The 40 Best Performances in John Singleton Movies, Ranked

40.Janet Jackson, Poetic Justice

Janet Jackson wasn’t a natural fit for the role of Justice, an around the way girl working at a beauty salon on Crenshaw who writes mournful poetry in her spare time. But Singleton was confident she could handle such a dramatic turn. With Sophia Loren’s performance in Two Women as his lodestar, he set out to transform the pop princess into something realer. It worked —to an extent.

At times, Jackson is the weak link among the movie’s four leads. She never seems to fully embody the role. There is not one instance when the audience isn’t aware that it’s watching Janet Jackson act. She overacts with her eyes and her inflections are all over the place. Her strongest moments occur when she’s at her most Janet and her star presence overwhelms. The final scene in the film is also her best. Having ditched her all-black everything wardrobe for a cropped white cardigan, she radiates during a reunion with Tupac’s lovestruck Lucky. Then the opening chords of “Again” hit, the camera zooms in on her face, and she smiles that billion-dollar Janet Jackson smile leaving no doubt Singleton made the right casting decision.

39.Lloyd Avery II, Boyz N the Hood

Before Lloyd Avery II filmed the scene that turned him into a hood legend, he sat in an alleyway listening intently as his friend John Singleton walked him through it. What to do with his eyes. His nostrils. His expression. How to grip the sawed-off shotgun as he emerged from the Jolly Rancher red Hyundai. No detail was too small for a director like Singleton, who endlessly studied Kurosawa’s use of nonverbal communication. By the end of it, Avery had transformed into Singleton’s angel of death. Though credited as Knucklehead #2, Avery’s character is forever known as the Blood Who Shot Ricky.

38.Cole Hauser, Higher Learning

Cole Hauser’s Scott Moss is cloaked in shadows when he’s first introduced. We know he’s trouble from the moment he approaches Remy, a freshman reading The Iliad, and asks if he’d like to grab a drink. The scene takes another turn once Scott defuses the tension. “We’re white in America,” he says. “What more do you need, right?” Hauser, who turned 19 during filming, is a menace to society as the Nazi gang leader, though his performance does veer a little too hard into a Marlon Brando impersonation at times.

37.Tyra Ferrell, Poetic Justice

From the moment Tyra Ferrell emerges from a black Lexus, vanity plate MS BOOTE, in a curve-hugging red dress and matching heels, it’s clear she’s not playing Mrs. Baker again. Farrell’s Jessie, the sultry, confident owner of a popular salon, is a 180 from Boyz N the Hood’s coarse single mother. She’s just as stirring though, confidently strutting into the frame wielding her power, wit, and sex appeal like a weapon. The “poonani” scene is a masterclass. Watch what she does with her hands before coming face-to-face with Tupac and making him the butt of a crude, but funny, joke.

36.DJ Qualls, Hustle & Flow

DJ Qualls’s Shelby first appears onscreen as a sight gag —a gangly white guy in a shirt and tie standing on a pimp’s doorstep in North Memphis. “You Mormons are some brave motherfuckers,” Djay says looking him up and down. Shelby, who stocks vending machines in the morning and moonlights as a church pianist, is much more than that. He’s a wizard on the SK-5 and the MPC. In the end, he helps Djay find his sound. There’s initially an awkwardness to him but once he starts making beats it’s obvious he’s a cool MFer —not like the dorks Qualls portrayed in Road Trip and The New Guy and made his name on. Qualls excels here as a grown up doing grown up things: producing a banger, smoking a joint on a stoop and then philosophizing about music, tracing the sound of the south “from Back Door Man to Back That Azz Up.”

35.Malcolm Mays, Snowfall

While casting Snowfall, John Singleton reunited with the kid people had once dubbed the Next John Singleton. They first met in 2008, a few months after the New York Times profiled Mays in the Arts section. He had a familiar story: A smart kid from L.A. who dreamed of making movies. At the age of fifteen he made a short film that gained acceptance into a film festival. Soon after, he wrote a screenplay about racial tension between Black and Latino high school students that led to further recognition, which is when the press and John Singleton came calling. Eventually, they fell out before meeting again when Mays auditioned for the role of Franklin Saint. He didn’t land the part but was hired to play Kevin Hamilton, Saint’s hotheaded, impatient best friend. Mays crackles with energy in every scene, bringing a fire to a real live wire of a character.

