Have you ever watched any of the hood movies on Amazon Prime? I am an Amazon Prime subscriber and have watched some of the hood movies on one of the most popular video streaming services.
Hood film is a genre of films that became widely popular in the US during the 80s and 90s. It focuses on working-class Black or minorly Latino life in America’s urban ghettoes, or “hoods.”
The common themes in the Hood films include gang violence, racism, police brutality, and the expected effects of poor living conditions.
Amazon Prime is a subscription service owned by Amazon. You pay to access various good ad services such as music, e-books, videos, gaming, and grocery shopping.
There are a lot of hood movies on Amazon Prime that it would be impossible to discuss in one article. But below, I have made a list of a few popular ones.
Let’s consider them one after the other, shall we?
1. Boyz N The Hood (1991)
- Director: John Singleton
- Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Ice Cube, Larry Fishburne, Nia Long, Regina King, and Angela Bassett.
- IMDb rating: 7.8/10
- Running time: 1h 52m
This American coming-of-age hood drama follows three young childhood friends, Tre, Darrin, and Ricky, who battle to cope with growing up in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles.
Unlike Tre Styles, who has been taught proper morals, respect, and faith by his hard-nosed dad, Furious Styles, and his sincere girlfriend Brandi, Darrin and Ricky don’t have such support.
They are dragged into the whirlwind of the neighborhood’s flourishing gang, drugs, and violent culture, with progressively terrible outcomes.
The film’s title has double meaning: a play on the term boyhood and a reference to the 1987 Eazy-E rap song of a similar name, composed by Ice Cube. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
This movie won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture and MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.
Designations: Academy Award for Best Directing, Academy Award for Writing (Original Screenplay), NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, etc.
2. Menace II Society (1993)
- Directors: Allen Hughes and Albert Hughes
- Cast: Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate, Jada Pinkett, Bill Duke, and Charles S. Dutton
- IMDb rating: 7.5/10
- Running time: 1h 37m
Menace II Society (articulated Menace to Society) is an American teen drama set in the Watts and Crenshaw neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
18-year-old Kaydee “Caine” Lawson, a drug dealer and car thief wanted by the police to kill a Korean grocer, is kicked out of his grandparents’ house due to his criminal history.
Everybody around him, including his unusual companion O-Dog, is caught in their lives of crime and brutality.
He enlists the assistance of his caring tutor and supportive sweetheart and plans to leave the ghetto for good, even though he knows that isn’t so simple. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
3. Above The Rim (1994)
- Director: Jeff Pollack
- Cast: Duane Martin, Leon, Tupac Shakur, Bernie Mac, Tonya Pinkins, and Marlon Wayans
- IMDb rating: 6.6/10
- Running time: 1h 37m
This American sports drama film follows Kyle, a promising secondary school basketball player, who needs to pick which team he wants to be a part of in a local competition.
He is torn by loyalties to a local drug dealer and a former basketball player down on his luck and is currently recruited as a security officer.
This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime. This movie was nominated for the MTV Movie Award (1995) for Best Movie Song.
4. Robin Hood (2010)
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Mark Strong, Mark Addy, Oscar Isaac, Danny Huston, Eileen Atkins, and Max von Sydow.
- IMDb rating: 6.6/10
- Running time: 2h 20m
This action film is set in twelfth-century England and is based on the Robin Hood legend. Following King Richard’s death in France, skilled archer Robin Longstride and his band of raiders, Will Scarlet, Allan A’Dayle, and Little John, return to England.
They encounter the dying Sir Robert Loxley, whose party was ambushed by treacherous Godfrey, who hopes to stir baronial opposition to weak Prince John and facilitate a French invasion of England.
He does this by worming his way into the Prince’s service as Earl Marshal of England and brutally invading towns under the pretext of collecting Royal taxes.
Robin promises the dying knight will return his sword to his father, Sir Walter Loxley, in Nottingham. Here, Sir Walter encourages him to impersonate the dead man to prevent his land from being confiscated by the crown.
He finds himself with Marion (Cate Blanchett), a ready-made wife with whom he becomes hopelessly enamored. Robin Longstride and his band of raiders lead an uprising against the crown that will tilt the balance of world power forever.
This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime. This movie won the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards (2011) for Top Box Office Films.
It was also nominated for the International Film Music Critics Award (IFMCA) (2011) for Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, etc.
5. Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ (2005)
- Director: Jim Sheridan
- Cast: Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Terrence Howard, Joy Bryant, Bill Duke, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Omar Benson Miller, Ashley Walters, and Viola Davis
- IMDb rating: 5.4/10
- Running time: 2h 14m
This American crime drama contains autobiographical elements from 50 Cent’s life and revolves around his character Marcus Greer who loses his mom in a drug deal gone wrong. He begins working under drug dealer Levar, and his assistant, to pay his bills.
When he reunites with an old love (Joy Bryant) and is subsequently shot numerous times during a burglary, Marcus decides now is the right time to change himself completely.
And he turns away from his life of crime to pursue his passion for rap music, even though his old partners won’t let him go with ease.
