Spike Lee filmography

Spike Lee in 2007

Spike Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor, known for films that deal with controversial social and political issues. Each of Lee's films is typically referred to as "A Spike Lee Joint" and the closing credits always end with the phrases "By Any Means Necessary," "Ya Dig," and "Sho Nuff."

Lee received a Master of Fine Arts from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, which culminated in his thesis film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, the first student film to be shown in Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films Festival. Lee's first feature film, She's Gotta Have It, was released three years later in 1986. Lee directed, produced, wrote, and acted in his first three feature films: She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, and Do the Right Thing, and has since starred or acted in others. He reprised the role of Mars Blackmon from She's Gotta Have It for a series of Nike commercials that also starred Michael Jordan.

Lee has directed music videos by artists such as Prince, Michael Jackson, Anita Baker and Eminem, and for songs featured in films he has directed, including "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy, which was featured heavily in the 1989 film Do the Right Thing.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Credited as
		Director	Producer	Writer	Notes
1983	Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also editor and assistant camera
1986	She's Gotta Have It	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also editor
1988	School Daze	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also executive soundtrack producer
1989	Do the Right Thing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also executive soundtrack producer and song producer: "Fight the Power"
1990	Mo' Better Blues	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also executive soundtrack producer and songwriter: "Top Pop 40"
1991	Jungle Fever	Yes	Yes	Yes
1992	Malcolm X	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also executive soundtrack producer
1994	Crooklyn	Yes	Yes	Yes
1995	Clockers	Yes	Yes	Yes
1996	Girl 6	Yes	Yes	No
	Get on the Bus	Yes	Executive	No
1998	He Got Game	Yes	Yes	Yes
1999	Summer of Sam	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also executive soundtrack producer
2000	Bamboozled	Yes	Yes	Yes
2002	25th Hour	Yes	Yes	No
2004	She Hate Me	Yes	Yes	Yes
2006	Inside Man	Yes	No	No
2008	Miracle at St. Anna	Yes	Yes	No
2012	Red Hook Summer	Yes	Yes	Yes
2013	Oldboy	Yes	No	No
2014	Da Sweet Blood of Jesus	Yes	Yes	Yes
2015	Chi-Raq	Yes	Yes	Yes
2018	BlacKkKlansman	Yes	Yes	Yes
2020	Da 5 Bloods	Yes	Yes	Yes
TBA	High and Low	Yes	Executive	Yes

Executive producer

• Drop Squad (1994)
• New Jersey Drive (1995)
• Tales from the Hood (1995)
• Afrocentricity (2000)
• Good Fences (2003)
• Pariah (2011)
• Evolution of a Criminal (2014)
• Manos sucias (2014)
• Cronies (2015)
• The Girl Is in Trouble (2015)
• Tales from the Hood 2 (2018)
• Son of the South (2020)
• Tales from the Hood 3 (2020)
• You Resemble Me (2021)

Producer

• The Best Man (1999)
• Love & Basketball (2000)
• 3 A.M. (2001)
• Dream Street (2005)
• Saint John of Las Vegas (2009)
• You're Nobody 'til Somebody Kills You (2011)
• See You Yesterday (2019)
• Amazing Grace (2019)

Short films

Year	Title	Credited as			Notes
		Director	Writer	Producer
1979	Last Hustle in Brooklyn	Yes	Yes	No
1980	The Answer	Yes	Yes	No
1981	Sarah	Yes	Yes	No
1995	Lumière and Company	Yes	No	No	Segment
2001	Come Rain or Come Shine	Yes	No	No
2002	"We Wuz Robbed"	Yes	No	Yes	Segment of Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
2005	"Jesus Children of America"	Yes	No	Yes	Segment of All the Invisible Children
2017	Brave: Visions for Moncler	Yes	No	No
2020	New York, New York	Yes	Yes	Yes
	3 Brothers: Radio Raheem, Eric Garner and George Floyd	Yes	Yes	Yes

Documentaries

Year	Title	Credited as
		Director	Producer
1997	4 Little Girls	Yes	Yes
2000	The Original Kings of Comedy	Yes	Yes
2012	Bad 25	Yes	Yes
2016	Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall	Yes	Yes
2020	David Byrne's American Utopia	Yes	Yes

