Credit: Motown Records

Vince Staples has a number of favourite movies but there’s one that he calls “perfect.” The Long Beach rapper, who released his latest album Dark Times in 2024, previously named some of the films that have stuck with him over the years.

Speaking to CBC in 2017, Vince explained why 1985’s Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, was a standout movie for him. He noted the emotional side of the film and praised how director Robert Zemeckis managed to pull off the difficult task of time travel.

“That shit is cute, it’s really heartfelt,” he said. “Marty just wanted to save the day and he kind of messed it up a lot. If you look at movies set in the future with time travel, they’re all pretty horrible, and Back to the Future was able to make it perfect.” Lauded by audiences, Back to the Future follows the story of teenager Marty McFly, who is accidentally sent 30 years into the past.

2003 and 2004 films, Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2, are also among Vince Staples’ favourites due to a number of technical elements that Quentin Tarantino implemented. “It was the first time I’d seen a movie like that, and volume one and two are really just one movie,” he said. “It was interesting how they played with the colours and all the cuts and the storyline, breaking the fourth wall and things like that.”

He’s also a fan of the 1998 film American History X, starring Edward Norton, seeing comparisons to the area that raised him. “It was very reminiscent of how it was where I grew up,” he said. “Venice is very similar to Long Beach so it felt very familiar.”

Although Vince Staples named his 2017 tour The Life Aquatic Tour, he’s actually never seen the Wes Anderson movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was released in 2004. “I needed a name for the tour, I Googled The Life Aquatic, I found the picture and said, ‘Put me and Kilo Kish on the boat,'” he said. “It’s pretty simple, I don’t really have that many deep ideas, to be honest.”

Vince Staples also has an acting career of his own. In 2015, he made his debut in the film Dope alongside fellow artists A$AP Rocky, Tyga, Kap-G and Casey Veggies, as well as Zoë Kravitz, LaKeith Stanfield and Shameik Moore. He’s also starred in Abbott Elementary, American Dad!, Insecure and Lazor Wulf.

He was set to have his first lead role in a film called Pink, which was announced in 2018, but the movie hasn’t seen the light of day. Vince stated he wanted to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021, revealing his dream of being cast in an X-Men film.

Vince Staples currently stars in his own Netflix show, The Vince Staples Show, which aired in February and has been renewed for a second season.