Spike Lee
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Love him or hate him, most can agree that Spike Lee is one of the most talented, as well as polarizing filmmakers ever. Known for being opinionated both through his work as well as his own voice regarding issues of politics and race, Lee tends to create pieces that usually tend to make the average person think, though the message is either wasted on some, or totally misinterpreted by others sometimes. Anything dubbed "A Spike Lee Joint" can come off as somewhat heavy-handed or preachy, but it's all within the context that's it's viewed.
Throughout the 90s, he made at least one film a year[1]. This didn't carry through into the 00s, however. Twenty Fifth Hour is often cited as one of his best films, but his next film, She Hate Me, is considered one of his worst. His next film, Inside Man, was his biggest hit yet. At that same time, he made the acclaimed documentary When the Levees Broke. Despite this, he still had trouble getting two projects off the ground-a James Brown biopic and a film about the L.A. riots. When he did make another film, WWII tale Miracle at St. Anna, it was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews among critics.
He frequently acted in his earlier films. He played the lead role of Mookie in Do the Right Thing and major supporting roles in Malcolm X, Girl 6, and Mo' Better Blues. One character he played, Mars Blackmon from She's Gotta Have It, also appeared in ads for Nike.
He also directed the video clip for the Michael Jackson's song "They Don't Really Care About Us". During filming, he paid local drug dealing gang leader Marcinho VP for the right to film on the slums of Dona Marta Hill, Rio de Janeiro. The move generated controversy, local police chief Hélio Luz called him a "sucker" when the police could have offered him protection, and accusations towards the local government of leniency towards drug dealers were made. Despite that, Lee's reputation remained untouched.
- She's Gotta Have It (1986)
- School Daze (1988)
- Do the Right Thing (1989)
- Mo Better Blues (1990)
- Jungle Fever (1991)
- Malcolm X (1992)
- Crooklyn (1994)
- Clockers (1995)
- Girl 6 (1996)
- He Got Game (1998)
- Summer Of Sam (1999)
- Bamboozled (2000, named to the National Film Registry in 2023)
- The Original Kings of Comedy (2000)
- 25th Hour (2002)
- She Hate Me (2004)
- Inside Man (2006)
- Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
- Kobe Doin' Work (2009)
- Passing Strange (2009)
- If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010)
- Red Hook Summer (2012)
- Bad 25 (2012)
- Oldboy (2013)
- Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth (2013)
- Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014)
- Chi-Raq (2015)
- Michael Jackson's Journey From Motown to Off the Wall (2016)
- Rodney King (2017)
- ↑ This was because he was disappointed that African-American filmmakers tended to go a long time between films