Set on one block of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy Do or Die neighborhood, at the height of summer, this 1989 masterpiece by Spike Lee confirmed him as a writer and filmmaker of peerless vision and passionate social engagement. Over the course of a single day, the easygoing interactions of a cast of unforgettable characters—Da Mayor, Mother Sister, Mister Señor Love Daddy, Tina, Sweet Dick Willie, Buggin Out, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito, and Lee’s Mookie among them—give way to heated confrontations as tensions rise along racial fault lines, ultimately exploding into violence. Punctuated by the anthemic refrain of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” Do the Right Thing is a landmark in American cinema, as politically and emotionally charged and as relevant now as when it first hit the big screen.

Deal with this: The only breaks you get are the ones you take. Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox and Kimberly Elise star as four women living in a Los Angeles housing project who–pushed to the edge–resort to violence to escape poverty in this searing, intimate and action-packed look at real life on America’s mean streets. Now get out of the way as the ladies Set it Off