Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker and actor. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee received numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Peabody Awards as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award. Lee studied filmmaking at both Morehouse College and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he directed his student film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), which won a Student Academy Award. He later founded the production company  40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, where he has produced more than 35 films. He made his directorial debut with the comedy She's Gotta Have It (1986). He received widespread critical acclaim for the drama Do the Right Thing (1989), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He directed the historical epic Malcolm X (1992), earning the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. With the biographical crime dramedy BlacKkKlansman (2018), he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix Award. He has also written and directed films such as School Daze (1988), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), Bamboozled (2000), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), Chi-Raq (2015), Da 5 Bloods (2020), and Highest 2 Lowest (2025). Lee has also acted in eleven of his feature films. He is also known for directing numerous documentary projects, including 4 Little Girls (1997), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He directed the HBO series When the Levees Broke (2006), which won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program and Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. He also directed the HBO documentary If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010) and the David Byrne concert film American Utopia (2020). Lee has received several honours, including the Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, the Academy Honorary Award in 2015, and the National Medal of Arts in 2023. Five of his films have been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". He has received a Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. His films have featured breakthrough performances from actors such as Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo, John Turturro, and John David Washington. Description above from the Wikipedia article Spike Lee, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

• 2026APART — Writer
• 2026Talk Me — Executive Producer
• 2025From Sidney, with Love — Executive Producer
• 2025Highest 2 Lowest — Director, Executive Producer
• 2025How I Learned to Die — Executive Producer
• 2025In Between Storms — Executive Producer
• Katrina: Come Hell and High Water — Executive Producer, Director
• 2025Megadoc — Thanks
• 2025Nervous Energy — Executive Producer
• 2025The Voice of Hind Rajab — Executive Producer
• 202413 Steps - Die unglaubliche Karriere von Edwin Moses
• 2024Brownies — Executive Producer
• 2024F*ck That Guy — Executive Producer
• 2024PUNTER — Executive Producer
• 2024The Piano Lesson — Thanks
• 2024The Truck — Executive Producer
• 2023In Freedom — Executive Producer
• 2022Off-Time — Associate Producer
• The Captain — Executive Producer
• 2022You Resemble Me — Executive Producer
• NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½ — Producer, Director
• 2021Son of the South — Executive Producer
• 20203 Brothers: Radio Raheem, Eric Garner and George Floyd — Director
• 2020Da 5 Bloods — Writer, Producer, Director
• 2020David Byrne's American Utopia — Director, Executive Producer
• 2020New York New York — Director
• 2020Tales from the Hood 3 — Executive Producer
• 2019Land of the Free — Director
• 2019See You Yesterday — Producer
• 2018Amazing Grace — Producer
• 2018BlacKkKlansman — Writer, Director, Producer
• 2018Cherish — Executive Producer
• 2018Nigerian Prince — Executive Producer
• 2018Pass Over — Producer, Director
• 2018Tales from the Hood 2 — Executive Producer
• 2018The Black 14 — Executive Producer
• 2018Time 2 Surrender — Executive Producer
• 2017Be Truly Free — Narrator (voice), Director
• 2017Rodney King — Director, Producer
• She's Gotta Have It — Drum Major, Creator, Director
• 20162 Fists Up — Director, Producer
• 2016Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall — Self, Director
• 2016Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: $15 Kicks — Executive Producer
• 2016Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: Redemption Song — Executive Producer
• 2016Touched with Fire — Executive Producer
• 2015Chi-Raq — Director, Writer, Producer
• 2015Cronies — Executive Producer
• 2015Da Sweet Blood of Jesus — Screenplay, Producer, Director
• 2015Ray Allen/AKA- Jesus Shuttlesworth — Director
• 2015Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: Italian Imports — Assistant Director, Executive Producer
• 2015Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: Of the Father and of the Son — Executive Producer
• 2015Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: The Greatest Catch Ever — self, Director, Executive Producer
• 2015Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: The Ice Breaker — Executive Producer
• 2015Stop — Thanks
• 2015The Girl Is in Trouble — Executive Producer
• 2014Amex Unstaged Pharrell Williams Live at the Apollo — Director
• 2014Dirty Hands — Executive Producer
• 2014Do The Right Thing 25 Year Anniversary A Beats Music Experience — self, Director
• 2014Evolution of a Criminal — Executive Producer
• 2014I Can't Breathe — Director, Writer
• 2014Jerrod Carmichael: Love at the Store — Director
• 2014Katt Williams: Priceless: Afterlife — Director, Producer
• 2014Throw Like A Girl — Director
• 2013Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth — Director, Executive Producer
• 2013Oldboy — Director
• 2012Bad 25 — Self, Director
• 2012One Night — Presenter
• 2012Red Hook Summer — Mr. Mookie, Director, Screenplay, Producer
• 2012You're Nobody 'til Somebody Kills You — Executive Producer
• 2011Doubles with Slight Pepper — Executive Producer
• 2011On the Shoulders of Giants
• 2011Pariah — Executive Producer
• If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise — Director, Producer, Creator
• 2010Saint John of Las Vegas — Executive Producer
• 2009Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later — Self, Director
• 2009Kobe Doin' Work — Self, Producer, Director
• 2009Passing Strange — Director
• 2008Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies
• 2008Genesis | Come Rain or Shine — Camera Operator
• 2008Miracle at St. Anna — Director, Producer
• 2006All the Invisible Children — Director, Producer
• 2006Inside Man — Director
• Shark — Director
• When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts — Producer, Director, Creator
• 2005C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America — Presenter
• 2005How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)
• 2005Jesus Children of America — Director
• Miracle's Boys — Director
• 2005Through the Fire
• 2004She Hate Me — Director, Screenplay, Producer
• 2004Sucker Free City — Director
• 2003Good Fences — Executive Producer
• 200225th Hour — Producer, Director
• 2002Jim Brown: All-American — Director, Producer
• 2002Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet — Director, Producer
• 20013 A.M. — Filmmaker, Producer, Co-Executive Producer
• 2001A Huey P. Newton Story — Director
• 2001Come Rain or Come Shine — Director of Photography
• 2001Home Invaders — Executive Producer
• 2001The Concert for New York City — Director, Director of Photography
• 2001The Making of 'Bamboozled' — Self, Director
• 2000Bamboozled — Director, Screenplay, Producer
• 2000Bernie Mac: Live from Charlotte — Director
• 2000Lisa Picard Is Famous — Spike Lee
• 2000Love & Basketball — Producer
• 2000The Original Kings of Comedy — Director, Producer
• 1999Pavarotti & Friends 99 for Guatemala and Kosovo — Director
• 1999Summer of Sam — John Jeffries, Director, Writer, Producer
• 1999The Best Man — Producer
• 1998He Got Game — Screenplay, Producer, Director
• 1998John Leguizamo: Freak — Director
• 1998Pavarotti & Friends - For the Children of Liberia — Director
• 19974 Little Girls — Interviewer (voice) (uncredited), Director, Producer, Writer
• 1997HIStory on Film, Volume II — Director
• 1996Get on the Bus — Director, Executive Producer
• 1996Girl 6 — Jimmy, Director, Producer
• 1995Below the Rim
• 1995Clockers — Chucky, Director, Screenplay, Producer
• 1995Lumière & Company — Self (segment "Sarah Moon"), Director
• 1995New Jersey Drive — Executive Producer
• 1995Tales from the Hood — Executive Producer
• 1994Crooklyn — Snuffy, Director, Producer, Screenplay
• 1994Drop Squad — Himself, Executive Producer
• 1993Seven Songs for Malcolm X
• Ghostwriter — Special Agent Pete (archive footage)
• 1992Malcolm X — Shorty, Screenplay, Director, Producer
• 1992Prince and the N.P.G.: Diamonds and Pearls Video Collection — Director
• 1991Jungle Fever — Cyrus, Producer, Director, Writer
• 1991Suspect — Thanks
• In Living Color
• 1990Lonely in America — Spike Lee (Newsstand Customer) (uncredited)
• 1990Mo' Better Blues — Giant, Director, Writer, Producer
• 1990Spike & Co.: Do It a Cappella — Director
• 1990Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson — Director
• 1989Do the Right Thing — Mookie, Producer, Screenplay, Director
• 1989Public Enemy: Fight the Power... Live!