34.Don Cheadle, Rosewood

Rosewood was Singleton’s left turn following a trio of very personal, very contemporary, and very California films. A period piece set in rural Florida, Rosewood was based on a true story. In January 1923, a racist mob burned down the mostly Black town of Rosewood after a white woman lied about a Black man assaulting her. The residents fought back. The estimated death toll ranged from six to 250.

Don Cheadle’s Sylvester Carrier is one of the town residents who picks up arms against the posse. Singleton was eager to cast the character actor—who was hot following his turn upstaging Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress—and went out of his way to hire him. “There was some gap between what the studio wanted to pay me and what I wanted to make or needed to make or thought I should make,” Cheadle told me. “John said, ‘I’ll write the check personally.’” Singleton received a good return on his investment. A stubborn, proud man willing to die to protect his people, Cheadle’s Carrier is the heart of Singleton’s most brutal film.

33.Mo’Nique, Baby Boy

Mo’Nique is only briefly in Baby Boy — most of her scenes hit the cutting room floor — but she was unforgettable during her limited screen time. As Juanita’s friend Patrice, she cackles with verve, cracking jokes, using her props (a bowl of chips; a pair of dice) and some classic Mo’Nique facial expressions to create a distinct character. She accomplishes all that within a two-minute scene. Before it’s over she gives Jody some sound advice as he sets out to be a salesman. “Now I’m a size 16 and that’s average too,” she snaps. “You remember that and you’ll make a lot more money.”

32.Jon Voight, Rosewood

Towards the end of the first day of rehearsals on Rosewood, Jon Voight, the 1979 Academy Award winner for Best Actor (Coming Home), decided he wanted to learn more about the 27-year-old director he’d be working with for the next four months. So he challenged him to a race. “I’m very competitive,” Voight said, sidling up next to Singleton

“Oh, I’m very competitive too,” Singleton rebutted, lining up in a sprinter’s starting position. That’s when Voight knew he was in trouble. Singleton proceeded to dust him in the race. That wasn’t the last time they faced off during filming. Voight was a pest on set, constantly workshopping scenes, arguing over semantics (peckerwood vs. peckerhead) and directing his costars. On occasion, Singleton would check him, yet he respected Voight’s process and came to love his performance in the film as Johnny Wright, the morally conflicted white shopkeeper and reluctant ally to the town’s Black residents.

31.Chiwetel Ejiofor, Four Brothers

Before filming started on Four Brothers, Singleton asked Chiwetel Ejiofor to study Yaphet Kotto’s performances as the heavy in Live and Let Die, Truck Turner, and The Running Man. He envisioned Ejiofor’s Victor Sweet to be a direct descendant of Kotto’s villains. Cold. Articulate. Frightening. Ejiofor is all of that and more as Victor Sweet, the charismatic Detroit gangster in a mink coat, lording over his crew with an iron fist. They are, rightfully, terrified of him, folding winning poker hands in deference to him and eating off the floor when ordered to. The film ends with Sweet’s crew turning on him right before Mark Wahlberg’s hero punches his lights out. It’s a great crowd-pleasing moment that doesn’t work unless Ejiofor hadn’t made Sweet such a gleefully loathsome villain.

30.Joe Torry, Poetic Justice

From the moment Singleton conceived of Poetic Justice, he wanted Joe Torry to play Chicago, the abusive boyfriend named J-Bone in early drafts of the script. Singleton met the budding stand-up while he was a senior at USC and spending his nights hanging out in comedy clubs all around Los Angeles. He found Torry hilarious but could see him as something more sinister. As Chicago, the preening mailman in Wayfarers and a purple silk shirt, Torry is a clown — until he isn’t. He’s cold and cutting while dismissing Lucky’s rap demo, before veering into more overt villainy during a disturbing scene opposite Regina King, who plays his girlfriend. It’s one of the most underrated performances in the Singleton canon.

29.Taryn Manning, Hustle & Flow

Despite the big rock star sunglasses, micro miniskirts, and audacious blonde braids, Nola is the most inconspicuous of the trio of sex workers living with Djay in Hustle & Flow. She’s meek. That all changes after Djay pushes her too far. “I ain’t some fucking cash machine where you get shit for free,” she says storming out of a music store. “I got to have a say in what I do.” For the next two minutes she goes toe-to-toe with the hurricane that is Terrence Howard and comes out on top. By the end of the film Nola is in a power suit with a cell phone and earpiece making money moves. She in charge.

