The 24 Greatest Spike Lee Films

US director and Jury President of the 74th Cannes Movie Competition Spike Lee poses as he arrives for the screening of the movie “Benedetta” on the 74th version of the Cannes Movie Competition in Cannes, southern France, on July 9, 2021. (Photograph by CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP by way of Getty Pictures)

It’d be really easy to think about Spike Lee as his era’s Orson Welles. Fiercely unbiased and artistically distinctive, Lee hardly ever bends to standard Hollywood storytelling. He hardly ever employs a basic three-act construction and isn’t afraid to play with kind — leaning on freeze frames, montages, and his signature double dolly shot — to remind the viewer they’re watching a film. His movies are vital, formidable, impish, imaginative, and virtually at all times boldly political. He typically operates exterior of the Hollywood system, persistently looking and discovering budgets for unpredictable initiatives. It’d be straightforward to check Lee to Welles. However there is no such thing as a different Spike Lee.

On a systemically unequal film panorama, the place the artistic lifespan for a Black filmmaker is all too quick, Lee has persevered. No Black American filmmaker comes near his output of labor, and few have outlined American life via a number of generations like him. Lee’s movies are unabashedly Black and proudly New York. They inform the tales of the individuals who inhabit the singular material of the metropolis, and the best way its historical past, establishments, and neighborhood clarify the previous, current, and way forward for Black life. It’s to the purpose that Black cinema and the title Spike Lee are practically synonymous. So, in honor of the filmmaker, we’re highlighting his finest films.

However earlier than we get began, listed below are just a few floor guidelines. This record doesn’t characteristic Lee’s commercials (like his collaboration with Michael Jordan for Nike), docuseries (When the Levees Broke), thesis movie (Joe’s Mattress-Stuy Barbershop: We Reduce Heads), TV films (Jim Brown: All American), live performance movies (American Utopia) or filmed performances of performs (Cross Over), as a result of it might be too lengthy. So, to maintain it easy, it is a rating of Lee’s 24 finest theatrical narrative options (or, as he’d check with them, joints).

24. Da Candy Blood of Jesus (2014)

Lee’s reimagining of Invoice Gunn’s 1973 Black horror masterpiece Ganja & Hess is disappointing. Not as a result of it’s poorly made, however due to the flat slickness that causes the thematic rules of the supply materials to slip previous him. Centering Hess, a rich Black vampire who not solely kills his good friend George with an historic dagger, however takes his spouse Ganja as a lover, Gunn’s movie challenged Black sensuality, African folkloric and Christian faith, and racism for a steamy subversion of the vampire narrative. Other than slight hints to HIV/AIDs, Lee’s model offers few extra layers. Each scene performs like a lesser model, significantly the rapturous sequence the place Hess, with fervent religion coiling via each inch of his physique, turns again to Christianity. Regardless of Lee pulling out the large weapons for the scene — his double-dolly shot — his interpretation falls far quick.

23. Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

A cobbled-together hodgepodge of The Battle of Algiers, Come and See, and Paisan, Lee’s first struggle flick (and his first movie shot exterior America) is a mystery-turned-neorealist drama with dashes of the director’s signature comedy. Sadly, it doesn’t work. Tailored from screenwriter James McBride’s novel of the identical title, this fictional story a few quartet of Black troopers withholding a small Italian city from invading Nazis stands as an educational failure for Lee. The creaky fight scenes (with out rhythmic snap and visible restraint), using the Axis Sally voiceover, the dissonant camaraderie shared by the troopers, and the fraught racial relationship with their very own nation, are all rendered in less-than-desirable command. Twelve years later, these elements have been tightened and re-employed to far higher success by Lee in Da 5 Bloods. St. Anna was merely a check run.

22. Previous Boy (2013)

You’d suppose Lee unsuited for remaking Park Chan-wook’s vicious revenge story, Oldboy, for an American viewers — and also you’d be right. Whereas Lee is usually a spirited filmmaker (with few exceptions), he hardly ever takes pleasure within the sort of outlandish on-screen violence required for the story of an alcoholic father (Josh Brolin) mysteriously imprisoned and framed for his spouse’s homicide. Lee veers away from struggle scenes that includes balletic actions towards flat, bruising brawls that don’t spatially cohere. It’s not completely his fault. Producers reportedly took the final cut away from the director, inflicting Lee to take away his patented “A Spike Lee Joint” from the credit. The ultimate model seems like a gun-for-hire movie. And but, there’s one scene the place Brolin sees a montage of the political occasions he’s missed whereas being locked away — from 9/11 to Obama — which will communicate to the movie Lee was aiming towards. One the place white male guilt and unprincipled paternalism may intertwine carefully collectively.

