Spike Lee

Directing · 2.6 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: March 20, 1957
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Biography

Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker and actor. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee received numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Peabody Awards as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award. Lee studied filmmaking at both Morehouse College and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he directed his student film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), which won a Student Academy Award. He later founded the production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, where he has produced more than 35 films. He made his directorial debut with the comedy She's Gotta Have It (1986). He received widespread critical acclaim for the drama Do the Right Thing (1989), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He directed the historical epic Malcolm X (1992), earning the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. With the biographical crime dramedy BlacKkKlansman (2018), he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix Award. He has also written and directed films such as School Daze (1988), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), Bamboozled (2000), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), Chi-Raq (2015), Da 5 Bloods (2020), and Highest 2 Lowest (2025). Lee has also acted in eleven of his feature films. He is also known for directing numerous documentary projects, including 4 Little Girls (1997), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He directed the HBO series When the Levees Broke (2006), which won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program and Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. He also directed the HBO documentary If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010) and the David Byrne concert film American Utopia (2020). Lee has received several honours, including the Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, the Academy Honorary Award in 2015, and the National Medal of Arts in 2023. Five of his films have been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". He has received a Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. His films have featured breakthrough performances from actors such as Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo, John Turturro, and John David Washington. Description above from the Wikipedia article Spike Lee, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Works

90 films

Malcolm X

19927.6

Do the Right Thing

19897.8

Clockers

19956.7

Jungle Fever

19916.4

AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy

20266.0

Pixote In Memoriam

20077.3

Summer of Sam

19996.5

School Daze

19885.7

Plankton Salesmen

2017

Girl 6

19965.0

Sidney

20227.0

Bad 25

20127.3

Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music

20257.8

Crooklyn

19946.8

Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee

20141.5

Mo' Better Blues

19906.5

Guest

20116.0

She's Gotta Have It

19866.6

Lumière & Company

19956.3

Public Enemy: Fight the Power... Live!

1989

Yo! The Story of ‘Yo! MTV Raps’

20125.0

Denzel Washington: A Model American

20227.2

New York at the Movies

20029.0

When We Were Kings

19967.6

Making 'Do the Right Thing'

19896.9

Samuel L. Jackson: Did I Stutter?

20239.0

On the Shoulders of Giants

20116.3

Farewell, Babylon!

1993

Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall

20167.0

Michael Jordan to the Max

20007.5

NBA 2K16’s Livin’ Da Dream: A Spike Lee Joint

2015

A Century of Cinema

19948.3

Hoop Dreams

19947.6

It's Black Entertainment

20028.7

MTV's 10th Anniversary Special

1991

First Works

19897.0

Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later

20097.0

French Cinema Mon Amour

20155.2

Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1

20186.8

Spike & Co.: Do It a Cappella

1990

PoliWood

20096.5

A Man's Story

20116.9

Red Hook Summer

20125.4

Director Spike Lee's New York City

2015

Drop Squad

19943.5

Branford Marsalis: Steep

1991

By Any Means Necessary: The Making of 'Malcolm X'

20056.0

Birth of a Movement

20176.4

The Evolution of an American Filmmaker

20037.3

A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks

20216.8

3 A.M.

20015.8

Spike & Co. Do It a-Cappella

199010.0

The Universal Story

19968.0

Gold Blooded

2022

The Last Party

19935.2

A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé

2022

4 Little Girls

19977.1

The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money

19965.5

Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists

20187.1

Lisa Picard Is Famous

20004.6

No Fighting in the War Room Or: 'Dr Strangelove' and the Nuclear Threat

20045.8

Kobe Doin' Work

20096.5

The Making of 'Bamboozled'

20015.5

Sous les marches du palais

1991

Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist

20218.0

Through the Fire

20057.1

Seven Songs for Malcolm X

199310.0

Ray Allen/AKA- Jesus Shuttlesworth

2015

Best Sellers or: Peter Sellers and 'Dr. Strangelove'

20045.8

Champs

20156.3

Street Fight

20056.9

Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies

20087.0

Our Hollywood Education

19928.0

Life O' The Party: On the Road with Prince and the New Power Generation

2005

The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family'

20029.0

Brooklyn Boheme

20126.8

40 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight

20085.0

Be Truly Free

2017

Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: The Greatest Catch Ever

2015

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)

20057.2

Decade

19898.5

Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers

200410.0

Do The Right Thing 25 Year Anniversary A Beats Music Experience

2014

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks

20107.7

Four Days in October

20106.6

Below the Rim

19958.0

Lights, Action, Music

20077.0

Lonely in America

19904.4

The Moviemakers: Spike Lee

2023

We the People: From Crispus Attucks to President Barack Obama

2014