Every Spike Lee Movie, Ranked
Updated 9/11/20 to add American Utopia.
Spike Lee's new Netflix film Da 5 Bloods has been earning mostly terrific reviews, but where does it rank among the veteran director's best films? In the gallery above, we rank every feature directed by Lee in order by Metascore (reflecting the consensus of top professional film critics) from worst to best.
Note that a few made-for-television films are not included because there were not enough reviews available to calculate a Metascore. These include Spike Lee & Company: Do It a Cappella (1990), Sucker Free City (2004), Kobe Doin' Work (2009), and 2 Fists Up (2016).
Lee’s film of Roger Guenveur Smith’s Obie Award-winning one-man play about the co-founder of the Black Panthers takes place on a stage that feels like a jail, with audience members behind a chain link fence. Lee’s directorial hand is felt in the clips and music used to accentuate the riveting performance by Smith, who sits in a chair in the middle of the theater.
“Lee and his top-notch production staff employ camera wizardry and lighting techniques to evocative effect, yet manage to never take away from Smith’s performance.” —Mark Sachs, Los Angeles Times
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