28.Andre 3000, Four Brothers

Four Brothers wasn’t the first time Andre 3000 auditioned for John Singleton. About two years earlier, he read for a role in 2 Fast 2 Furious. “I bombed,” he told me. “My nerves overtook any chance to get in that film. I’m horrible in auditions.” Singleton was having trouble casting the role of Jeremiah Mercer, the most complex character out of the four Mercer Brothers, when he turned to the OutKast rapper after Ice Cube faced a scheduling conflict. Known for extracting great performances from inexperienced rapper-turned-actors, Singleton worked closely with Andre, sidebarring with him often and giving him multiple takes. In turn, Andre rewarded him with a mature, multi-faceted performance in which he was just as comfortable in dramatic scenes as he was cracking jokes with Tyrese.

27.Isaiah John, Snowfall

Singleton began his career filtering his stories through Tre, Ricky, and Doughboy. On Snowfall, he had Franklin, Kevin, and Leon played by Isaiah John. A twenty-year-old from Atlanta, John was working as a janitor when he landed the role of Franklin’s best friend. It was a big step up for the newcomer. His biggest job to date had been “Gang Member #1” in Barbershop: The Next Cut. But John shined throughout the series no matter where Leon’s journey took him, from reckless knucklehead to right hand man to boss and finally to a leader. He’ll reprise the role in a recently announced Snowfall spinoff set in the rap industry of the early 1990s.

26.Bruce McGill, Rosewood

When Bruce McGill first read the script for Rosewood he thought, Oh my God, this is tough. The veteran character actor grew up in Texas in the 1950s, a time and place where hearing the n-word was common in white circles. To his character, it was just a word, though. For the next few weeks, McGill prepared for the role. Every morning while in the shower shampooing his hair, he’d scream the n-word over and over just to get comfortable saying it.

McGill went “full cracker,” in Singleton’s words, to play Duke Purdy, perhaps the most racist member of the racist mob. Throughout production he made his peers uncomfortable. He tied and untied a noose at the first rehearsal. Later he got into a wrestling match with Paul Benjamin during a lynching scene. It wore on him. He had nightmares that were clearly related to the source material. But Singleton respected his commitment to the part and the performance it elicited. “Bruce McGill went to the depth of his psyche to play this despicable guy with some form of respect,” Singleton said.

25.Paul Walker, 2 Fast 2 Furious

Singleton seemed like an unconventional hire to direct the sequel to The Fast and the Furious — the Point Break knockoff that grossed over $140 million at the box office during the summer of 2001, stunning the industry. Why was John Singleton, the youngest person ever nominated for Best Director, piloting a movie about cars that go vroom-vroom? Singleton loved popcorn movies, even though he wasn’t a fan of the original Fast and Furious.

One of his first goals upon being hired was figuring out how to make Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner more interesting. In the original he was just a pretty face. Singleton opted to “dirty him up—make him more of a Steve McQueen type.” He gives him a superhero’s entrance before the first race, which O’Conner wins of course. His scenes with Gibson are just as entertaining though as the ones in which he’s behind the wheel. Singleton worked with Walker and Gibson throughout the picture to solidify the bonds between their characters. They improvised throughout the picture leading to some big laughs, none more so than when Walker refers to Gibson as “cuz.”

24.Tyrese Gibson, 2 Fast 2 Furious

The most human scene in the entire Fast and the Furious saga occurs towards the end of 2 Fast 2 Furious in front of a glowing sunset in the Florida Keys. It’s the night before the final mission and Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), childhood friends who’d fallen out, are ready to bury the hatchet. Brian goes first, then Roman.

“When I got busted, it wasn’t your fault. It was all on me: Mr. Roman Pearce. Wilding out, crazy, man. No one could tell me nothing. Riding solo.” Soon, they share a laugh and a pound and off they go to take down the bad guy.

Singleton brought a vision to 2 Fast 2 Furious: more humor, levity, diversity, and eye candy. Southern hip hop replaced techno as the sound of the franchise. And Tyrese replaced Vin Diesel as Paul Walker’s wingman. The result is the realest film in the franchise.

23.Regina King, Boyz N the Hood

Regina King, a former USC Trojan who’d spent the last five years starring as the good girl Brenda Jenkins on the sitcom 227, was cast against type to play Shalika in Boyz N the Hood. Casting director Jaki Brown cut her audition short after King read just three lines for her. “I just wanted to see if you could be ghetto,” Brown told her.