The film’s title is shared with 50 Cent’s 2003 debut album of the same name. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
This movie won the BET Award for Best Actor, alongside the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Production Design for Film.
It was also nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Breakout Star – Male, BET Hip Hop Award for Best Movie, etc.
6. Hood Of Horror (A.K.A. Snoop Dogg’s Hood Of Horror) (2006)
- Director: Stacy Title
- Cast: Snoop Dogg, Ernie Hudson, Danny Trejo, Anson Mount, Daniella Alonso, Brande Roderick, Aries Spears, Diamond Dallas Page, Jason Alexander, and Billy Dee Williams
- IMDb rating: 4/10
- Running time: 1h 35m
Hood of Horror (a.k.a. Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror) is a horror film adaptation of a fictional comic book, an anthology of three short tales set in an urban milieu in style reminiscent of Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Hood.
Devon is honored with the power of choosing whether one should be sent to paradise or damnation. He guides us through the stories of three debased individuals whose activities determine where they will be sent to in the afterlife.
There is a tagger who finds that not all criminals die hard, a silly Texas oil fortune heir who kills for cash yet can’t afford his lifestyle.
And a massive rap star who uncovers a couple of skeletons in his changing area that attempts to bring down his roof. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
7. Baby N The Hood (2019)
- Director: Michael H Royal
- Cast: Ward Beard, Odessa Bobbie, Jeffery Bridges, Lamar Gentry, Josh King, Brittany m Little, Sparkle Mckinney, Eric Rutledge B., Tammie Verser, Jeffery Walker, Josh Walker, Eric M. Product, and Jermaine Ware.
- IMDb rating: 4.7/10
- Running time: 49m
Sierra Johnson (Anna Mae), a drug-addict teenage mom, accidentally leaves her child out on the hood of her car in the fold while getting high in a drug house.
After the baby is rescued, she panics, spiraling down a path of self-destruction to prevent the authorities from taking the baby from her.
Sierra isn’t sure who the baby’s father is, so she turns Chevy Walker, the excellent baby Daddy who rares for the baby, and Andre Smith, the bad baby Daddy who deals drugs and wants nothing to do with the child, against each other so she can get what she wants.
The baby becomes stuck in the crossfire of a drug deal gone wrong. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
8. Conflicted (2021)
- Director: Amire K Reed
- Cast: Benny the Butcher, Adiyon Dashalon, Nekaya Griffith, Westside Gunn, Evoni Hemphill, and J. Occasion
- IMDb rating: 4.3/10
- Running time: 2h 10m
After being set free from jail, a Buffalo criminal struggles to live a clean future. Even as he experiences love with an astonishing lady, he works as his dark past attempts to rip them apart. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
9. King of New York (1990)
- Director: Abel Ferrara
- Cast: Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Giancarlo Esposito, and Paul Calderon
- IMDb rating: 6.9/10
- Running time: 1h 49m
In this American neo-noir crime thriller, a psychotic drug lord leaves jail to find that the streets have changed.
He plots to assume complete command of New York’s underground drug economy and distribute the profits to the poor. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
10. Dead Presidents (1995)
- Directors: Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
- Cast: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker, N’Bushe Wright, Freddy Rodriguez, and Bokeem Woodbine
- IMDb rating: 6.9/10
- Running time: 1h 59m
Secondary school graduate Anthony Curtis, who served during the Vietnam War as a Recon Marine, returns to his hometown in The Bronx and experiences the indignities of tracking down consistent work to accommodate himself and his family in a dwindling economy.
Discouraged, he collaborates with a junkie, Skip, and a small-time crook, Kirby, to loot an armored truck conveying cash, an opportunity that will allow them a better life. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
11. Never Die Alone (2004)
- Director: Ernest R. Dickerson
- Cast: DMX, David Arquette, Michael Ealy, Reagan Gomez, Clifton Powell, and Jennifer Sky.
- IMDb rating: 5.6/10
- Running time: 1h 29m
A film noir centering around a savage drug kingpin, King David, who goes back to New York City to seek redemption after years out on the West Coast.
When he is stabbed and left for dead in the middle of the road, a columnist named Paul finds him and takes him to the emergency clinic.
After David’s demise, Paul realizes that the crook has left him his assets, including audio recordings of his biography as an often-poetic sermon on villainy and its consequences. As Paul pays attention to the tapes, he catches wind of David’s violent and disturbing past.
The recordings reveal that the cycle of violence and retribution, which his actions have spawned, has come back to him, round trip, as he thought they would from the start. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
12. Attack The Block (2011)
- Director: Joe Cornish
- Cast: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, and Nick Frost
- IMDb rating: 6.6/10
- Running time: 1h 28m
In this British sci-fi comedy horror film, South London valiant teenagers ally with an unlucky lady and attempt to protect their turf against an intrusion of savage and malicious extraterrestrial.
