18. Girl 6 (1996)
The biggest
knock on Spike Lee is that his female characters are never as interesting as
their male counterparts. So perhaps it’s inevitable that one of the few movies
in his filmography centered on a female character is his worst – even if it is
written by a woman. The film is basically a male fantasy disguised as a female
empowerment movie. The main character is played by Theresa Randle, as an
aspiring actress who works for a phone sex line to pay the bills – and finds
she prefers the fantasy world of the calls, to real men. This is, of course,
the opposite of what we would normally think – the men are paying for the
fantasy of talking dirty to the women, who provide the service for a fee. That
the movie is rather aimless in terms of its plot doesn’t help, but the biggest
problem is that you never believe the central concept – or the main character.
The rest of the film doesn’t stand a chance.
17. Red Hook Summer (2012)
Lee’s latest
film is perhaps the messiest one he has ever made. It tells the story of a
young teenager dropped off in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook by his
mother to spend the summer with the grandfather he doesn’t know. The best thing
about the movie is Clarke Peters amazing performance as the grandfather – a
Baptist preacher idolized by his very small congregation. He keeps the movie as
grounded as possible, as Lee moves through his overstuffed and meandering plot,
that has one twist too many at the end. That final plot twist derails the
movie, but it had problems well before then – specifically that other than
Peters, none of the performances are very good. This is Lee at his rawest – it
actually feels like a film by a promising young director, rather than an
established master. There are things in Red Hook Summer to admire, but
basically, the film is a mess.
16. She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
I am more
than willing to concede that in 1986, a film like She’s Gotta Have It must have
seem almost revolutionary to many. This was an indie film, by a black
filmmaker, about black characters, that wasn’t about crime and poverty – but
instead was about sexuality. It marked Lee as a filmmaker to watch – and he’s
more than fulfilled the promise that She’s Gotta Have It shows. Yet like Girl
6, She’s Gotta Have It really doesn’t seem to understand it’s central
character, and really seems to be more of a male fantasy than what it purports
to be – an exploration of female sexuality. The central character is played by
Tracy Camilla Johns, playing a promiscuous young artist, juggling three very
different men – and then, for some reason, there’s also a lesbian thrown in as
well, although her portrayal is positively cringe worthy nearly 30 years later.
She’s Gotta Have It certainly has a place in American Indie movie history – and
among Lee’s filmography. But it’s a film that is far more interesting in terms
of what it shows was possible to do with no budget, and what Lee would later
do, than it is on its own terms.
15. Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
Mo’ Better
Blues is a solid, respectable film that is certainly less flawed than some of
the movies that I rank higher, but also a little less interesting. It plays
very much like a standard issue musical biopic (although Lee does upend some
clichés of the genre) except, of course, it’s not really a biopic as there was
never a musician named Bleek played by Denzel Washington in his first pairing
with Lee. Lee obviously knows the world of New York Jazz clubs – being the son
of a jazz musician himself – and the look and feel of the movie is just about
right, and the performances – by Washington, who is almost willfully
self-destructive, Wesley Snipes as a member of his band who wants the
spotlight, Cynda Williams and Joie Lee as the opposite women in Bleek’s life,
and Lee himself as his gambling addicted manager – are all excellent as well. There
is not much to complain about in Mo’ Better Blues – except I feel like I’ve
seen this film before, and done better – and I’ve never really had the urge to
revisit it.
14. Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
Out of all
Spike Lee’s films, Miracle at St. Anna is perhaps the most frustrating –
because there are scenes of greatness in the movie, scenes that are different
from practically any other WWII movie I have seen, but they are marred by a lot
of scenes that really don’t belong in the film. The film tells the story of
four Americans caught behind enemy lines in Italy in WWII – three black men and
a Puerto Rican. They are angry about their treatment in America – where during
basic training, they are treated worse than Nazi prisoners of War, and suffer
racism at the hands of their superior officers. This is an important story –
because it’s not the way things are usually presented in WWII movies (which far
too often, ignore African Americans soldiers completely). And there is also a
wonderful battle sequence in the movie that really should be more widely seen.
But there are too many subplots – anything in modern day could be jettisoned without
losing anything, and the story of the bond between the gentle giant soldier and
a young Italian boy doesn’t fit). There is so much to like in Miracle at St.
