Spike Lee

Known for DirectingBorn 1957-03-20 (age 69)Atlanta, Georgia, USA

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.Read more

Movies & web series

Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers

Seven Songs for Malcolm X

Spike & Co. Do It a-Cappella

Hollywood Black

Samuel L. Jackson: Did I Stutter?

Stop

New York at the Movies

The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family'

It's Black Entertainment

HIStory on Film, Volume II

Decade

Mr. Scorsese

The Voice of Hind Rajab

A Century of Cinema

Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist

Genesis | Come Rain or Shine

Jesus Children of America

The Captain

Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music

New York New York

Pavarotti & Friends 99 for Guatemala and Kosovo

The Universal Story

Below the Rim

Evolution of a Criminal

Our Hollywood Education

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks

David Byrne's American Utopia

BlacKkKlansman

Do the Right Thing

Pretend It's a City

Pixote In Memoriam

Inside the Actors Studio

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Hoop Dreams

When We Were Kings

Malcolm X

In Living Color

Sidney

Basketball: A Love Story

Inside Man

Michael Jordan to the Max

Bad 25

Denzel Washington: A Model American

They Call Me Magic

Yo! MTV Raps

Love & Basketball

25th Hour

Amazing Grace