King most certainly could. As Shalika, the future Oscar winner, effortlessly personified the prototypical early 90’s hood chick. Accessorized in doorknocker earrings, dookie rope chain, pager, and 40 oz. bottle, she looked the part. More than that, she delivered Singleton’s sizzling dialogue with conviction and swagger. Singleton appreciated King’s skills so much so that he cast her in his next two films, Poetic Justice and Higher Learning.

22.Angela Lewis, Snowfall

The original Snowfall pilot was such a disaster that FX scrapped it. Much of the blame fell on Singleton, who refused to listen to advice during pre-production. But the network liked the concept and Damson Idris enough to greenlight a reshoot. They also made some casting changes. Michael Hyatt replaced Jill Scott as Cissy Saint and Amin Joseph and Detroit native Angela Lewis stepped in for DeRay Davis and Laura London as Uncle Jerome and Aunt Louie.

Singleton loved working with both actors to sharpen their character’s presence. Their mannerisms. Their look. How to suck their teeth. How to be “nice/nasty.” Early on, he’d yell at Lewis. “Be more Detroit!”

“I would get so mad. I knew what that meant,” Lewis told me. “Every Black person from Detroit ain’t gangster.” Soon, she realized what Singleton implied. She couldn’t play Louie from a place of fear. She couldn’t be scared. She had to be in her power. Be more Detroit. Lewis took that advice to heart as she transformed from country mouse to queenpin.

21.Ving Rhames, Rosewood

Ving Rhames knew that he was John Singleton’s fourth choice to play Mann, a Clint Eastwood Man-with-No-Name archetype, who rides into Rosewood, Florida, just as the events of the film unfold. Initially cast in a supporting role, Rhames claimed his first lead after Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, and Wesley Snipes passed.

Rosewood is an early showcase for Rhames, a brooding, intense actor who’d recently broken through with Pulp Fiction. As Mann, Rhames gets to play action hero, romantic lead (opposite Elise Neal), and badass. He’d go on to build a solid career mixing blockbusters with character work for auteurs before reuniting with Singleton for an even more memorable role.

20.Omar Gooding, Baby Boy

Prior to casting Omar Gooding, Singleton called the actor’s mother Shirley, whom he had known since Boyz N the Hood. “I made one of your son’s a movie star,” he said, referring to Omar’s older brother Cuba. “Now I want to make your other son a movie star.” Upon being hired, Gooding shaved his head and hit the weights to transform into Jody’s best friend Sweetpea. “Twenty-four, thick arms, body by California State Penal System” as described in the script.

At first, he couldn’t find the nuance in the character. He was doing too much yelling. Singleton stepped in. “You have to internalize all of that anger that’s just bubbling and jumping and screaming to get out of you,” he told his actor. Gooding began uttering his lines through tense jaws and clenched teeth. Soon, he found Sweetpea. “Once John sculpted me into this character, there wasn’t a lot of acting,” Gooding told me. “It was just something I did.”

19.Morris Chestnut, Boyz N the Hood

Chestnut, a tall, dark, and handsome finance major from Cal State Northridge working as a bank teller between auditions, was the first actor to read for Tre Styles. At the time, his resume consisted of an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares, the syndicated Nightmare on Elm Street spin-off series, but Singleton liked him. Just not as Tre. He was too good looking and too confident. There’s no way anyone could look at Chestnut and think he was a virgin.

Instead, Singleton cast Chestnut as the jock Ricky Baker, the tragic hero of Boyz N the Hood. Chestnut’s inexperience worked in his favor; he personified Ricky in all his optimism and naivety. It makes his death — still one of the most wrenching scenes in film history — all the more devastating.

18.Michael Rapaport, Higher Learning

Initially cast as Cole Hauser’s Nazi gang leader, Rapaport ascended up the call sheet once Leonardo DiCaprio dropped out to do the Western The Quick and the Dead opposite Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman. Singleton and Rapaport, an actor from New York known as White Mike to his Black friends, collaborated on his performance as Remy, the freshman who falls in with a group of skinheads. They’d sidebar often on set and unearth little things to add to the character, like a quirky line reading. Singleton would then suggest Rapaport move his torso side-to-side sporadically, anything to make Remy come across as a pitiful weirdo. Together, they shaped Remy into a sad, disturbed creep, a much more nuanced character than the typical Nazi villain. Rapaport shined in the most layered performance of his career.