Acting roles

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1986	She's Gotta Have It	Mars Blackmon
1988	School Daze	Darrell "Half-Pint" Dunlap
1989	Do the Right Thing	Mookie
1990	Mo' Better Blues	Giant
	Lonely in America	Himself
1991	Jungle Fever	Cyrus
1992	Malcolm X	Shorty
1994	Crooklyn	Snuffy
	Drop Squad	Himself
1995	Lumière and Company		Short film
	Clockers	Chucky
1996	Girl 6	Jimmy
1999	Summer of Sam	John Jeffries
2000	Lisa Picard Is Famous	Himself
2006	Inside Man	Civilian	Uncredited
2012	Red Hook Summer	Mookie	Uncredited

Television

Year	Title	Credited as			Notes
		Director	Producer	Writer
2004	Sucker Free City	Yes	Yes	No	Television film
2005	Miracle's Boys	Yes	No	No	Episodes: "New Charlie" and "Bond of Brothers"
2006	Shark	Yes	No	No	Pilot
2007	M.O.N.Y.	Yes	No	No	Unaired pilot
2011	Da Brick	Yes	Yes	No	Unaired pilot
2014	Katt Williams: Priceless: Afterlife	Yes	Executive	No	Stand-up special
	Jerrod Carmichael: Love at the Store	Yes	No	No
2017–2019	She's Gotta Have It	Yes	Executive	Yes	Creator

Documentary

Year	Title	Credited as
		Director	Producer
1990	Spike Lee & Company: Do It a Cappella	Yes	No
1999	Pavarotti and Friends for Guatemala and Kosovo	Yes	No
2002	Jim Brown: All-American	Yes	Yes
2006	When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts	Yes	Yes
2009	Kobe Doin' Work	Yes	Yes
2010	If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise	Yes	Yes
2021	NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½	Yes	Yes
2022	The Captain	No	Yes

Stage show

Year	Title	Credited as
		Director	Producer
1998	Freak	Yes	No
2001	A Huey P. Newton Story	Yes	No
2008	Passing Strange	Yes	No
2013	Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth	Yes	Yes
2017	Rodney King	Yes	Yes
2018	Pass Over	Yes	No
2020	American Utopia	Yes	Yes

Acting roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1986	Saturday Night Live	Mars Blackmon	Episode: "Malcolm-Jamal Warner/Run-DMC"
1992	Ghostwriter	Special Agent Pete	Episode: "Into the Comics: Part 1"
2017–2019	She's Gotta Have It	Joe the Bartender / Drum Major	2 episodes

Music videos

Year	Artist	Song	Album
1983	Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel	"White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)"	Non-album single
1987	Anita Baker	"No One in the World"	Rapture
1988	E.U.	"Da Butt"	School Daze OST
1989	Public Enemy	"Fight the Power"	Do the Right Thing OST and Fear of a Black Planet
1991	Fishbone	"Sunless Saturday"	The Reality of My Surroundings
	State of Art	"Understanding"	Community
1992		"Laughing at the Years"
	Prince and the New Power Generation	"Money Don't Matter 2 Night"	Diamonds and Pearls
	Arrested Development	"Revolution"	Malcolm X OST
1993	Naughty by Nature	"Hip Hop Hooray"	19 Naughty III
	Eros Ramazzotti	"Cose della vita"	Tutte storie
	Bruce Hornsby	"Talk Of The Town"	Harbor Lights
1994	Buckshot LeFonque	"Breakfast at Denny's"	Buckshot LeFonque
1996	Michael Jackson	"They Don't Care About Us" (Prison Version)	HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I
		"They Don't Care About Us" (Brazil/Olodum Version)
2000	Mau Maus	"Blak Iz Blak"	Bamboozled
2009	Michael Jackson	"This Is It"	This Is It
2014	Eminem	"Headlights"	The Marshall Mathers LP 2
2019	The Killers	"Land of the Free"	Non-album singles
2020	Michael Jackson	"They Don't Care About Us" (2020)

Video games

Year	Title	Credited as
		Director	Executive Producer	Writer
2015	NBA 2K16	Yes	Yes	Yes

See also

• Spike Lee's unrealized projects

Bibliography

• "Spike Lee > Filmography". Allmovie. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
• "Spike Lee – Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-02-09.

External links

• Spike Lee filmography at IMDb