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

AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy

20266.0

Clockers

19956.7

Jungle Fever

19916.4

Sidney

20227.0

Summer of Sam

19996.5

Pixote In Memoriam

20077.3

School Daze

19885.7

Bad 25

20127.3

Plankton Salesmen

2017

Girl 6

19965.0

Mo' Better Blues

19906.5

Crooklyn

19946.8

Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music

20257.8

She's Gotta Have It

19866.6

Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee

20141.5

Lumière & Company

19956.3

Denzel Washington: A Model American

20227.2

New York at the Movies

20029.0

Public Enemy: Fight the Power... Live!

1989

Yo! The Story of ‘Yo! MTV Raps’

20125.0

When We Were Kings

19967.6

Guest

20116.0

Samuel L. Jackson: Did I Stutter?

20239.0

Hoop Dreams

19947.6

Making 'Do the Right Thing'

19896.9

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

2015

Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall

20167.0

PoliWood

20096.5

Farewell, Babylon!

1993

Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later

20097.0

On the Shoulders of Giants

20116.3

MTV's 10th Anniversary Special

1991

Michael Jordan to the Max

20007.5

A Century of Cinema

19948.3

A Man's Story

20116.9

Director Spike Lee's New York City

2015

Spike & Co.: Do It a Cappella

1990

The Universal Story

19968.0

Spike & Co. Do It a-Cappella

199010.0

French Cinema Mon Amour

20155.2

Red Hook Summer

20125.4

3 A.M.

20015.8

It's Black Entertainment

20028.7

Branford Marsalis: Steep

1991

First Works

19897.0

A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks

20216.8

Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies

20087.0

4 Little Girls

19977.1

Lisa Picard Is Famous

20004.6

The Evolution of an American Filmmaker

20037.3

Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1

20186.8

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

20056.0

Birth of a Movement

20176.4

Drop Squad

19943.5

Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists

20187.1

Through the Fire

20057.1

A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé

2022

Our Hollywood Education

19928.0

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

20045.8

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

2015

Street Fight

20056.9

The Last Party

19935.2

Gold Blooded

2022

Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist

20218.0

Sous les marches du palais

1991

Decade

19898.5

Kobe Doin' Work

20096.5

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

20045.8

Seven Songs for Malcolm X

199310.0

Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers

200410.0

The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family'

20029.0

The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money

19965.5

Ray Allen/AKA- Jesus Shuttlesworth

2015

Four Days in October

20106.6

Be Truly Free

2017

The Making of 'Bamboozled'

20015.5

Champs

20156.3

The Moviemakers: Spike Lee

2023

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

20085.0

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks

20107.7

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

20057.2

Lonely in America

19904.4

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

2005

Below the Rim

19958.0

Brooklyn Boheme

20126.8

Do The Right Thing 25 Year Anniversary A Beats Music Experience

2014

We the People: From Crispus Attucks to President Barack Obama

2014

Lights, Action, Music

20077.0