17.Paula Jai Parker, Hustle & Flow

A brave performances from a fantastic actress. Lexus is Djay’s top moneymaker and knows it. While his other girls are timid and submissive, she doesn’t hesitate bucking back though it ends badly for her after Djay tosses her and her young son out onto the street. It’s a brutal scene that Singleton insisted on being even more brutal until others on set talked him out of it.

Parker is both incredibly sexy and sad in the role. Lexus is brimming with resentment. Sitting on the couch in a nice, middle-class home, she glares at her host while roasting Nola for her unkempt braids (“ugly as a swamp duck hoe,” she says). Then she flips the scene on its head with a sneer and a simple gesture. She uncrosses her legs, flashes her underwear at her host and gyrates her hips in case the message didn’t get across.

16.Tyrese Gibson, Baby Boy

Baby Boy casting director Kimberly Hardin remembers Tyrese Gibson’s first audition for the film. “He was all over the place,” she says. “He wasn’t really in the scene. He wasn’t an actor.” But there were a few encouraging moments she could point to like, “Mmmm . . . that right there.”

Singleton claimed he originally wrote Baby Boy (working title: Fighting and Fu**ing) for Tupac so he had to search for a replacement after his September 1996 murder. He felt Tyrese shared similar traits with the slain rapper. They both had sex appeal and charisma. There was a rawness there—a ribald energy that left unconstrained could hijack a film, which Tyrese nearly does at times in Baby Boy. He’s fantastic as Jody, the selfish, contradictory man-child who has fathered children with two different women and lives at home with his mother. Singleton would later cast him in 2 Fast 2 Furious and Four Brothers.

Their relationship became something closer than director and star. ‘When I put him in a movie, he’s speaking my voice,” Singleton said. “He’s my avatar.” Conveniently, his avatar had a chiseled jaw, rock-hard pecs, and six pack abs.

15.Cuba Gooding Jr., Boyz N the Hood

A born performer, Gooding instantly captured Singleton’s attention in his audition but it had little to do with his acting. The yellow button-down shirt with black sleeves and a black dot on the chest. The Z. Cavaricci pants he’d snagged from an earlier fashion shoot. The black dress shoes so shiny and plastic they squeaked like a dog’s chew toy. He looked like Tre, a good kid with a retail gig at the Fox Hills Mall. Immediately, Singleton had him read with Laurence Fishburne, who was sitting in.

“He’s going to be Tre, and the chocolate one,” Singleton said, referring to Morris Chestnut, “is going to be Ricky.”

But it wouldn’t be that simple: The studio made him audition again on the first day of rehearsals. Gooding unearthed the right emotional beats for his performance though. Prior to filming the scene where Tre arrives at his girlfriend’s door after a Black cop shoves a gun in his face, Gooding thought of his own encounters with the LAPD. He started shadowboxing. Lefts and rights. Hooks and uppercuts. Combinations. “F**k this s**t,” he growled, swinging wildly. Tears flowed. In rehearsals, he didn’t stop throwing haymakers until he punched a hole through a wall.

Fishburne then turned to Singleton, “I really wish I was that connected to my own emotional stuff when I was his age.”

14.Anthony Anderson, Hustle & Flow

Prior to Hustle & Flow, Anthony Anderson often played the fool. A buffoonish thief in Barbershop. A cornball wingman in Two Can Play That Game. The so-called comic relief in three—three! —DMX films. Key, an unhappy sound engineer hurtling towards a midlife crisis, was his first chance at doing real character work and Anderson nailed it.

Anderson does a lot of acting here. He’s hilarious (“Man, you got a song called ‘Beat that Bi**h.’ They might hear that and think that’s degrading!”) and poignant, filled with the kind of fear and regret men in their late 30s typically grapple with. "I’m just paying rent, man,” he says, his voice filled with desperation. “This shit right here gotta work. It gotta work, man ‘cause it ain’t over for me.” Anderson is the anchor in the most entertaining scene in the movie: the making of “Whoop That Trick.” He is all over the place —coaching Djay how to chant the chorus; urging Shelby on to find the melody and cheering him on once he does; the ugly face he makes when Djay finds the pocket of Shelby’s beat. Here, we’re reminded of that old hip hop adage: There are beat makers and then there are producers. Key is a producer.

