Better Luck Tomorrow is a 2002 crime-drama film directed by Justin Lin. The movie is about Asian American overachievers who become bored with their lives and enter a world of petty crime and material excess. Better Luck Tomorrow introduced Karin Anna Cheung to film audiences and a cast including Parry Shen, Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, Roger Fan, and John Cho.

The film was based loosely on the murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from Tustin, California, by four Sunny Hills High School honor students on December 31, 1992, in nearby Fullerton.

In its first ever film acquisition, MTV Films eventually acquired Better Luck Tomorrow after it debuted at The Sundance Film Festival. After meeting at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Nevada in April 2001, MC Hammer (credited as a producer) provided the much needed funding to the filmmaker Justin Lin for this film. The director said, "Out of desperation, I called up MC Hammer because he had read the script and liked it. Two hours later, he wired the money we needed into a bank account and saved us."