21. She Hate Me (2004)

Again in 2013, Lee launched his record of essential, must-see movies, with ladies notably lacking from his rankings. He later amended his record with eight movies directed by ladies, 4 of which have been by Lina Wertmüller (the primary girl nominated for Greatest Director on the Academy Awards). It’s not typically that anybody associates Lee’s work with the Italian auteur, however the two share a love of the comically grotesque. In She Hate Me, Jack (Anthony Mackie), an government fired for whistleblowing his pharmaceutical firm’s doctored HIV/AIDs medicine, decides to make ends meet by beginning a enterprise the place he impregnates lesbians. It’s a nonsensical, practically regressive idea that critic Roger Ebert as soon as credited as purposely confronting “standard knowledge and political correctness.” Until you imagine Lee was making an attempt to channel Wertmüller, that seems like a stretch. However he was. Though Lee’s homage doesn’t wholly land, we’ll (sadly?) at all times have the picture of Mackie’s face on sperm.

20. Chi-Raq (2015)

With the intention to cease two warring gangs led by “Chi-Raq” Dupree (Nick Cannon) and “Cyclops” Andrews (Wesley Snipes), Dupree’s girlfriend Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) organizes a intercourse strike. Tailored from the traditional Greek playwright Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Lee’s bid to cease the violence was in all probability enjoyable to jot down, significantly the cheeky iambic pentameter dialogue (a flashy Samuel L. Jackson chews his emcee duties with aplomb). And but, the movie misses the mark. Throughout the first wave of Black Lives Matter, Lee relegated the violence of Chicago’s South Aspect as solely Black-on-Black crime, whereas ignoring the violence rendered by police upon Black of us. With Black Lives Matter helmed by three ladies, he was additionally incapable of imagining Black ladies exercising collective political motion besides via their our bodies. Too typically on this sometimes blistering satire, Lee flattens and oversimplifies the realities of Black dying with a supply materials that doesn’t align with the precise story of Chicago.

19. BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Lee’s movies are inclined to age effectively, typically revealing their ingenious spark and spontaneity to viewers years after their launch. However BlacKkKlansman is likely to be a lone exception, which is shocking as a result of it’s the movie that returned the director again to prominence. In it, John David Washington portrays the real-life Ron Stallworth, a cop who (by cellphone) goes undercover into the Ku Klux Klan (Adam Driver performs his bodily manifestation in an enchanting double act). There are undoubtedly zingers (“With the correct white man, we will do something,” Ron dryly says), superbly reverent sequences (Harry Belafonte’s stirring look), and visually audacious scenes (a fascinating collage of Black faces earnestly listening to Kwame Ture’s empowering “Black Energy” speech). However it all fizzles within the movie’s waning moments, which shallowly feeds into the “one unhealthy apple” perception that post-2020’s state enacted violence feels naive at finest, and negligent at worst.

18. Pink Hook Summer season (2012)

A couple of younger boy named Flik (Jules Brown), who travels from Atlanta to New York to spend the summer time along with his pastor grandfather (Clarke Peters), Lee’s coming of age movie is a return of kinds. Not solely does he reprise his function of Mookie from Do The Proper Factor, he goes again to the shoestring guerilla filmmaking that made She’s Gotta Have It a basic. The primary half of the movie, centered round Flik, lacks Crrooklyn’s refined intertwining of childlike whimsy and household angst. Fairly, you want Lee pulled focus to Peters’ pastor for a fuller interrogation of how faith could be wielded as a software for unearned self forgiveness and rash forgetfulness. Nonetheless, the double dolly (that includes Colman Domingo) is amongst Lee’s finest, totally encapsulating each the craze felt by Domingo’s character and the shock of the parishioners, too. It’s a cathartic composition that almost reaches the creative ranges of Melvin Van Peebles’ inspirational use of the famed shot in 1967’s The Story of a Three-Day Cross.

