Set It Off is a 1996 American heist drama crime action film directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Kate Lanier and Takashi Bufford.

[1][2] 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.

Francesca "Frankie" Sutton is a Los Angeles bank teller who is fired after a robbery because she recognized one of the robbers from her Southern Californian neighborhood; the investigating detective, Strode, falsely implicates her as an inside accomplice.

Frankie is forced to take a menial job at Luther's Janitorial Services with her three best friends, Lida "Stony" Newsom, Cleopatra "Cleo" Sims, and Tisean "T.T."

show up for work one day and find a new boss in charge, they quickly realize that Luther has discovered the money and fled with it.

While Stony attends a banking event with Keith, ending the night with passionate lovemaking, the three women track Luther to a motel where he is sleeping with a prostitute.

She drives through a police barricade, disabling her car, and is gunned down when she opens fire on the pursuing cops to the dismay of her girlfriend Ursula and friends from the neighborhood watching the chase on TV.

After defiantly sticking a gun in Strode's face and reminding him of how he’s a catalyst for this situation in the first place, Frankie tries to flee before getting shot and killed.

Stony, who managed to blend in with a tourist group heading to Mexico, tearfully watches Frankie's death from a passing charter bus.

[8] Despite the good opening, there were reports of violence in some theaters showing the film, including a shooting in Lakewood, California which left three people injured.

The site's consensus reads: "It may not boast an original plot, but Set It Off is a satisfying, socially conscious heist film thanks largely to fine performances from its leads.

"[9] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on scale of A to F.[10] Roger Ebert stated that Set It Off is "a lot more" than a thriller about four women who rob banks.

Comparing it to Waiting to Exhale, but "with a strong jolt of reality," he said, "It creates a portrait of the lives of these women that's so observant and informed."

He gave the film three and a half stars, and added, "The movie surprised and moved me: I expected a routine action picture and was amazed how much I started to care about the characters.

He added that among "the long list of Hollywood heist movies that make you root for its criminals to steal a million dollars and live happily ever after, F. Gary Gray's film Set It Off is one of the most poignantly impassioned," and that "[i]f this messy roller coaster of a film often seems to be going in several directions at once, it never for a second loses empathy" for the female robbers.

Berardinelli added that although "[t]he film doesn't get off to a promising start" and "[t]he first half-hour, which details the various characters' motives for becoming involved in a bank robbery, is unevenly scripted," and that some aspects of the plot are contrived, "[o]nce the setup is complete, however, things shift into high gear.

She Don't Talk?," in which she establishes Cleo and Ursula's lesbian relationship's significance to butch/femme representation, utilizing concepts of blaxploitation and ghettocentrism.

[16] Varèse Sarabande issued an album of Christopher Young's score for the film, including Lori Perri's "Up Against the Wind" on November 19, 1996.

Queen Latifah also surprised Anthony Anderson with the cast reunion as a spoof while presenting Best Male R&B artist at the 2005 BET Awards trying to antagonize and rob him of his clothing.

[18] The climactic song "Up Against the Wind" sung by Lori Perry became a popular viral internet meme sound bite in the late 2010s used in many TikTok and Instagram videos.

When asked in an interview with PeopleTV about a possible sequel to the film, Pinkett-Smith said: "That has been going on for years...my answer always is, there's no way I can do Set if Off without Vivica, Queen and Kimberly, that's just not gonna happen.

The 2018 main cast featured Kyla Pratt as Stony, LeToya Luckett as Frankie and Demetria McKinney as Tisean (T.T.).

The ensemble featured James "Lil' JJ" Lewis, Bakesta King, Michael Finn, Ericka Pinkett, Jason Raines, Steven J. Scott and Carson Pursley.