Anna – and it’s far better than the reviews suggest it was – but there are so
many flaws in the movie as well.
13. She Hate Me (2004)
I have a
feeling most lists of Lee’s films would probably have She Hate Me as his worst.
I cannot really argue with the points that many critics have used to beat the
movie to death. There is no doubt that movie is offensive and ridiculous. It is
about a man (Anthony Mackie) who loses his high paying job when he becomes a
whistleblower, and in order to make ends meet, starts impregnating lesbians for
$10,000 each. Oh, and not only that, he usually impregnates them the first
time, and the sex is not just by the book, standard issue baby making sex, but
earth shattering sex – for both him and the lesbians. And then Lee throws in a
bunch of other stuff as well. So no, you can’t really believe any of She Hate
Me. But this is a movie that is so brazen and in your face, and so gleefully
over the top and politically incorrect, you have to kind of admire it. I’m not
quite sure I agree with Roger Ebert that Lee is in on the joke, and instead of
making a movie that condemns what the film seems to celebrate, he decided to
take the opposite tact, and celebrate it, so the audience draws the same
conclusions that they would have had he condemned it – but then would have felt
preached at. But maybe Lee did. He’s not an idiot after all. But whatever the
intentions of She Hate Me, it is an unforgettable mess of a movie – that I
would gladly watch again.
12. School Daze (1988)
Lee’s second
film, School Daze, was a major step forward for Lee – and already showed his
willingness to tackle taboo subject matter within the African American
community. It takes place at an all-black university that seems deeply divided.
There are those, like Laurence Fishburne, who reject the conservative
administration and Greek frats, and those, like Giancarlo Esposito, who embrace
it. There is an even a musical number between two sets of black women – the
lighter skinned ones with straight hair, and the dark skins ones with short
hair and afros, that expresses their differences better than any dialogue
would. And then there is a painful scene where Esposito talks his girlfriend
into deflowering a frat pledge – played by Lee himself – and then condemns her
for it. In a way, School Daze may well be the best film Lee has ever made about
African American women. The movie is still flawed – it tries to cram too much
in, like many of Lee’s films, and its ragged around the edges. But it goes for
broke like no one except Lee would ever attempt to do.
11. Get on the Bus (1996)
Get on the
Bus was made by Lee quickly and cheaply when he got funding for a group of
black celebrities. It is about a group of men travelling from L.A. to
Washington D.C. on a bus for the Million Man March. The men are wildly
different – from their reasonable leader, to the old man who remembers more
clearly the abuses of the past, to a father and son who have to be chained
together, to a cop, to a former gang banger who now does social work, to a gay
couple who still finds prejudice on the bus from one of the other passengers,
to a silent member of the Nation of Islam. Like some of the film I already
listed, Get on the Bus feels at times to be largely improvised – like Lee is
making it up as he goes along. And yet, unlike many of those films, he sustains
that tone for the whole movie. This isn’t Lee’s most ambitious film, nor his
best, but in its own quiet way, it’s profound – and it’s hard to find anything
wrong with the film.
10. Crooklyn (1994)
Crooklyn is
Lee’s most nostalgic film – and in some ways, his most innocent. It is not an
autobiography of his life growing up, but it was inspired by it (and co-written
his brother and sister). It is about a large family in Brooklyn in the early
1970s, and perhaps Lee’s greatest accomplishment is that they actually do feel
like a family – the kids needle each other in just the way only brothers and
sisters can do, the parents love each other, but are stressed, and at times
don’t really like each other. The movie looks back at a more innocent time –
before crime ruined Lee’s neighborhood. In many ways, it’s a laid back film,
which Lee hasn’t often made – but a funny, perceptive and emotional one.9. Summer of Sam (1999)
Summer of
Sam takes place in New York in the sweltering heat of the 1977, when David
Berkowitz was out shooting couples in their cars. Berkowitz is a minor
character in the film – a pathetic man, who spends most of his time freaking
out in his small apartment, yelling at his neighbor’s dog. But most of the
movie is about two couples – a hairdresser (John Leguizamo) who cheats on his
wife (Mira Sorvino), and the local kid (Adrien Brody) who has become a “punk
rocker”, donned a British accent and works at a gay strip club, although he
also has a girlfriend (Jennifer Esposito). As in many of Lee’s films, the film
is really about this insular neighborhood – where everyone knows everyone else
and as the paranoia about the Son of Sam serial killer reaches a fever pitch –
they need to find someone to blame. One of Lee’s only films not to have a major
black character, yet still undeniably his film, Summer of Sam is one of Lee’s
more underrated films.