Thereby transforming a South London apartment building into an intergalactic war zone. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
13. Beat Street (1984)
- Director: Stan Lathan
- Cast: Rae Dawn Chong, Guy Davis, Jon Chardiet, Leon W. Award, Saundra Santiago, Robert Taylor, Lee Chamberlin, Mary Alice, Shawn Elliot, Jim Borrelli, Dean Elliott, and Franc. Reyes
- IMDb rating: 6.4/10
- Running time: 1h 45m
This American drama dance film set in the harsh ghettos of South Bronx highlights the stories of a pair of brothers and their friend, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture.
An aspiring DJ, Kenny Kirkland, his Breakdancing brother Lee, and graffiti artist Ramon attempt to enter the show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.
When Tracy Carlson, a composer, and choreographer, offers them a chance to perform on TV, the team realizes that to accomplish their fantasies, they must forge a strenuous path to victory. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
14. American Gangster (2007)
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Cast: Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr., Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Armand Assante, John Ortiz, John Hawkes, and RZA
- IMDb rating: 7.8/10
- Running time: 2h 56m
Denzel Washington’s real life inspired this partly biographical film. Frank Lucas from La Grange, North Carolina, was once the driver of one of Harlem’s drug lords.
After his boss’s demise, he smuggles heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War.
He becomes one of the ghetto’s most impressive kingpins before being detained by veteran detective Richie Roberts and his team.
Richie Roberts perceives a change in the mob’s power structure and seeks ways to bring his rival to justice. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
15. All About The Benjamins (2002)
- Director: Kevin Bray
- Cast: Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Eva Mendes, and Tommy Flanagan
- IMDb rating: 5.8/10
- Running time: 1h 39m
In this American buddy action comedy film, Bounty hunter Bucum Jackson collaborates with a bail-jumping small-time con artist whom he is supposed to pursue, Reggie Wright, to detain a group of murderers and diamond thieves.
The former is for glory, and the latter to retrieve a lost lottery ticket worth millions of dollars. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
16. Life And Lyrics (2006)
- Director: Richard Laxton
- Cast: Ashley Walters, Alexis Rodney, Beau Baptist, Christopher Steward, Jason Maza, Akemnji Ndifernyan, Louise Rose, and Chris Steward.
- IMDb rating: 5.3/10
- Running time: 1h 40m
In this English film, a group of south London DJs quarrels with a group of north London DJs. Danny is hopelessly enamored with a vocalist from the rival gang. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
17. Robin Hood (2018)
- Director: Otto Bathurst
- Cast: Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Tim Minchin, and Jamie Dornan.
- IMDb rating: 5.3/10
- Running time: 1h 58m
In this quasi-contemporary retelling of the Robin Hood legend, a war-hardened aristocrat, Robin of Loxley, gets back to England to find that the malicious Sheriff of Nottingham has usurped his family estate.
He allies with Friar Tuck and Little John – a savage Arabian fighter who needs to stop the Crusades.
Equipped with arrows and named Robin Hood, Loxley leads a band of mistreated rebels in an audacious revolt to rob the Sheriff’s cash and take away his power. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
18. Hood River (2021)
- Directors: Jonathan Field and Steven Cantor
- IMDb rating: 6.7/10
- Running time: 1h 21m
In Hood River, a small Oregon community, a secondary school soccer team battles to defeat class and racial gaps in a journey for individual and group success.
While Domingo manages the deportation of his dad to Mexico, and Eric painstakingly figures out how to turn into a captain and command the respect of his Mexican-American mates, Coach Riviera battles to hold the group together amid the strain of academics and sports.
This documentary spotlights the brotherhood and development of three characters and is set against the scenery of an isolated American town. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
19. Across 110th Street (1972)
- Director: Barry Shear
- Cast: Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Paul Benjamin, and Anthony Franciosa
- IMDb rating: 7/10
- Running time: 1h 42m
This American action crime film is set in Harlem and takes its name from 110th Street, the traditional dividing line between Harlem and Central Park that served as an informal boundary of race and class in 1970s New York City.
Two Italian mobsters meet up with three amateur crooks that work for the drug lord Doc Johnson to collect blood money from their partners in an apartment.
Suddenly, the modest criminals Jim Harris and Joe Logart, camouflaged as cops, storm the scene to take US$ 300,000.00 from the Mafia.
Notwithstanding, they are shocked when the briefcase containing the cash falls on the floor, and Jim kills the five men with an assault rifle.
They escape to the getaway vehicle driven by Henry J. Jackson and kill two cops. As this may start a gang war, promising young black police officer William Pope is assigned to the case, alongside the surly and prejudiced Italian-American Capt. Frank Martelli.
They clash during their tense investigation as they attempt to find the three suspects and capture them. Also searching for the escapees is Sadistic mobster Nick D’Salvio, who will stop at nothing to recover the stolen cash. This is one of the hood movies on Amazon Prime.
Conclusion
If you are a fan of hood movies on Amazon Prime, you may have seen a few of your favorites in the above list. If you haven’t subscribed to Amazon Prime yet, you would strongly recommend you do that to access the whole stock of hood movies available on Amazon Prime.