13.Snoop Dogg, Baby Boy

The first time we see Snoop Dogg in Baby Boy he’s shot from behind in an homage to Orson Welles' reveal in Touch of Evil. “John loved to do stuff like that,” says his longtime editor, Bruce Cannon. Like Welles’ corrupt police captain, Snoop’s Rodney is despicable. He elbows his way back into Yvette’s life, barks at her son, and attempts to force himself on her.

Singleton first met Snoop in early 1992 when he was at the peak of his post-Boyz N the Hood celebrity and Snoop was a shy pup working on “Deep Cover” with Dr. Dre. He always wanted to work with the rapper and finally made it happen with Rodney, one of the great villains in the Singleton canon. “Sly, menacing, and disarmingly funny,” the New York Times wrote about Snoop’s performance.

“The great thing about Snoop’s part is that he actually plays a character. Rodney’s grimy. He’s the lowest of the low,” Singleton said. “He’s like a lizard, a dinosaur, a raptor, real predatory. You believe him. You know Snoop from the videos but you really believe him as Rodney.”

12.De’Aundre Bonds, Snowfall

Bonds holds down Snowfall’s best scene that doesn’t involve Franklin Saint. Season three, episode five. “The Bottoms,” named after the apartment complex in the Darby-Dixon section of Inglewood where Singleton spent part of his youth. The scene begins with Leon, Manboy, and Fatback arriving in the neighborhood to forge a connect. They knock on a door and meet a Bloods leader named Skully. “Egyptian Lover” blasts on the stereo. One by one they enter the apartment. Immediately, Leon is wary. He spots a grenade on the living room table. Something seems off. It’s Skully, a real loose cannon. He’s twitchy and speaks in an odd cadence — completely shermed out just as Manboy warned.

“Y’all heard that?” Skully asks. “Turn that s**t down. You ain't hear that s**t?"

Skully rises, grabs his gun, and marches into the bathroom where he has a naked man tied up. He slams the door shut but we can still hear him berating the man (“Fuck your life!”) and beating him. Soon he emerges covered in blood, dancing to “Egyptian Lover,” ready to negotiate. “So how much weight we talking?” Bonds, a soulful, troubled actor, brings all of his heart and life experience into the role, especially once Skully faces an unspeakable tragedy later in the series. It’s a career highpoint for the actor, a native Angelino.

11.Jeffrey Wright, Shaft

When Francisco “Coqui” Taveras first met Jeffrey Wright, he couldn’t imagine the bookish, erudite Tony Award winning actor as the flamboyant Dominican drug lord Peoples Hernandez. “This isn’t going to work,” Coqui, a Dominican from Jamaica, Queens, told Singleton after spending time with Wright at the Dominican Day Parade. “He’s not believable.”

That’s when Wright went to work. He spent time around Dominicans in Washington Heights and shadowed Coqui and his friends to bars and after-hours spots in Corona. He also consulted with the Dominican manager of a social club in midtown Manhattan. By the time he got to set, he’d brought Peoples Hernandez to life. As Peoples, Wright is the best thing in a bad movie, chewing the scenery, having a blast (“Tiger Wooooooods”), and veering between funny and frightening to create an iconic bad guy.

10.Tupac Shakur, Poetic Justice

Singleton loved to tell the story about the moment he decided to hire Tupac Shakur in Poetic Justice. He was in his Baldwin Hills home eating a bowl of Honey Smacks and watching him talk trash on BET about almost every A-list Black celebrity working in Hollywood. Spike Lee. Arsenio Hall. Eddie Murphy. Michael Jackson. Janet Jackson. Tupac, lounging in an unzipped velour sweatshirt, gold chains shining, mowed them all down. Singleton gasped. “He could be dangerous. He could be romantic. Tupac was the perfect embodiment of young Black manhood at the time,” Singleton told me during a 2011 interview.

From their first meeting about the role, Singleton approached this as a long-term partnership. He referred to Tupac as “the De Niro to my Scorsese.” They hit it off immediately but Tupac turned into a disruptive presence on set. Still, he’s the best thing in Poetic Justice. Tupac’s Lucky is a mailman; a romantic everyman modeled after the leads in the Italian neorealist films from the post-World War II era that Singleton was obsessed with at the time. It’s a very mature performance and was an opportunity for Tupac to show the world he could do more than be Bishop.

