A semi-autobiographical star vehicle for Marshall “Eminem” Mathers, loosely based on his own experience as a working-class kid aspiring to be the greatest emcee in Detroit, 8 Mile is to hip-hop what Rocky is to Philadelphia. An underdog story where pen and pad at the crack of dawn replace a raw egg down the throat of Sylvester Stallone, audiences are dropped headfirst into the underbelly of Detroit’s underground hip-hop scene in the mid-‘90s, where everyone wants up and out no matter what the cost. Co-starring Kim Bassinger as Jimmy’s alcoholic mother, Mekhi Phifer as his best friend, and a radiant late great Brittany Murphy. “Lose Yourself,” the hit single from 8 Mile’s soundtrack, would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Eminem the first hip-hop artist to ever win.

“With cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, Hanson exercises his genius for establishing and sustaining atmosphere, here that of a dead-end, blue-gray-green Detroit of factory lunch trucks and endless rides on city buses where the unwashed windows make an already grimy view grimier, long rides which give our protagonist plenty of time to contemplate which is worse, his job or his home life. The camera stays on the move in a restless, speed-of-life fashion, seeming to stumble across scenes rather than having them staged for its benefit, and this, along with the movie’s compact timeframe—one rocky week in the life of B-Rabbit and friends—lends the film a miraculously sustained immediacy.” – Nick Pinkerton, Metrograph Journal