Spike Lee

Director

March 20, 1957 (69 years)

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 stud…

Filmography

6.7

Shark

Notorious Los Angeles defense attorney Sebastian Stark becomes disillusioned with his career after his successful defense of a wife-abuser results in the wife's death. After more than a month trying to come to grips with his situation, he is invited by the Los Angeles district attorney to become a public prosecutor so he can apply his unorthodox-but-effective talents to putting guilty people away instead of putting them back on the street.

7.4

Inside Man

When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.

5.5

Highest 2 Lowest

When a titan music mogul, widely known as having the "best ears in the business", is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma.

5.9

Oldboy

A man has only three and a half days and limited resources to discover why he was imprisoned in a nondescript room for 20 years without any explanation.

7.6

Malcolm X

A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.

7.5

BlacKkKlansman

Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.

7.8

Do the Right Thing

Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.

7.3

25th Hour

On the eve of a seven-year prison sentence, a New York drug dealer spends his final day of freedom confronting his past, his relationships, and the choices that led to his downfall in a city still reeling from 9/11.

6.3

She's Gotta Have It

Nola Darling struggles to define herself and divide her time among her friends, job and three lovers. A new take on Spike Lee's film, in 10 episodes.

6.5

Summer of Sam

Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American Northeast Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.

6.4

Da 5 Bloods

Four African-American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam. They are in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. These heroes battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.

6.7

He Got Game

A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

6.2

Katrina: Come Hell and High Water

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, survivors reflect on the disastrous storm that forever changed their lives and the systemic inequities it exposed.

6.4

Jungle Fever

A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.

7.5

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Spike Lee's award-winning documentary follows the events that preceded and followed Hurricane Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans in 2005.

5.2

She Hate Me

Fired from his job, a former executive turns to impregnating wealthy lesbians for profit.

6.7

Clockers

Strike is a young city drug pusher under the tutelage of drug lord Rodney Little. When a night manager at a fast-food restaurant is found with four bullets in his body, Strike’s older brother turns himself in as the killer. Detective Rocco Klein doesn’t buy the story, however, setting out to find the truth, and it seems that all the fingers point toward Strike & Rodney.

5.7

Chi-Raq

A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.

6.1

Miracle at St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four American soldiers who are members of the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.

5.0

Girl 6

A struggling actress in New York City takes a job as a phone sex operator.