9.Laurence Fishburne, Boyz N the Hood

On his first day working as a production assistant/security guard on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, 19-year-old John Singleton was ambling near the catering table when he noticed Laurence Fishburne, the actor who’d made four films with Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, one of Singleton’s heroes. “One day, I’m gonna write a really good role for you,” Singleton chirped, “then I’m going to direct you in it.” In the end, he did just that.

Fishburne was a Yoda-like figure on the set of Boyz N the Hood, dispensing wisdom both to the young cast and the even younger director. As Furious Styles, a stand-in for Singleton’s own father, Danny Singleton, he parented through axioms (“Are you a leader or a follower?”) and sermonized about military service and gentrification. He’s powerful, wise, a real center of gravity. Fishburne has one good scene after another but his moments with young Tre are where he shines the brightest.

8.Amin Joseph, Snowfall

Uncle Jerome is both the comic relief and the emotional core of Snowfall. Jerome has seen it all: The Watts uprising of 1965. Vietnam. The rise of gangs. He’s the closest thing Franklin has to a father figure and his decision to partner with his nephew in “The Rubicon” (Season 1, Episode 4) propels the series forward.

Joseph portrays Jerome as a genuine, tough, street-smart dude, who has love for his nephew and, especially, for his girl, Louie. This too must be clear. He is hilarious in the role, responsible for one memeable moment after another. “Teach ya mans how to squabble!” “No, you’s a moron, Biscuit.” “Slap yo daddy!” But Joseph adds depth to his character. Joseph’s performance is one to behold once Jerome makes his revelation about the horrors of the drug game. Drunk and dipped out in designer threads, he tells Louie he wants out. “I’m done selling crack. I’m done getting shot at. I’m done trying to kill my goddamn family.” It’s the realest f’ing thing he ever said.

7.Tyra Ferrell, Boyz N the Hood

Thank Tyra Ferrell for the most important scene in Boyz N the Hood. As written in the script, Mrs. Baker tries to remain calm upon seeing Ricky’s body. She gasps and dials 9-1-1. It didn’t work in rehearsals. An actor’s director from jump, Singleton allowed Ferrell to choreograph the scene on the fly.

“This is what’s going to happen,” she said. “You bring him in. I come in. I see him. I will not believe it. I want him to get up. I turn to Darrin and I melt in his arms because he’s the only one I have left. But then I realize that he must have played some role in it, so I go off in a rage on him. Then I need Tre to do what he needs to do to get me off him and get out of the scene.”

Ice Cube had one request before rehearsing the new scene: Don’t touch his hat. Ferrell avoided it during rehearsals. But the hat was the first thing to go when cameras started to roll. “It surprised the s**t out of Cube. It surprised the s**t out of everybody,” says Boyz N the Hood producer Steve Nicolaides. “Tyra was a mad woman that day. She made the scene.”

6.A.J. Johnson, Baby Boy

Though Jody and Yvette’s dysfunctional relationship serves as its main storyline, Baby Boy’s true love story is the romance between Melvin, an ex-con from 101st and Vermont, and Jody’s mom, Juanita. At 36, Johnson was hesitant to portray a grandmother but she knew the importance of Juanita and Melvin’s love story to the film. It was a great role as written.

“By the time we get to the fight where Juanita is putting out Jody, the audience has to be rooting for Juanita and Melvin—not Jody,” she told me. “To get there I wanted to create an image of Black love that’s never been seen before on the screen. Physically. Intimately. Passionately. Everything.”

5.Ving Rhames, Baby Boy

In the scene where Juanita puts Jody out of her house, A.J. Johnson and Ving Rhames both control the screen but in different ways. She is coiled and controlled while Jody vents about her man until Juanita can’t take it no more. “This is MY house! Mine! And if I want to bring a man all up in through here,” she says waving her hands in his face, “I will bring a man all up in through here!” That’s when Melvin walks in, chuckling, smoking a cigarillo and tells Jody some hard truths. Punches are thrown and Melvin flies into a rage like a bull seeing red. Rhames is incredible here, all vigor and raw emotion, while Johnson is a master at nonverbal communication. From the first day of rehearsals, Singleton got his two actors to commit and they rewarded him with the best work of their careers.

