi (Nia Long) teaches him about faith, Tre’s friends Doughboy (Ice Cube) and Ricky (Morris Chestnut) don’t have the same kind of support and are drawn into the neighbourhood’s booming drug and gang culture, with increasingly tragic results…
Singleton became the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director
In 1991, at just 23 years old, John Singleton made his explosively powerful debut with Boyz N the Hood, a film for which he deserved – and largely got — the kind of respect Scorsese earned for Mean Streets. […] Boyz N the Hood is a passionate drama shot with fluency and style, a study of what amounts to life during wartime, with people grimly used to gunfire and helicopters thudding overhead. Watched again, a quarter of a century on, what is so striking is not the confrontational aggression but the movie’s humanity, idealism and lack of cynicism.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (2016)
Singleton’s powerhouse movie has the impact of a stun gun.
David Ansen, Newsweek
On the surface, the film appears to be about Black crime and Black children coming of age, but just outside the frame Singleton is saying something more. Systemic racism is the real villain in this movie.
Lawrence Ware, New York Times
Alongside Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, this was the most astonishing and hard-hitting directorial debut of the 1990s.
David Parkinson, Radio Times
Media Partner
John Singleton
Cuba Gooding Jr, Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, Angela Bassett, Morris Chestnut, Tyra Ferrell, Regina King, Nia Long
USA
1991
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Steve Nicolaides
Screenwriter
John Singleton
Cinematography
Charles Mills
Editor
Bruce Cannon
Original Music
Stanley Clarke
Production Design
Bruce Bellamy
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).
Three Kings
George Clooney headlines David O Russell's bold, brazen attempt to get to grips with the immediate aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, as 4 US soldiers try to liberate a missing shipment of gold amidst the chaos and carnage.
But I'm a Cheerleader
Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is the perfect All-American Girl, or so she thinks. That is until she’s shipped off to conversion therapy. This pitch black comedy is wrapped in a saccharine bow, featuring the icon herself, RuPaul, as a conversion counsellor.
Magnolia
This deeply personal 1999 California opus is ripe for rediscovery. Mapping the emotional traumas of half-a-dozen major characters as they crisscross the San Fernando Valley in search of either recognition or reconciliation, it's PTA's riskiest gamble.
Election
Tracy Flick (Reece Witherspoon) is running for Student President, but Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) has other ideas... This remarkably sour millennial comedy from Alexander Payne (The Holdovers; Sideways; The Descendents) hits twice as hard today.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is an assassin, but he's also an existential loner who adheres to his personal code. Despite the thriller trappings, this is really a lampoon of that genre, and a melancholy reverie for the cultural melting pot we call home.
The Straight Story
David Lynch goes a different direction in this linear Midwestern about a septuagenarian (Richard Farnsworth) who drives nearly 400km on a lawnmower to visit his ailing brother (Harry Dean Stanton).
90s Surprise Film
The 90s movie we have all been missing... Join us for a celebratory wake for this year's 90s, Baby series! What you will be seeing is top secret (no, not Top Secret!, that was 1984) but it will be at least 26 years old and it will be new to this series.
The Wind Will Carry Us
Kiarostami's dry comic masterpiece follows a Tehrani film team's thwarted attempts to document a traditional Kurdish funeral... Trouble being, there's no one to bury, and, worse, virtually no cell service...
Fight Club
1999 was a very good year for movies, but nothing captured millennial angst quite so vividly as David Fincher's bruising black comedy about what it means to be a man today. This modern classic does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction.