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Spike Lee
Directing
Biography
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 Ac…
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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.
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BODY OF WORK
Spike Lee's Filmography
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Sophie Marceau, à voix haute
as Self (archive footage)
AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy
as Self
Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music
as Self (archive footage)
13 Steps - Die unglaubliche Karriere von Edwin Moses
Samuel L. Jackson: Did I Stutter?
as self
The Moviemakers: Spike Lee
as Self
Denzel Washington: A Model American
as Self
Gold Blooded
as Self
Sidney
as Self
A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé
as Self
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
as Self
Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist
as Self
Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists
as Self
Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1
as Self
Plankton Salesmen
as Self (archive footage)
Be Truly Free
as Narrator (voice)
Birth of a Movement
as Self
Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
as Self
Spike Lee's Lil' Joints: The Greatest Catch Ever
as self
French Cinema Mon Amour
as Self
No Poster
Director Spike Lee's New York City
as Self
Champs
as Self
Ray Allen/AKA- Jesus Shuttlesworth
Do The Right Thing 25 Year Anniversary A Beats Music Experience
as self
Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee
as Self
We the People: From Crispus Attucks to President Barack Obama
as Self
Bad 25
as Self
Red Hook Summer
as Mr. Mookie
Yo! The Story of ‘Yo! MTV Raps’
as Self
Brooklyn Boheme
as Self
A Man's Story
as Self
Guest
as Self
On the Shoulders of Giants
Four Days in October
as Self (archive footage)
Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks
as Self
PoliWood
as Self
Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later
as Self
Kobe Doin' Work
as Self
40 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight
as Self
No Poster
Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies
Pixote In Memoriam
as Self
Lights, Action, Music
as Self
Life O' The Party: On the Road with Prince and the New Power Generation
as Self
Street Fight
as Self
How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)
By Any Means Necessary: The Making of 'Malcolm X'
as Self
Through the Fire
Best Sellers or: Peter Sellers and 'Dr. Strangelove'
as Self
No Fighting in the War Room Or: 'Dr Strangelove' and the Nuclear Threat
as Self
Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers
as Self
The Evolution of an American Filmmaker
as Self
No Poster
New York at the Movies
as Self
It's Black Entertainment
as Self
The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family'
as Self
3 A.M.
as Filmmaker
The Making of 'Bamboozled'
as Self
Lisa Picard Is Famous
as Spike Lee
Michael Jordan to the Max
as Self
Summer of Sam
as John Jeffries
4 Little Girls
as Interviewer (voice) (uncredited)
The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money
as Self
When We Were Kings
as Self
The Universal Story
as Self (archive footage)
Girl 6
as Jimmy
Lumière & Company
as Self (segment "Sarah Moon")
Clockers
as Chucky
Below the Rim
Drop Squad
as Himself
Hoop Dreams
as Self - Film Director
Crooklyn
as Snuffy
A Century of Cinema
as Self
Seven Songs for Malcolm X
Farewell, Babylon!
as Self
The Last Party
as Self
Malcolm X
as Shorty
No Poster
Our Hollywood Education
as Self
Sous les marches du palais
as Self
Jungle Fever
as Cyrus
MTV's 10th Anniversary Special
as Self
Branford Marsalis: Steep
as Self
Lonely in America
as Spike Lee (Newsstand Customer) (uncredited)
Mo' Better Blues
as Giant
Spike & Co.: Do It a Cappella
Spike & Co. Do It a-Cappella
as Self
Decade
as Self
No Poster
Making 'Do the Right Thing'
as Self
First Works
as Self
Do the Right Thing
as Mookie
Public Enemy: Fight the Power... Live!
School Daze
as Darrell 'Half-Pint' Dunlap
She's Gotta Have It
as Mars Blackmon