The Criterion Channel will be celebrating Hip Hop’s 50th Anniversary with the HIP-HOP film series, “showcasing raw early documents of the scene’s key players, intimate and informative portraits of musical expertise and technical wizardry, and definitive, star-studded evocations of the culture’s impact.”
The series features 18 films total and starts August 1, including 1983’s Style Wars and Wild Style, plus other early rap films Beat Street and Krush Groove, along with Hype Williams‘ sole feature film to date, Belly, Jim Jarmusch‘s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Spike Lee‘s Do the Right Thing, John Singleton‘s Boyz n the Hood and Poetic Justice, Michael Rappaport‘s documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, crime dramas Deep Cover and Paid in Full, 1993 comedy Fear of a Black Hat, and more.
Criterion Channel offers a seven-day free trial for subscriptions. Check out the full list of films in the Hip-Hop series below..
CRITERION CHANNEL HIP-HOP SERIES
August 1
Style Wars, Tony Silver, 1983
Wild Style, Charlie Ahearn, 1983
Beat Street, Stan Lathan, 1984
Krush Groove, Michael Schultz, 1985
Deep Cover, Bill Duke, 1992
Fear of a Black Hat, Rusty Cundieff, 1993
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch, 1999
Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme, Kevin Fitzgerald, 2000
Scratch, Doug Pray, 2001
Paid in Full, Charles Stone III, 2002
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, Michael Rapaport, 2011
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-T and Andy Baybutt, 2012
Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer, Charlie Ahearn, 2013
September 1
Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee, 1989
Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton, 1991
Poetic Justice, John Singleton, 1993
November 1
Belly, Hype Williams, 1998
Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club, Ivan Frank, 2008