Jason (Allen Payne) is a responsible young man who has a job in a television repair shop and lives at home with his hard-working mom (Suzzanne Douglas). Joshua (Bokeem Woodbine) is the younger brother just released from prison. He is a volatile, disturbed ex-con who is obviously bound for a violent end. Joshua deals drugs for short-term cash and joins a crew plotting a bank robbery.
Bishop (Tupac Shakur), Q (Omar Epps), Raheem (Khalil Kain), and Steel (Jermaine 'Huggy' Hopkins) are four African-American friends growing up together in Harlem. They regularly skip school, instead spending their days hanging out at Steel's apartment, at a neighborhood arcade, and also a record store where they steal LPs for Q's DJ interests. Generally, they are harassed daily by the police or a Puerto Rican gang led by Radames (Vincent Laresca).
Ashtray (Shawn Wayans), Tray for short, is sent to the inner city to live with his father. Tray gets an education about life on the streets from his psychotic, gun-toting cousin Loc Dog (Marlon Wayans), self-hater Preach (Chris Spencer), and Crazy Legs (Suli McCullough). At a picnic Tray falls for the infamous Dashiki (Tracey Cherelle Jones) much to the distaste of ex-convict Toothpick (Darrell Heath). While Ashtray and Loc Dog head to buy some snacks, Toothpick and his posse confront Ashtray and hold him at gunpoint, until Loc Dog threatens them and they flee. Loc Dog and Ashtray get harassed in a Korean store by the owners and Loc Dog shoots at the owners when a remark is made about his mother. The two are then confronted by 'The Man' (a mysterious white, government figure) who kills the Koreans and tosses them his gun to frame them and leaves.
Rick Latimer (James Belushi) is a high-school teacher with a drinking problem. Spotting his ex-wife Kimberly (Sharon Thomas Cain) in a bar one night, Rick gets into a fight with the man she's with, culminating in his beating the hapless man's car with a baseball bat.
After Play gives Kid's college scholarship check to a con artist Sheila Landreaux posing as a record executive. Kid, Play, Bilal, Stab, Zilla,& Pee Wee go to the record company to cut and record a demo until the cops arrive and tell them don't give no money to Sheila, Kid and Play fight each other over the scholarship check. The con artists Sheila and Rick sweet talk,manipulate and trick Sydney's college roommate Zora into signing a record deal with them. Kid is doing a page assignment for Professor Sinclair while Play, Bilal, and Jamal are having fun with girls in Kid's dorm room. Kid is given one week by the dean (Dean Kramer) to pay his tuition fee or face being kicked out of college. The dean takes Kid's student ID, The deans assistant Miles helps Kid with an extension and a job in the kitchen working for Mr.Lee in order to stay in college and to make expenses meet. Kid steals the key to the faculty dining hall. In order to raise the money, Kid, Play, Bilal and Kid's roommate, Jamal secretly hold a pajama themed party for the students in the faculty dining hall to raise money for Kid to stay in college until Play sees the con artists and Kid sees Miles with Sydney. Kid, Play and campus security go upstairs to stop the con artists and Miles. Kid fights Miles on the faculty dining roof. The dean and the police comes in to stop the party. Play tells the dean where Kid's check went to the con artists, Rick and Sheila are arrested and Miles is arrested and fired from his job. The dean tells Kid,Play,Bilal and Jamal to clean up the faculty dining hall or they will face expulsion. Mr.Lee arrives and he is disappointed at Kid for throwing the party in the faculty dining hall without permission and threatens Kid until he gives the money to Mr.Lee for the damages. Kid goes to his pop's grave in the cemetery feeling down until Play arrives, Kid still mad at Play for the check and moves out of the college dorm until Play arrives with the tuition money and gives it to Kid and apologizes to him and they become friends, Kid moves back to his dorm to finish college. Meanwhile,Kid's former high school rivals Stab, Zilla & Pee Wee take jobs as campus security in order to make Kid's life miserable one more time as Kid tries to balance work and study along with his relationship with Sydney.
Christopher, aka Kid (Christopher "Kid" Reid) is marrying his girlfriend Veda (Angela Means), while his best friend Peter, aka Play (Christopher "Play" Martin) is dipping his fingers into the music business and attempting to manage a roughneck female rap act called Sex as a Weapon (TLC). Play books the ladies for a concert with heavy-hitting promoter Showboat (Michael Colyar), but when they decide to fire Play and hire a new manager, he has to figure out how to deliver them to the show or face the wrath of Showboat's female security force.