8. Jungle Fever (1991)
Jungle Fever
is a fascinating movie about a black man (Wesley Snipes) and a white woman
(Annabella Sciorra) who are attracted to each other for the wrong reasons. They
throw their family lives into tumult, and all because of lust, not genuine
affection or love. Lest you think Lee is suggesting blacks and whites shouldn’t
date, in a subplot he offers another potential interracial couple – as John
Turturro, the rejected fiancé of the Sciorra character, is drawn to a black
woman – but not out of lust, but because he genuinely likes her, and she him.
There is a lot of great things in Jungle Fever – not least of which is Samuel
L. Jackson’s star making performance as Gator, Snipes’ drug addicted brother,
but most of them are outside the two main characters, who are not quite as
interesting together, as they are apart – with their families, and the
reactions that they bring up. I do, however, think that is by design – after
all, the whole point of the movie is that these two people have nothing in
common, and shouldn’t be together anyway. Lee approaches interracial
relationships in his own way – no one else could have made Jungle Fever the
same way, so while there are flaws here, it remains one of his best films.
7. He Got Game (1998)
He Got Game
is a basketball movie, that really isn’t about basketball. It’s about a lot of
things. Denzel Washington gives one of his best performances as a man who is in
jail for killing his wife – somewhat by accident – who is given a chance to get
out of prison for a while to try and convince his son, the best high school
basketball player in the country (real life NBA star Ray Allen) to attend the
Governor’s Alma Mater, he’ll reduce his
sentence. That may not be believable, but the way the father and son act around
each other is – Allen doesn’t want to see Washington and still blames him for
what happened to his mother – not unreasonably. That is the heart of the movie,
and that part is great. What is also great is how clear eyed Lee is in viewing
the sport that he loves – and how it’s all business. Everyone is out to make
money, everyone is looking out for themselves, and they will use and abuse
these athletes if they don’t learn to look out for themselves as well. There is
cynicism in He Got Game, but there is also heart. It’s combining these two
elements that makes it one of Lee’s best.
6. Inside Man (2006)
Inside Man
is Spike Lee’s biggest commercial hit – and I still think one of his most
underrated films. On the surface, the film looks like a typical heist movie
combined with a hostage drama. A group of bank robbers, led by Clive Owen, go
to rob a bank, but then the police are called, and a hostage situation begins.
The NYPD assign Denzel Washington to be their lead negotiator, because they
have no one else, even though he’s currently being investigated for corruption.
Then there’s Jodie Foster, a corporate fixer, who works for the bank’s
President (Christopher Plummer) who has information in his safety deposit box
he doesn’t want the world to know. Yes, Inside Man is a great genre film – and
if you want to take it as just a genre film, that it works just fine. But
there’s more to it than that – Lee adds in, around the edges, his views on
institutional racism, black-on-black crime, rap music and corporate greed. I
can almost guarantee that one day more people with agree with me that this is
one of Lee’s very best films.
5. Clockers (1995)
On the
surface, Clockers is a murder mystery and police procedural. A black man, who
angered the local drug kingpin, is murdered in the projects and the logical
suspect is a young, street level drug dealer. Harvey Keitel is the cop
investigating the murder – and while he’s not as casually racist as some of the
other cops, he doesn’t much care about another life lost in the projects – he
sees it every day, and caring too much will take a toll on him. But he’s
intrigued by this case – especially his prime suspect (Mekhi Pfeiffer), that
low level drug dealer, who wants to move up in his organization, so at least
he’s not on the streets. Then there’s his brother, Isaiah Washington, a good,
hardworking man who works two jobs to support his family, is burnt out, and
resentful that his lazy, drug dealing brother makes more money than he does.
Yes, Clockers is a murder mystery, but it’s much more than that. It is about a
culture of black-on-black crime that continues with no end in sight. That’s the
real crime here.
