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).
After starring in perhaps the greatest concert film of all time, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne made another highly successful journey to the big* screen in 2020 with a Spike Lee-directed film of Byrne's innovative stage show, which finds him performing Talking Heads classics as well as songs from across his solo catalog with the help of a kinetic, untethered backing band. Critics deemed the result euphoric, and a perfect pairing of two accomplished artists.
* At least at the Toronto International Film Festival; most people will only get to see it on the small screen when it debuts October 17 on HBO and HBO Max.
“Lee's knack for distilling the energy of live performance is no secret, for example in his terrific 2009 film of the unconventional Broadway musical Passing Strange. But the synergy here between filmmaker and subject — from the avant-funk grooves to the spirit of inclusivity and the urge to heal a broken nation — is simply spectacular.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
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