17. Summer season of Sam

A theme Lee would return to in twenty fifth Hour, when mindless violence grips a metropolis like New York, it grasps its individuals, too. Throughout the 1977 killing spree by David Berkowitz (“The Son of Sam”), Vinny (John Leguizamo) is a womanizing hairdresser dishonest on his spouse as a result of his Catholic guilt restricts him from having the sort of intercourse he needs along with her. Ritchie (Adrien Brody), a queer prostitute and punk, simply returned to the neighborhood after residing in England for a 12 months. In the meantime, the boys of their neighborhood are training avenue justice by overtly accusing residents of their tight knit Italian neighborhood of being the serial killer, setting in movement dire penalties. Lee makes purposeful tonal selections like taking part in the audio of Reggie Jackson’s World Collection homerun because the backing observe to a brutal homicide, or exhibiting the inner psychology of Sam in gritty, dirty scenes that includes a speaking canine, to seize the unthinkable worry and psychology of troubled individuals.

16. Mo’ Higher Blues (1990)

“What would you do in the event you couldn’t play anymore, Bleek?” asks Indigo Downes (Joie Lee), considered one of Bleek’s (Denzel Washington) two girlfriends. A self-absorbed trumpeter solely able to committing to his music, Bleek’s dependency on his instrument started at childhood, when his dad and mom taught him to sacrifice associates and enjoyable fairly than forgo his craft. A personality examine concerning the debilitating private and ethical sacrifice imposed upon artists — to the purpose of dropping their self-worth and the value of others — Mo’ Higher Blues isn’t with out missteps (the Jewish membership managers do veer into cringy antisemitic stereotypes). Nonetheless, you’ll be able to sense how this might need been a tribute by Lee to his jazz musician father Invoice Lee. Their relationship, nevertheless, deteriorated in lower than a 12 months with the discharge of Jungle Fever, making this movie the final one senior Lee would rating for his son.

15. Jungle Fever (1991)

Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes) is a profitable architect residing in Harlem along with his daughter and spouse. When the Italian Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra) is employed as his secretary, lengthy evenings flip into steamy nights because the pair start a salacious affair. Is that this actual love or are the pair merely having a case of jungle fever? It’s an allegorical movie moved by the spellbinding results of dependancy. There’s Flipper’s stern father, the Good Reverend Physician (Ossie Davis) who’s a zealot to faith and his spouse Lucinda (Ruby Dee), a mom devoted to her drug-addled son Gator (an unimaginable Samuel L. Jackson) who, in flip along with his girlfriend Vivian (Halle Berry), are tied to crack. Flipper and Angie are equally addicted. However as soon as the realities of the world — prejudiced cops, associates, household, and strangers — encroach upon them, the spell breaks and so they should resolve what is definitely actual. It’s by no means delicate (nothing with Lee ever is). However the dialog round interracial courting (explicit to the period) is fearless nonetheless.

14. He Obtained Sport (1998)

Denzel Washington and Lee’s most unassuming collaboration combines just a few of Lee’s nice passions: tenuous father-son relationships, Black fatherhood, and basketball. Jake Shuttlesworth (Washington) is a former native basketball legend launched from jail underneath the settlement that he will get his son, prime high-school recruit Jesus (Ray Allen), to signal with the governor’s alma mater. It’s a movie that sharply connects the exploitation of Black athletes with the abuse of Black males by the legal justice system. Whereas pulling a memorable efficiency from Washington is a simple layup, Lee’s audacious determination to forged Allen is a real slam dunk. Not solely did it present the movie with beautiful basketball sequences — avoiding the lure of rote gameplay — Allen holds his personal in a flip that calls for a lot care, rage, and disappointment, you are feeling cheated that he and Lee by no means took to the courtroom once more.

13. Clockers (1995)

Underneath completely different circumstances, Ronald “Strike” Dunham (Mekhi Phifer) could possibly be another person, somebody extra. He definitely has the brains, however systemic racism and pernicious cops depart him with restricted prospects. So, he works as a clocker (seller) for Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo). In a movie about dashed goals, Strike needs to be a practice engineer, therefore his mannequin practice set. However these hopes shortly dim when Rodney orders Strike to kill one other seller. Quickly, the cops (performed by Harvey Keitel and John Turturro) are onto him and his bond with Rodney begins to interrupt. The complicated and human rendering of Strike — at a time when Black drug sellers have been characterised solely as thugs and tremendous predators fairly than victims — was later adopted in Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. (The truth is, an analogous tiny crown to the one on Rodney’s automotive dashboard could be seen on Black’s dashboard in Moonlight).