4. Bamboozled (2000)
Not many
people have seen Lee’s 2000 film Bamboozled, which was barely released and
inspired a hugely divided critical response to say the least. That’s a shame,
because it is one of Lee’s very best films. It stars Damon Wayans as a TV
writer, criticized by his boss (Michael Rappaport) for creating shows that are
“too white”. Trying to get fired, he comes up with an idea for a TV show called
“Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show”, which will feature black actors, in
black face, tap dancing and doing the same type of routines that were popular
in the early 1900s, when they were performed by white actors, mocking African
Americans. Oh, and the show is set on a Southern Plantation. In a watermelon
patch. To his surprise, his boss loves the idea – and the show becomes a
critical and commercial hit. Bamboozled is a bold satire, that rubs our face in
the racism that is still around us every day – although it is harder on the
black characters, who after all are doing it to themselves, than the white ones
(Rappaport’s character is portrayed as an idiot more than anything else). I
don’t agree with every point Lee makes in the film – and can pretty much
guarantee that whatever race you are, you will be offended by something in the
movie – but I don’t have to agree with everything, and I think Lee’s point is
to offend. Lee made one of the bravest satires to hit American screen in years.
It’s too bad so few people noticed.
3. 25th Hour (2002)
Lee’s 25th
Hour is a film about a man who has wasted his life, and now it’s too late to do
anything about it, and he knows it. It is about the last day Edward Norton’s
drug dealer has before he is set to report to prison for an 8 year jail term.
He spends his time with his two old school friends – a teacher played by Philip
Seymour Hoffman and a Wall Street type played by Barry Pepper, and his girl –
Rosario Dawson, who has a secret, and his father, Brian Cox, stricken with
guilt as he blames himself for the situation his son is in. Norton goes through
his day with sad resignation – he has no out, nothing left to do, and knows
prison will forever change him. In the film’s most memorable scene, he goes on
a profanity and racism laced rant into a mirror, blaming everyone for what has
happened to him, but ends up back at himself – because he knows that is who is
really responsible. The film is a master class in acting – from Norton to
Hoffman to Pepper to Cox to Dawson, and even small roles, like Anna Paquin’s, every
performance hits its mark. Made just a year after 9/11, the film specifically
evokes that day, but not in a cheap, tawdry way just to milk our emotions. 25th
Hour was lost amidst the Oscar contenders at the end of 2002, but its
reputation has grown in the past decade – and deservedly so – it’s one of Lee’s
very best films.
2. Malcolm X (1992)
Lee’s
Malcolm X is one of the great biopics of all time. Yes, it is a standard issue
biopic – tracing its subject from their early days until their death – but a
few things make Lee’s film stand out. For one, Malcolm X was a fascinating
person – and it’s interesting to see his progression from a street thug, into a
prominent figure in the Nation of Islam who got in trouble for being too
militant, to his final days, when he softened his position. His story is an
important one, and deserved to be told – and Lee doesn’t shy away from his
flaws. For another, Lee’s film is extremely well made – with great attention to
period detail. And finally, there is Denzel Washington’s towering performance
as Malcolm X – Washington looks and sounds enough like the man to pass for him
in the movie, because his performance goes well beyond impersonation (watch the
famous speeches Malcolm made, and compare it to how Denzel delivers the same
speeches – he makes them his own). This truly is one of the great screen
performances of all time, and helps to make Lee’s film one of the best, and
most important, of the 1990s.
1. Do the Right Thing (1989)
24 years
later, and Lee’s Do the Right Thing remains perhaps the best film ever made
about race relations in America. It’s remarkable how much has changed in the
intervening almost quarter century, and yet how vibrant and relevant Lee’s film
remains. The film takes place over one day in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of
Brooklyn that have seen a lot of changes over the years. Sal (Danny Aiello) has
run the pizza place for years – even back to when the neighborhood was filled
with Italians, instead of African Americans. He believes that the people in the
neighborhood love him, but over the course of one very long, hot day, racial
tensions starting bubbling, first beneath the surface, and then finally
explodes after a series of incidents led to a riot. Lee’s films was
controversial at the time – some thinking it might inspire young black men to
riot, but that was always a ridiculous claim – Lee’s film is fair to everyone
involved, and any reasonable viewer will walk away feeling for all the film’s
characters. There are no “good guys” or “bad guys” here (ok, the cops are bad),
but a deeply felt film about race relations in America. We like to think that
we live in a post-racial world, but that’s simply not true. And that is why,
all these years later, Do the Right Thing remains Lee’s best film, and a
masterpiece of American filmmaking. 
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