Spike Lee Movies: Essential Films
These six films demonstrate Spike Lee's evolution from scrappy independent filmmaker to one of cinema's master storytellers, while highlighting his consistent commitment to examining race, identity, and social justice with uncompromising honesty.
The selection spans his breakthrough indie She's Gotta Have It, his searing masterpiece Do the Right Thing, and his towering epic Malcolm X. It continues with his definitive post-9/11 New York portrait 25th Hour, his slick genre triumph Inside Man, and culminates with his Oscar-winning BlacKkKlansman. Together these films capture his signature style: bold visual experimentation, razor-sharp social commentary, and an urgency that has kept his work vital across four decades.
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She's Gotta Have It
The story of Nola Darling's simultaneous sexual relationships with three different men is told by her and by her partners and other friends. All three men wanted her to commit solely to them; Nola resists being "owned" by a single partner.
Do the Right Thing
Salvatore "Sal" Fragione 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Other Film Series
Bruce Dern
A prolific character actor known for intense villain roles and complex antiheroes across six decades of cinema.
Con Artists
Films about grifters, swindlers, and confidence tricksters who use deception and manipulation to separate marks from their money.
Madea
Tyler Perry's comedy-drama series featuring the outspoken and larger-than-life Mabel 'Madea' Simmons as she intervenes in various family situations.
Miss Marple
Theatrical adaptations of Agatha Christie's amateur detective Miss Marple, featuring Margaret Rutherford's iconic 1960s series and Angela Lansbury's standalone film.
No Retreat, No Surrender
A trilogy of standalone martial arts action films connected only by title and shared themes of underdog fighters facing overwhelming odds.
Peter Bogdanovich
Influential American filmmaker and film critic who emerged as a key figure of the New Hollywood movement with his masterful early 1970s films.