12. twenty fifth Hour (2002)

Since its 2002 launch, twenty fifth Hour’s stature as amongst Lee’s finest movies has solely grown. A few of that residue stems from Lee’s daring option to braid the tragedy of September eleventh into the story of Monty (Edward Norton), a drug seller residing his final day of freedom earlier than his father (Brian Cox) drives him to jail to start a seven 12 months jail sentence. David Benioff’s script typically lags behind Lee’s graphic eye. The ladies are underwritten (someway worse than typical for a Lee joint) and Monty’s story isn’t inherently fascinating. However Lee’s filmmaking — his management of rhythm and tempo, and his visible storytelling — has by no means been higher. The best way he ties collectively the “fuck you” mirror speech with the ending soliloquy by Cox, aches from the web page. His use of Floor Zero for the dialog between an attuned Philip Seymour Hoffman and skeezy Barry Pepper is daring. The neon blue membership scene, an ideal snapshot of the second, place, and verve of the town, transcends from being a mere time capsule. Lee elevates a myopic story into an elegiac cry of shared grief and resounding ache.

11. She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

Lee’s cinematic revolution started in black and white with Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns). In his debut characteristic, Darling is a sexually free Black girl courting three Black males: the patronizing Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), a self-absorbed Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), and the loud-mouth, gold-chain sporting Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). Lee wasn’t the primary Black filmmaker to ask audiences to witness the completely different prospects of Black life, artwork, commerce, and style (Oscar Micheaux, Melvin Van Peebles, and Gordon Parks did so a long time earlier). Fairly, Lee launched the world to Brooklyn as he noticed it. A borough crammed with a brand new, younger, and vibrant era of Black of us, significantly Black ladies with new skilled and unbiased prospects. Whereas the movie does nonetheless stay sweeping in that regard, its later rape scene (a sequence Lee still regrets filming) leaves a transparent blotch on its legacy.

10. Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Launched on the top of Black Lives Matter protests that stemmed from the homicide of George Floyd, Lee’s struggle drama sees a quartet of Black Vietnam vets returning to the Southeast Asian nation to retrieve the stays of their misplaced comrade Stormin Norman (the late Chadwick Boseman). Right here, it’s clear that Lee discovered from most of the errors he made on The Miracle at St. Anna. For one, the treasure right here (a loot of American gold) is extra thematically tangible as a repatriation of wealth, Black reparations, and capitalist extra. The tonal shifts between historical past classes, excessive comedy, sharp fight, and acute tragedy transfer with higher nimbleness. Most of all, the connection between these Black males — significantly the fraught father-son relationship shared by Paul (a spellbinding Delroy Lindo) and David (Jonathan Majors) — organically explores their shared love, fissures, and demons. The MAGA voting, PTSD-afflicted Paul extrapolates as a lot in a blistering monologue by Lindo, that acutely summarizes the previous and up to date betrayal by America of its Black residents.

9. Inside Man (2006)

Whereas it’s uncommon to see Lee helm such a traditional Hollywood thriller, that shouldn’t take away from the artistry on show. On this completely constructed heist flick, Detectives Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Invoice Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are known as to a financial institution to resolve a hostage state of affairs instigated by a band of thieves led by Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). The theft, nevertheless, is just a prelude. Within the background to Lee’s homage to Canine Day Afternoon is one other cat-and-mouse sport between the financial institution’s proprietor Arthur Case (a deliciously wretched Christopher Plummer), and the fixer he hires to retrieve a secret hidden in a security deposit field, Madeleine White (a chilly, calculating Jodie Foster). An endlessly pleasing and crowd-pleasing thriller, Inside Man is solely a well-made and well-acted piece of escapist leisure.

8. Woman 6 (1996)

Certainly one of solely two Lee movies written by a lady (on this case, Pulitzer Prize successful playwright Suzan-Lori Parks), it’s additionally Lee’s most underrated image. The movie begins with Judy (Theresa Randle), an actress, auditioning for Quentin Tarantino (taking part in himself). The audition seems to be going effectively. That’s, till Tarantino, with out prior warning, calls for that Judy take away her shirt. Judy does so however is humiliated. “That is what Blackness has come to imply… it’s a sure picture of Blackness that Hollywood believes could be negotiated by any tradition maker,” bell hooks said of the scene. As a substitute for Hollywood, Judy turns to a cellphone intercourse profession underneath the moniker “Woman 6.” Armed with Parks’ progressive script, Lee navigates the world of intercourse work with an empathetic lens, and stays ever so playful in sequences the place Judy imagines herself in Carmen Jones, as Helen Willis on The Jeffersons, and Pam Grier as Cunning Brown. The sort of roles that, as a Black girl, someway seem out of attain for her in a supposedly extra inclusive, up to date local weather.

