Instead, it is a clever, multifaceted thing. It might have just been another decent pop movie, occupying the same space that Quadrophenia does for Mods. John Singleton was just 23 when wrote and directed the era-defining Boyz N the Hood (1991), a film that would bring him to Cannes and the Academy Awards, where he became the youngest ever nominee – and the first African-American – to be shortlisted for best director. There is constant friction in the ’hood as tensions rise between Crips and Bloods, but there is seldom friction at home, where Fishburne’s patriarch philosophises and chills – think Morpheus without the goth coat. In common with most teenage boys in coming-of-age dramas, Tre hopes to get some from his chaste girlfriend Brandi (Nia Long). Tre soon finds companionship with the titular boyz, including Doughboy (Ice Cube), who grows up to be a Crip Chris, another Crip, who is confined to a wheelchair after a gunshot wound and Ricky (Morris Chestnut), a star football player with a chance of a college scholarship.

When Tre Styles (Desi Arnez Hines II, and later Cuba Gooding Jr) gets in a fight at school, his divorced mother (Angela Bassett) sends him to live with his father, Furious (Laurence Fishburne), in South Los Angeles.

Boyz n the hood plot