Best movies like Quest

A Portrait of an American Family

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Quest Starring Christine'a "Mama Quest" Rainey, PJ Rainey, and more. If you liked Quest then you may also like: 8 Mile, What's Love Got to Do with It, New Jack City, New Jersey Drive, Night Catches Us and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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For over a decade, this portrait of a North Philadelphia family and the creative sanctuary offered by their home music studio was filmed with vérité intimacy. The family's 10-year journey is an illumination of race and class in America, and it's a testament to love, healing and hope.

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8 Mile

For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.

What's Love Got to Do with It

Singer Tina Turner rises to stardom while mustering the courage to break free from her abusive husband Ike.

New Jack City

A gangster, Nino, is in the Cash Money Brothers, making a million dollars every week selling crack. A cop, Scotty, discovers that the only way to infiltrate the gang is to become a dealer himself.

New Jersey Drive

New Jersey Drive is a 1995 film about black youths in Newark, New Jersey, the unofficial "car theft capital of the world". Their favorite pastime is that of everybody in their neighborhood: stealing cars and joyriding. The trouble starts when they steal a police car and the cops launch a violent offensive that involves beating and even shooting suspects.

Night Catches Us

After growing up during the tumultuous 1960s, ex-Black Panther Marcus returns to his home in Philadelphia in 1976 and reconnects with Pat, the widow of a Panther leader. Marcus befriends Pat's young daughter and attempts to conquer his demons. Interfering with Marcus's good intentions are the neighborhood's continuing racial and social conflicts, as well as old enemies and friends -- both with scores to settle.

Notorious

"Notorious" is the story of Christopher Wallace. Through raw talent and sheer determination, Wallace transforms himself from Brooklyn street hustler (once selling crack to pregnant women) to one of the greatest rappers of all time: The Notorious B.I.G. Follow his meteoric rise to fame and his refusal to succumb to expectations - redefining our notion of "The American Dream."

Roxanne Roxanne

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 legend, as she hustled to provide for her family while defending herself from the dangers of the street.

Jason's Lyric

The story of a young man who must confront his own fears about love as well as his relationships with family and friends.

Juice

Four Harlem friends -- Bishop, Q, Steel and Raheem -- dabble in petty crime, but they decide to go big by knocking off a convenience store. Bishop, the magnetic leader of the group, has the gun. But Q has different aspirations. He wants to be a DJ and happens to have a gig the night of the robbery. Unfortunately for him, Bishop isn't willing to take no for answer in a game where everything's for keeps.

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.

Chantel Mitchell, a hip, articulate, black high-school girl in Brooklyn, is determined not to become "just another girl on the IRT" (the IRT is one of NYC's subway lines). She dreams of medical school, a family, and an escape from the generational poverty and street-corner life her friends seem to have accepted as their lot. But personal and sexual challenges confront Chantel on her way to fulfilling these dreams.

Above the Rim

Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.

Barbershop

A day in the life of a barbershop on the south side of Chicago. Calvin, who inherited the struggling business from his deceased father, views the shop as nothing but a burden and waste of his time. After selling the shop to a local loan shark, Calvin slowly begins to see his father's vision and legacy and struggles with the notion that he just sold it out.

The Best Man

After writing a soon-to-be bestselling novel, writer and committed bachelor Harper attempts to hide the fact that his saucy new book is loosely based on the lives and loves of his tight-knit group of friends. Harper is set to be best man at his friend Lance's wedding, and all his friends will be in attendance. When an advance copy of the book makes its way into the hands of his ex-flame, Jordan, Harper attempts to keep it under wraps.

Boyz n the Hood

Boyz n the Hood is the popular and successful film and social criticism from John Singleton about the conditions in South Central Los Angeles where teenagers are involved in gun fights and drug dealing on a daily basis.

Brown Sugar

Friends since childhood, a magazine editor and a hip-hop record executive stumble into romantic territory.

Custody

When a hard-working single mother, Sara Diaz, has her children taken from her after she is suspected of injuring her son, Ally Fisher, a recent law school graduate, is assigned to represent her case before Judge Martha Schulman, a veteran of the Family Court System.

Menace II Society

A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.