4.Damson Idris, Snowfall

Damson Idris’ audition for the role of Franklin Saint was a thing of legend. He was charming. Funny. Serious. He quoted Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society in a flawless L.A. accent. The executives in the room fell in love with him. “It was pretty evident to everyone that Damson was a star,” says FX chairman John Landgraf.

Everyone but John Singleton.

Singleton hoped to cast a local from his neighborhood. Eventually, Idris won him over and Singleton recognized the talent in front of him. He started calling him “Dam-zel” — as in, This kid reminds me of Denzel. With each season, Idris grew more comfortable as Franklin Saint, the good kid from a good home who breaks bad and unleashes a plague on his community. There were certain markers along the way. The season two finale, during which Snowfall collapsed from a three-legged stool into Franklin Saint’s show. Season three, episode nine, when Saint chews out Leon. (“I built this s**t! Me! Brick by brick…”) The entire final season culminating with an Emmy-worthy performance in the finale as a drunk, destitute, and defeated Franklin. Nothing so far could prepare the viewer to see Saint so humbled. But Dam-zel made it happen.

3.Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow

When John Singleton went around town pitching Hustle & Flow in the summer of 2003, studio executives passed for a litany of reasons. They had an uneasiness about a pimp as the film’s protagonist. They believed Black movies didn’t do well internationally. On more than one occasion, they suggested he recast the lead, proposing other names such as Don Cheadle, Snoop Dogg, Nick Cannon — even Sisqo of “Thong Song” infamy! But Singleton and Craig Brewer believed the vetertan character actor Terrence Howard was poised for a breakthrough.

Once Singleton cut the check for the film (he financed Hustle & Flow with approximately $3 million of his own money) Howard rewarded him with an Oscar-nominated performance. The eccentric actor is mesmerizing as Djay, a North Memphis pimp harboring dreams of rap stardom while tackling his midlife crisis. His Djay is both funny and terrifying, caring and cruel. There’s a desperation and soulfulness to Howard’s performance that makes Djay absolutely unforgettable, mayn.

2.Taraji P. Henson, Baby Boy

The Howard graduate was the only actress Singleton seriously considered to play Yvette. “She had the best reading I ever had for any person for any role,” Singleton once said. “It was like, boom, right then and there that she needed to have the role.”

In Henson, he found his muse —the actress who’d inspire him for the rest of his career. Whenever he was writing a screenplay or casting a film, Henson remained at the forefront of his mind. Soulful and sexy. Equally adept at comedy and drama. Fiercely prepared yet game for improvisation, Henson had everything he looked for in an actor.

Early on, it became evident to Singleton, and everyone else on set, that Henson would emerge from the film a star. On the night of one of her big scenes, Singleton blasted Marvin Gaye’s “Just to Keep You Satisfied” on set. The following scene is the kind of clip played at award shows. Henson’s eyes convey heartbreak the moment Jody slams the door in her face. She collapses into the passenger seat. “He don’t love me no more,” she cries, over and over again.

After Singleton called, “Cut,” Tracy Cherelle Jones, the actress playing Yvette’s friend Sharika turned to Henson in the passenger seat. “Well, sister girl, it’s about to happen for you. You’re about to blow the fuck up.”

1.Ice Cube, Boyz N the Hood

The story of how John Singleton courted Ice Cube to play Darrin “Doughboy” Baker in a part of Hollywood lore. They kept running into each other —at The Arsenio Hall Show, where Singleton was interning; at Louis Farrakhan’s Save the Black Family rally on the UCLA campus; and then in February 1990 outside a Public Enemy concert at the Palace in Hollywood. On that night, Cube drove Singleton home in his Suzuki Sidekick, playing beats from his upcoming album AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Not to be outdone, Singleton brought up the script he first mentioned to Cube a year earlier backstage at Arsenio. “I wrote it. I got it done. And we’re gonna do it.”

“I’m with it,” Cube said stepping on the gas. “If it actually happens.”

From the start Singleton envisioned the N.W.A. rapper as Doughboy, an ex-con with heart trapped in the claustrophobic streets of South Central. Though the Inglewood native born O’Shea Jackson had no acting experience, Singleton believed his sneer and swagger fit the role that was based in part on his childhood friend Michael “Fatbacc” Winters. Cube didn’t disappoint. Tough. Funny. Smart. Cool. Vulnerable. Cube could do it all. But it wasn’t until his final monologue that we realize what we’re watching here: one of the most astonishing debuts of the 1990s and the best acting performance in a John Singleton film.