Set It Off (film)
1996 film directed by F. Gary Gray
Set It Off is a 1996 American crime action film directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Kate Lanier and Takashi Bufford. The film stars Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise (in her film acting debut). It follows four close friends in Los Angeles, California, who plan to execute a bank robbery—each doing so for different reasons—to achieve better for themselves and their families.
The film was a box office success, grossing over $41 million against a budget of $9 million. The film earned positive reviews from critics, who praised the characters, music and performances of the cast (particularly that of Pinkett and Latifah), as well as the chemistry of the four leading actresses. The soundtrack was a commercial success, peaking at number four on the Billboard 200 and number three on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Additionally, the singles "Set It Off", "Don't Let Go (Love)", "Days of Our Livez", "Angel", "Come On", "Let It Go" and "Missing You" each charted.
Plot
Los Angeles bank teller Francesca "Frankie" Sutton witnesses a robbery in the bank where she works. As a result, four people are killed, and Frankie is fired due to her recognizing one of the robbers from her Southern California neighborhood. During the investigation Detective Strode falsely implicates her as an inside accomplice.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Set It Off (film)” is 1996 film directed by F. Gary Gray. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through film, directed and Gary, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1996 film directed by F. Gary Gray” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q962544. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Set It Off (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.