The Corner chronicles the life of a family living in poverty amid the open-air drug markets of West Baltimore.

Similarly, many actors who appeared in The Corner later appeared in Simon's next television series, The Wire (2002–2008), often playing contrasting characters, e.g., Clarke Peters, Maria Broom, Corey Parker Robinson, Reg E. Cathey, Clayton LeBouef, Donnell Rawlings, Tootsie Duvall, Robert F. Chew, Lance Reddick, Delaney Williams, and DeAndre McCullough (as an assistant to Brother Mouzone[4]).

[4][5][6] Each episode starts and ends with a documentary style interview, wherein a lead character answers questions posed by the director, Charles S. Dutton.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Powerfully performed and authentically written, The Corner is an unwavering depiction of life under the thumb of addiction and poverty.

[8] A review by Hugh K. David of DVD Times praised The Corner as "raw, gritty, uncompromising, realistic, smartly directed, supremely well-acted, compulsively watchable, but harrowing and with little light at the end of the tunnel", comparing it to the television equivalent of such films as Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989) and Requiem for a Dream (2000; also adapted from novels), with elements in common with both La Haine (1995) and City of God (2002).