Daddy's Little Girls

Monty is a mechanic struggling to make ends meet as he raises his three young daughters. When the court awards custody of his daughters to his shady ex-wife, Monty desperately tries to win them back with the help of Julia, a beautiful, Ivy League-educated attorney. Monty and Julia couldn't be less alike, but a flame is ignited...touching off a firestorm of love and conflict.

The Color Purple

A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman's journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.

Fresh

Death and violence anger twelve year old drug courier Fresh, who sets his employers against each other.

House Party 3

Hip Hop duo Kid & Play return in the second follow-up to their 1990 screen debut House Party. Kid (Christopher "Kid" Reid) is taking the plunge and marrying his girlfriend Veda (Angela Means), while his friend Play (Christopher Martin) is dipping his toes into the music business, managing a roughneck female rap act called Sex as a Weapon. Play books the ladies for a concert with heavy-hitting pr

Hustle & Flow

With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.

My Baby's Daddy

A trio of young men are forced to grow up quick when their girlfriends all become pregnant around the same time.

The Best Man Holiday

When college friends reunite after 15 years over the Christmas holidays, they discover just how easy it is for long-forgotten rivalries and romances to be reignited.

Tupac: Resurrection

Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.

Carmen: A Hip Hopera

An engaged Philadelphia policeman falls in love with a beautiful woman while dealing with a corrupt superior.

Class Act

Duncan is a genius straight A student, Blade is juvenile delinquent. But because of a mix up with their school records, everyone thinks each is the other one. Now, Duncan kind of likes the attention from being thought of as a real bad dude, if only the school bully would stop trying to rough him up. And Blade definitely likes being thought of as important instead of as trouble.

State Property

Frustrated with being broke, Beans decides that the only way to grasp the American Dream is to take it.

Brotherly Love

West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.

A Day in the Life

Onyx rapper Sticky Fingaz directs and stars in this hip-hop musical about a gangster who gets caught up in a bloody war between two feuding crime families while struggling to leave the streets behind. When Black's family raids one of Stick's drug houses and kills two of his men, Stick is forced to choose between leaving it all behind or seeking revenge and feeding the cycle of violence.

Snipes

Erik is a hip-hop-lovin' teen living in Philadelphia who'd rather spend time listening to his idol, the rapper Prolifik. One day, Erik finds himself more entangled in Prolifik's life than he ever imagined possible: Prolifik's been kidnapped, his master tapes are gone, and, through a series of twisted events, the same people who are after the musician go after Erik, too.

Turn It Up

Trying to bootstrap his way out of Brooklyn's mean streets is Diamond, a rap musician. With his long-time pal Gage acting as his manager, he's trying to lay down a demo tape with cut-rate studio time. To pay the bills, he and Gage run drugs for "Mr. B." Inside a week, Diamond's beloved mother dies suddenly, his father appears after an absence of 12 years and wants a relationship, and his girlfriend Kia tells him she's pregnant, asking him if he's ready to be a father. Gage steals $100,000 in a multiple-felony robbery so that Diamond can record a full album, not knowing it's Mr. B's money he's taken. B wants his money, Diamond wants his music, Tia wants an answer.

Beat Street

An aspiring DJ, from the South Bronx, and his best friend, a promoter, try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.

Play'd: A Hip Hop Story

Jaxx is an aspiring rapper/singer who is signed to a west coast record label run by Domino Breed, a tyrant who rules almost every aspect of his artist's career - and life. Similar to the real events leading to the death of 2Pac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., a east coast/west coast battle goes on leading to death and deceit

Stella

Barmaid Stella Claire and blueblood Stephen Dallas have very little in common -- except they've fallen in love. When their relationship fails, Stella decides to raise the child they had, Jenny, alone. But Jenny and Stella are far from the perfect mother-daughter pair.

On the Come Up

Bri, a young rapper and the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died just before making it big. Her father’s legend makes him a hard act to follow, but between Bri being bullied and watching her mother struggle after losing her job, she pours out her frustration into songs that become big viral hits.

The Greening of Whitney Brown

Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.

Cotton Mary

A British family is trapped between culture, tradition, and the colonial sins of the past.

