Entertainment
The Best Rap Movies
List Rules
Movies must feature rap as a plot point.
The best rap movies tend to be biopics about rappers but there are also finctional comedies too. This list includes movies that feature all types of rap: east coast, west coast, gangsta, hip hop, pop, etc. While rap itself might not be for everyone, the films that use rap as a central theme are surprisingly accessible. 8 Mile is not just a great rap movie, it's great film in general. While the majority of the films on this list are dramas, some are also comedies. If you enjoy rap, rappers, hip-hop, or movies in general, you're bound to love more than just a few of the films on this list.
You get to help decide which of these rap films gets to be at the top of the list. Vote up your favorite movies and feel free to rerank this list if you aren't happy with the current rankings.
You might also like this list of the best '90s Hip Hop movies.
list ordered by
- In 1988, a groundbreaking new group revolutionizes music and pop culture, changing and influencing hip-hop forever. N.W.A's first studio album, "Straight Outta Compton," stirs controversy with its ...more
- The people of Detroit know 8 Mile as the city limit, a border, a boundary. It is also a psychological dividing line that separates Jimmy Smith Jr. (Eminem) from where and who he wants to be. A ...more
- Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is sent to live with his father, Furious Styles (Larry Fishburne), in tough South Central Los Angeles. Although his hard-nosed father instills proper values and respect in him, ...more
- It's Friday and Craig Jones (Ice Cube) has just gotten fired for stealing cardboard boxes. To make matters worse, rent is due, he hates his overbearing girlfriend, Joi (Paula Jai Parker), and his ...more
- Four Harlem friends -- Bishop (Tupac Shakur), Q (Omar Epps), Steel (Jermaine Hopkins) and Raheem (Khalil Kain) -- dabble in petty crime, but they decide to go big by knocking off a convenience store. ...more
- After growing up in the gang lifestyle of the Los Angeles projects, 18-year-old Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner) wants a way out. Everyone around him, including his unpredictable friend O-Dog (Larenz ...more
- Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Christopher Wallace (Jamal Woolard) parlays his gift for storytelling into a career as a rap artist. Eventually dubbing himself Biggie Smalls, then later, the ...more
- After losing his mother to murder as a boy, Marcus (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) has little support in his life. He starts working for drug dealer Levar (Bill Duke) and his assistant (Adewale ...more
- Multi-platinum rap superstars Redman and Method Man star as Jamal and Silas, two regular guys who smoke something magical, ace their college entrance exams and wind up at Harvard. Ivy League ways are ...more
- The true and untold story of prolific rapper, actor, poet and activist Tupac Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr.), from his early days in New York to his status as one of the world's most recognized and ...more
- DJay (Terrence Howard) is a pimp living day to day on the tough streets of Memphis, Tennessee. Pushing 40, he's tired of the life he's living and dreams of something greater. When he meets up with an ...more
- Play's parents are out of town, and he's planning the house party to end all house parties. His best friend, Kid, wants to go more than anything, knowing Sydney (Tisha Campbell-Martin), the hottest ...more
- Using interviews, photographs and home movies, this documentary presents the life of rapper Tupac Shakur. His mother, Afeni, is a Black Panther who spends part of her pregnancy in jail. Growing up in ...more
- Ice-T takes us on an intimate journey into the heart and soul of hip-hop with the legends of rap music. This goes beyond the stardom and the bling to explore what goes on inside the minds, and erupts ...more
- Corrupt cops Divinci (James Belushi) and Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur) have been murdering drug dealers and then selling their narcotics. But they accidentally kill an undercover DEA agent, and soon after ...more
- Rapper-turned-scholar Kid (Christopher Reid) gets into college, but he runs out of cash just as classes start. Desperate for dough, he tries working in the cafeteria, but when his time spent serving ...more
- 17After many failed attempts to establish themselves as rappers, Albert (Chris Rock), Euripedes (Allen Payne) and Otis (Deezer D) get their big break when nightclub owner Gusto (Charlie Murphy) is ...more
- Russell Walker (Blair Underwood) has started a new hip-hop and rap label called Krush Groove, which features a stellar list of acts that includes Kurtis Blow and Run-D.M.C. However, Walker doesn't ...more
- Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) and Dre (Taye Diggs) can attribute their friendship and the launch of their careers to one single childhood instant ... witnessing the birth of hip-hop on a New York street ...more
- The most feared battle emcee in the early 1980s in Queens, New York, was a fierce teenager from the Queensbridge projects. At the age of 14, Roxanne Shanté was well on her way to becoming a hip-hop ...more
- At the forefront of early hip-hop culture, DJ Kenny Kirkland (Guy Davis), his B-boy brother, Lee (Robert Taylor), and graffiti artist Ramon (John Chardiet) all have hopes of showcasing their talents ...more
- Frustrated with being broke, "Beans" (Beanie Sigel) decides that the only way to grasp the American Dream is to take it. "State Property" follows Beans and his crew, the ABM as they take over the ...more
- Janky Promoters is a 2009 comedy film, re-teaming Ice Cube and Mike Epps who play as "janky" promoters who book rapper Young Jeezy to play at their concert, only to fail at doing it the right way and ...more
- 24Kelly (Lucinda Dickey) is a classically trained jazz dancer who's tired of warding off her amorous teacher and hungry for a new outlet. When she befriends street dancers Ozone (Adolfo "Shabba-Doo" ...more
- 25Bodied is a 2017 American comedy-drama film directed by Joseph Kahn. A progressive graduate student (Calum Worthy) finds success and sparks outrage when his interest in battle rap as a thesis subject ...more
