Best movies like Tougher Than Leather

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.

With the rent due and his car booted, Sean (Dr. Dre) has to come up with some ends...and fast. When his best buddy and roommate Dee Loc (Snoop Dogg), suggests that Sean get a job busting suds down at the local car wash.

A drug kingpin's return home touches off a turf war.

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.

"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."

A violent street gang, the Rebels, rule the streets of Gary, Indiana. The Rebels shoot Marvin Bookman, a store-keeper, for giving the police information about a drive-by shooting they committed. Marvin's son, former NFL star John who created the Rebels, returns to Gary to be with his father and, with a little help from his friends, to destroy the Rebels his way.

Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection.

Too Fine and his friends Finny, Pushy and Rage hope to set up a successful urban underground garage...

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.

Russell Walker is a young, successful manager of rap performers, handling acts for the Krush Groove label, including Run-DMC and The Fat Boys. When Run-D.M.C. has a hit record and Russell needs more money to press more copies, he borrows it from a street hustler and soon regrets his decision.

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.

In a daring robbery, some $300,000 is taken from the Italian mob. Several mafiosi are killed, as are two policemen. Lt. Pope and Capt. Mattelli are two New York City cops trying to break the case. Three small-time criminals are on the run with the money. Will the mafia catch them first, or will the police?

All Eyez on Me chronicles the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as a hip-hop artist, actor, poet and activist, as well as his imprisonment and prolific, controversial time at Death Row Records. Against insurmountable odds, Tupac rose to become a cultural icon whose career and persona both continue to grow long after his passing.

Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?

Tommy Gibbs is a tough kid, raised in the ghetto, who aspires to be a kingpin criminal. As a young boy, his leg is broken by a bad cop on the take, during a payoff gone bad. Nursing his vengeance, he rises to power in Harlem, New York. Angry at the racist society around him, both criminal and straight, he sees the acquisition of power as the solution to his rage.

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.

A struggling young dancer joins forces with two breakdancers and together they become a street sensation.

A confident young cop is shown the ropes by a veteran partner in the dangerous gang-controlled barrios of Los Angeles, where the gang culture is enforced by the colors the members wear.

In the mid-1960s, a group of high school friends who live on the Near North Side of Chicago enjoy life to the fullest...parties, hanging out, meeting new friends. Then life changes for two of the guys when they are falsely arrested in connection with stealing a Cadillac. We follow their lives through to the dramatic end of high school.

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

After being released on parole, a burglar attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and just go by the rules. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer.

In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels—armed only with their lyrics, swagger, bravado and raw talent—stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world’s most dangerous group, N.W.A. And as they spoke the truth that no one had before and exposed life in the hood, their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.

Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.

Dolemite is a pimp who was set up by Willie Greene and the cops, who have planted drugs, stolen furs, and guns in his trunk and got him sentenced to 20 years in jail. One day, Queen B and a warden planned to get him out of Jail and get Willie Green and Mitchell busted for what they did to him.

When Ashtray moves to South Central L.A. to live with his father (who appears to be the same age he is) and grandmother (who likes to talk tough and smoke reefer), he falls in with his gang-banging cousin Loc Dog, who along with the requisite pistols and Uzi carries a thermo-nuclear warhead for self-defense. Will Ashtray be able to keep living the straight life?

Craig and Smokey are two guys in Los Angeles hanging out on their porch on a Friday afternoon, smoking and drinking, looking for something to do.

A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

"Boyz N the Hood" meets "Blood In, Blood Out" in this gritty tale of life on the streets of East L.A. Danny (Jacob Vargas), Alfonso (Greg Serano) and Raymo (Clifton Collins Jr.) are lifelong friends who have spent their days hanging out and playing basketball. But everything is about to change...when one of them gets involved with a dangerous drug dealer, all their lives are at risk and they must make some life and death decisions.

Priest, a suave top-rung New York City drug dealer, decides that he wants to get out of his dangerous trade. Working with his reluctant friend, Eddie, Priest devises a scheme that will allow him to make a big deal and then retire. When a desperate street dealer informs the police of Priest's activities, Priest is forced into an uncomfortable arrangement with corrupt narcotics officers. Setting his plan in motion, he aims to both leave the business and stick it to the man.

Goldie returns from five years at the state pen and winds up king of the pimping game. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt white cops and a crime lord who wants him to return to the small time.

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 strange but Silas and Jamal take it in a stride -- until their supply of supernatural smoke runs dry. That's when they have to start living by their wits and rely on their natural resources to make the grade.

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

I'm Bout It is a 1997 film by rapper Master P. The plot details his life in a New Orleans uptown ghetto. Master P wrote, directed and acted in the film.

Single mother Diana struggles to provide for her child and pay for her college education. When she meets two dancers from a nearby gentlemen's club, Diana's convinced there's fast money to be made stripping.

During a 10-year sentence for murdering the leader of a rival South Central Los Angeles gang, Bobby Johnson finds religion and rehabilitation with the help of Muslim inmate Ali. Upon his release, Bobby returns home to find that his young son, Jimmie, has joined the Deuces, his old crew. Tensions rise as Bobby struggles to convince Jimmie to leave the gang that was his only family during the painful years his absent father spent behind bars.

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.

Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.

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

Ex-con attempting to go straight runs across serious problems. His girlfriend gets arrested for dealing crack to an undercover police officer. In a desperate attempt to get the charges dropped against his woman, he strikes a deal with a weapons cop to turn in local gun dealers. However, the D.A. is not satisfied with the results, resulting in some serious game playing and double crossing.

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.

The film follows three young men as they are drawn into lives of crime. Nick (Crowley) uses his entry-level corporate job to commit credit card fraud and deals drugs on the side. K-Luv (Mackie) is a member of the "V-Dubs", an African-American street gang. Lincoln (Leung) is a rising figure in the Chinese mafia. Gentrification forces Nick's family to move out of their home in the Mission District into Hunter's Point where they are harassed by the V-Dubs. K-Luv's side business of selling bootleg compact discs leads him to enlist Nick's help to bootleg CDs and to negotiate a truce with Lincoln. Lincoln conducts an affair with his boss' daughter Angela (Carpio), a Stanford student engaged to a medical student classmate.

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.

In Los Angeles, two rival gang leaders are also trying to be music producers. When DJ's equipment shorts out and Lonzo is cut out of the action by a record producer, the two join forces, which also requires a tentative peace between gangs. With backing from Gator, a smooth New Orleans drug king, DJ and Lonzo start dealing, organizing their gangs into pushers. Just as their finances are looking up, one of Gator's team pulls a double cross and two of DJ and Lonzo's gang bangers start a shooting war. Can the erstwhile music producers salvage anything of their bond or their plans?

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.

A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.

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.

General Ahmed has started an inner-city People's Army to try and relieve the misery of the citizens of Watts. When the locals are put under increasing pressure by Mafia thugs, Ahmed's second-in-command Colonel Kojah asks for permission to start a protection squad to take more direct action. Ahmed fears this protection squad will just turn into a vigilante mob, and his prediction soon proves correct. Will Ahmed be able to wrest control back from the power-mad Kojah, or will he be the mob's next victim?

After decades of terror, two deadly street gangs reach a delicate truce and young MJ (Silkk the Shocker) sees a way out of the hood once and for all. Only Corrupt (Ice-T) stands in MJ's way, resulting into a violent and brutal roller coaster ride of action!

A cop must stop the killings of rap stars. But, he gets in too deep after his partner is killed.