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).
This divisive satire about how mass media perpetuates racism stars Damon Wayans as a television writer who hopes his latest show idea, a new minstrel show featuring Black actors in blackface, will get him fired. It does not. Now part of the Criterion Collection, the film proved Lee to be, once again, ahead of his time, willing to push himself (he shot on cheap digital video) and his audience.
“Spike Lee lost his nerve -- there are moments here, too, when it also seems like he lost his sense.” —Manohla Dargis, LA Weekly
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