• 1988School Daze — Darrell 'Half-Pint' Dunlap, Director, Writer, Producer
• 1986Horn of Plenty — Writer, Director
• 1986She's Gotta Have It — Mars Blackmon, Writer, Director, Editor, Producer
• 1983Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads — Director, Producer, Editor, Writer
• 1981Sarah — Director
• 1980The Answer — Director
• The South Bank Show
• Saturday Night Live — Mars Blackmon, Self (uncredited)
• Boner — Writer, Director, Producer
• Gordon Hemingway & the Realm of Cthulhu — Producer
• Liberty — Producer

Appearances as themselves (89)

• 2026AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy — Self
• 2026Sophie Marceau, à voix haute — Self (archive footage)
• 2025Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music — Self (archive footage)
• Mr. Scorsese — Self
• Hollywood Black — Self (archive footage)
• 2023Samuel L. Jackson: Did I Stutter? — self
• 2023The Moviemakers: Spike Lee — Self
• 2022A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé — Self
• 2022Denzel Washington: A Model American — Self
• 2022Gold Blooded — Self
• 2022Sidney — Self
• They Call Me Magic — Self
• 2021A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks — Self
• 2021Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist — Self
• Directors on Directors — Self
• Pretend It's a City — Self
• This Is Pop — Self (archive footage)
• Dear... — Self
• Desus & Mero — Self - Illustrious Guest
• The Tamron Hall Show — Self - Guest
• Basketball: A Love Story — Self (archive footage)
• 2018Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists — Self
• 2018Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 — Self
• 2017Birth of a Movement — Self
• 2017Plankton Salesmen — Self (archive footage)
• 2015Champs — Self
• Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter — Self
• 2015Director Spike Lee's New York City — Self
• 2015French Cinema Mon Amour — Self
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — Self - Guest
• Late Night with Seth Meyers — Self - Guest
• 2014Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee — Self
• The Men in Blazers Show — Self
• The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — Self, Self - Guest
• 2014We the People: From Crispus Attucks to President Barack Obama — Self
• 2012Brooklyn Boheme — Self
• 2012Yo! The Story of ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ — Self
• 2011A Man's Story — Self
• 2011Guest — Self
• 2010Four Days in October — Self (archive footage)
• Who Do You Think You Are? — Self
• 2010Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks — Self
• 2009PoliWood — Self
• 200840 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight — Self
• 2007Lights, Action, Music — Self
• 2007Pixote In Memoriam — Self
• 2005By Any Means Necessary: The Making of 'Malcolm X' — Self
• It's the Shoes — Self
• 2005Life O' The Party: On the Road with Prince and the New Power Generation — Self
• 2005Street Fight — Self
• 2004Best Sellers or: Peter Sellers and 'Dr. Strangelove' — Self
• 2004Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers — Self
• 2004No Fighting in the War Room Or: 'Dr Strangelove' and the Nuclear Threat — Self
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Self - Guest
• Real Time with Bill Maher — Self
• The Ellen DeGeneres Show — Self
• 2003The Evolution of an American Filmmaker — Self
• 2002It's Black Entertainment — Self
• Johnny Vaughan Tonight — Self
• 2002New York at the Movies — Self
• 2002The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family' — Self
• 2000Michael Jordan to the Max — Self
• The Early Show — Self
• The Chris Rock Show — Self
• The View — Self
• The Daily Show — Self - Guest
• 1996The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money — Self
• 1996The Universal Story — Self (archive footage)
• 1996When We Were Kings — Self
• 1994A Century of Cinema — Self
• 1994Hoop Dreams — Self
• Inside the Actors Studio — Self
• 1993Farewell, Babylon! — Self
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien — Self - Guest
• Late Show with David Letterman — Self - Guest
• 1993The Last Party — Self
• 1992Our Hollywood Education — Self
• 1991Branford Marsalis: Steep — Self
• 1991MTV's 10th Anniversary Special — Self
• 1991Sous les marches du palais — Self
• 1990Spike & Co. Do It a-Cappella — Self
• 1989Decade — Self
• 1989First Works — Self
• 1989Making 'Do the Right Thing' — Self
• Yo! MTV Raps — Self
• The American Film Institute Salute to ... — Self
• Film '72 — Self
• Great Performances — Self
• The Oscars — Self, Self - Audience Member