Every Spike Lee Movie, Ranked

by Keith Kimbell, Metacritic Film Editor – June 23, 2020

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).

3 of 36 photo by Fox Searchlight Pictures

44 #33: Girl 6

The first film Lee directed but did not write is a “comedy” by future Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog). The 1996 film stars Theresa Randle as a struggling actress who becomes a phone sex operator to make a living. Bookended by audition scenes that would have even more relevance in the #MeToo era, the film features a soundtrack by Prince and cameos by Madonna, Quentin Tarantino, Halle Berry and Naomi Campbell.

“Spike Lee deserved a vacation after putting himself through the grueling emotions of Clockers, but Girl 6 is too flimsy to excuse even as cinematic R&R. Frenetic but lazily conceived, it's like one of those puny low-budget toss-offs Brian De Palma used to spring on us when he thought nobody was looking.” —Mike Clark, USA Today

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