Still Bill

STILL BILL is an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers, best known for his classics “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Grandma’s Hands,” and “Just the Two of Us.” With his soulful delivery and warm, heartfelt sincerity, Withers has written the songs that have – and always will – resonate deeply within the fabric of our times. Filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack follow Withers and offer a unique and rare look inside the world of this fascinating man. Through concert footage, journeys to his birthplace, interviews with music legends, his family and closest friends, STILL BILL presents the story of an artist who has written some of the most beloved songs in our time and who truly understands the heart and soul of a man.

Feel The Noise

After a run-in with local thugs, aspiring Harlem rapper Rob flees to a place and father he never knew, and finds his salvation in Reggaeton, a spicy blend of hip-hop, reggae and Latin beats. Puerto Rico, the spiritual home of Reggaeton, inspires Rob and his step-brother Javi to pursue their dream of becoming Reggaeton stars. Together with a dancer named C.C., they learn what it means to stay true to themselves and each other, while overcoming obstacles in love, greed and pride, all culminating in an explosive performance at New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Dina

Dina, an outspoken and eccentric 49-year-old in suburban Philadelphia, invites her fiancé Scott, a Walmart door greeter, to move in with her. Having grown up neurologically diverse in a world blind to the value of their experience, the two are head-over-heels for one another, but shacking up poses a new challenge. Scott freezes when it comes to physical intimacy, and Dina, a Kardashians fanatic, wants nothing more than to share with Scott all she’s learned about sensual desire from books, TV shows, and her previous marriage. Her increasingly creative forays to draw Scott close keep hitting roadblocks—exposing anxieties, insecurities, and communication snafus while they strive to reconcile their conflicting approaches to romance and intimacy.

Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary

The hardest group you've never heard of is back. Gangsta Rap is a mockumentary based on a group of over the hill gangster rappers (circa NWA), trying to make a comeback. Its a hilarious look at the soft underbelly of hard core hip hop.

Babymother

A single mother determined to make it as a singer puts together an all-girl reggae group named Neeta, Sweeta, & Nastie with her friends. Living in a housing estate with little support, the odds are obviously against her. Emotionally she struggles too as she learns at her mother's death that her actual mother is the woman she had thought was her older sister. With the help of a female agent, the group starts to get some exposure and rises above their setting.

Same Sex America

In the spring of 2004, Massachusetts began the final battle of its journey towards legalizing same-sex marriage. This documentary follows a few local couples & their families through the months leading up to & shortly after that defining occasion in LGBTQ+ history, culminating in their respective weddings. Also includes interviews with active opponents attempting to discourage the movement (& failing, of course). Premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in April 2005, just a month short the decision's one-year anniversary.

Marci X

A Jewish-American Princess is forced to take control of a hard-core hip-hop record label and tries to rein the one of the label's most controversial rappers.

The Forty-Year-Old Version

Desperate for a breakthrough as she nears the big 4-0, struggling New York City playwright Radha finds inspiration by reinventing herself as a rapper.

Wait, Wait, Don't Kill Me

On the hottest day of the year, an unknown virus spreads throughout inner-city Philadelphia. The infected victims, crazed by dehydration, begin attacking other residents of the neighborhood in gruesome ways. When the military is brought in to contain the situation, but realize they can't come up with a vaccine quickly enough, they fence off the area and let everyone die. A group of locals, stuck in the basement of their building, behind the fences, and separated from their family members, band together to try to survive.

J. Cole: 4 Your Eyez Only

This documentary follows rapper J. Cole's 2016 HBO concert film feature on the making of his fourth studio album 4 Your Eyez Only. The film Includes musical performances from Cole, as well as stories from low-income residents in cities around the country, such as Baton Rouge, Atlanta, and Cole's hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Brooklyn Babylon

A charismatic rapper falls in love with a young Jewish girl despite the confines of her religious background.

I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School

An unflinching verité portrait of the children of Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia, an inner-city neighborhood where 90% of the students live below the poverty line. Seen through the viewpoint of devoted principal Deanna Burney, the film shows Stanton as grossly underfunded, understaffed, and filled with children struggling to overcome their difficulties. But for these at-risk kids, however, the hope for their future survives only in the success of their education. A captivating series of vignettes concerning children growing up outside the American dream, echoing current “hot-button” issues in our country’s ongoing political discussion.

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