Malcolm Adekanbi is a high school senior obsessed with 1990's hip-hop culture, along with his friends Jib and Diggy, he's a geek who is continually pushed around school. They live in "The Bottoms" part of Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.
Three young friends and aspiring rappers, Albert (Chris Rock), Euripides (Allen Payne), and Otis (Deezer D) want to make their big break. The trio have talent, but no marketable image. In order to get their name heard, they appeal to local crime kingpin and nightclub owner Gusto (Charlie Murphy) along with his sidekick and henchman 40 Dog (Ty Granderson Jones) to ask for a spot on the bill at his club, but during a failed meeting the police rush in and throw Gusto in jail.
In Cleveland, 1972, Russell Stevens Jr. is the son of a drug addicted, alcoholic man (Glynn Turman). His father tells his son never to be like him. Stevens then witnesses his father getting killed while robbing a liquor store. He swears that he will never end up the way he has.
Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture. Kenny Kirkland (Guy Davis) is a budding disc jockey and MC, and his younger brother Lee (Robert Taylor) is a hardcore b-boy who dances with Beat Street Breakers (the New York City Breakers). Kenny's best friends are Ramon (Jon Chardiet), a graffiti artist known by his tag, "Ramo", and Chollie (Leon W. Grant), his self-styled manager/promoter.
Kyle Watson (Duane Martin) is a talented basketball player who is about to graduate from high school. While he waits to find out if he will receive a scholarship to Georgetown University he finds himself in a difficult dilemma over a playground basketball tournament. He must decide whether to play for and follow his widely beloved basketball coach or Birdie (Tupac Shakur), a local thug in the neighborhood. Flip a homeless man remember playing basketball with Thomas "Shep" Shepard (Leon Robinson)a high school security guard. Kyle is also feeling resentment towards the security guard, because Kyle's own mother is falling in love with Shep.
The film depicts approximately 19 consecutive hours in the lives of three friends in their early twenties from immigrant families living in an impoverished multi-ethnic French housing project (a ZUP – zone d'urbanisation prioritaire) in the suburbs of Paris, in the aftermath of a riot. Vinz (Vincent Cassel), who is Jewish, is filled with rage. He sees himself as a gangster ready to win respect by killing a cop, manically practising the role of Travis Bickle from the film Taxi Driver in the mirror secretly. His attitude towards police, for instance, is a simplified, stylized blanket condemnation, even to individual policemen who make an effort to steer the trio clear of troublesome situations. Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is an Afro-French boxer and small time drug dealer, the most mature of the three, whose gymnasium was burned in the riots. The quietest, most thoughtful and wisest of the three, he sadly contemplates the ghetto and the hate around him. He expresses the wish to simply leave this world of violence and hate behind him, but does not know how since he lacks the means to do so. Saïd – Sayid in some English subtitles – (Saïd Taghmaoui) is an Arab Maghrebi who inhabits the middle ground between his two friends' responses to their place in life.
Breakin' 2 features three characters from Breakin' – Kelly (Lucinda Dickey), Ozone (Adolfo Quinones), and Turbo (Michael Chambers) – who struggle to stop the demolition of a community recreation center by a developer who wants to build a shopping mall. Viktor Manoel, Ice-T, and Martika (who was little known then) also appear as dancers.
Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart) has a horrible experience with a typical airline: his dog is classified as checked baggage instead of a carry-on, he eats a horrible airline meal, his buttocks gets stuck in the toilet during turbulence, and Nashawn's dog is sucked through a jet engine (after accidentally opening the cargo door). In response, he sues the airline and is awarded $100,000,000 by the jury. He decides to use the money to start his own airline, called N.W.A. (Nashawn Wade Airlines), whose acronym and logo are a pop culture reference to rap group N.W.A. The airline, specifically caters to African Americans and hip hop culture. The terminal at the airport is called the Malcolm X terminal, the plane is a heavily modified Boeing 747SP, customized with low-rider hydraulics, spinners, blended winglets to compensate for the drag from the decorations, and a dance club. The safety video is also a spoof of the Destiny's Child song "Survivor".