Natural products, including flavonoids, are suggested to be involved in the protective effects of fruits and vegetables against cancer. However, studies concerning the effect of flavonoids frequently lacked data regarding to flavanones. In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effect of flavanone compounds, including flavanone, 2'-OH flavanone, 4'-OH flavanone, 6-OH flavanone, naringin and naringenin, on cell growth of various cancer cells. We determined that flavanone and 2'-OH flavanone inhibited cell growth of A549, LLC, AGS, SK-Hepl and HA22T cancer cells, while other flavanones showed little or no inhibition. We evaluated growth-inhibitory activity of flavanone and 2'-OH flavanone against highly proliferative human lung cancer cells (A549) via anchorage-independent and -dependent colony formation assay, and further showed that treatment of flavanone resulted in a G1 cell cycle arrest with reduction of cyclin D, E and cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 2, while treatment of 2'-OH flavanone led to a G2/M phase accumulation with reduction of cyclin B, D and Cdc2. Moreover, we demonstrated the improvement effect of flavanone and 2'-OH flavanone with anti-cancer drug, doxorubicin, on A549 cells. Finally, flavanone and 2'-OH flavanone were evidenced by its inhibition on the growth of A549 and Lewis lung carcinoma cells in vivo.