7. Get on the Bus (1996)

Certainly one of Lee’s nice achievements is setting in movement the resurgence of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dees’ appearing careers so late within the winter of their lives. Whereas Do The Proper Factor is their most memorable collaboration, for Davis, Get On The Bus is likely to be the height of his renaissance. As Pop, an older Black man regretful of lacking Martin Luther King’s Jr.’s March on Washington (and now touring with a bunch of Black males to the Million Man March), Davis instructions each nook of the body with a stability of resoluteness and levity. On this cross-country roadtrip — the place race, sexuality, masculinity, faith, and politics are mentioned amongst this disparate crew — Davis is sage mentor, good friend, and father to a era nonetheless making an attempt to understand their voice. Whereas the movie’s reverence for Louis Farrakhan has not aged effectively, the documentation by Black individuals of their very own tales (a theme returned to in Da 5 Bloods) culminates to Lee’s most devastating closing shot: a pair of handcuffs on the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

6. College Daze (1988)

The closest Lee has come to creating a musical, his sophomore effort, set among the many fraternities and sororities of the imagined HBCU Mission School, is amongst his most formidable. It additionally options Lee’s most dedicated efficiency, whereby he portrays Half-Pint, a Gamma pledge desperately making an attempt to be accepted. Based mostly on Lee’s personal experiences at Morehouse, College Daze traverses via the customs and pageantry of HBCUs set to massive melodies and lavish dance numbers, which extrapolate points (colorism, classism, and open misogynoir) Black of us are nonetheless wrestling with. The colourful step present and the colourful, socially charged Madame Re-Res Dance (set at a salon to critique the politics of Black ladies’s hair) are so distinctive of their design and composition, they’re a reminder that Lee is likely to be the perfect musical movie director of his era.

5. Do The Proper Factor (1989)

On a sweltering day in Mattress-Stuy, Mookie (Spike Lee), a supply man for Sal’s Pizzeria, navigates a neighborhood on the verge of turmoil. With a pizza field in hand, Mookie snakes previous Radio Raheem (Invoice Nunn) and his thumping boombox; he sees the drunkard man of honor Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) and the watchful Mom Sister (Ruby Dee); and he observes a trio of older Black males blowing the sweat away with idle gossip sitting beneath an umbrella because the specter of the police looms ever-present. Lee shows a agency contact on composition (using crimson), the narrative and sonic storytelling (the movie constructing from Rosie Perez dancing to “Battle The Energy” to the film’s later explosion), and the stability between a deep ensemble who at all times appear to be doing the correct factor on the proper time.

4. Malcolm X (1992)

From the phrase “go,” when Lee and Denzel Washington (taking part in the titular revolutionary) strut down a Harlem avenue of their vibrant zoot fits, Malcolm X strikes with epic reverberations. Memorable scenes just like the extravagant Lindy Hop swing social, West Indian Archie (Delroy Lindo) accusing Malcolm of theft, and the double dolly levitating Malcolm towards his eventual finish imbue the movie with a mythic high quality. On its face, Malcolm X can really feel like a traditional biopic. However that might be lacking the purpose. At a time when Malcolm X was nonetheless a controversial “public” enemy — the unconventional, firebrand antithesis to Martin Luther King Jr. who proclaimed the white the satan — Lee dared to present him a 201-minute Hollywood remedy often solely reserved for white figures. Via the very telling of this story, Washington’s efficiency, and the stirring eulogy supplied by Ossie Davis, Lee normalized and memorialized Malcolm X for the subsequent era of revolutionaries.

3. 4 Little Women (1997)

Much like Martin Scorsese, one typically forgets Lee’s prowess as a documentary filmmaker (a chief instance is When The Levees Broke). However for the needs of this record, 4 Little Women, Lee’s heart-wrenching recounting of the 1963 sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church bombing that robbed the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair, is outstanding. Shot by Ellen Kuras and edited by Sam Pollard, Lee retraces that day and its private and political influence by talking with the household and associates of these misplaced. The interviews seize intimate tales of the women’ personalities, hopes and needs, humanizing them past their martyrdom. It additionally offers area to these left behind to share their grief and anger. Lee avoids traps most fashionable documentaries fall into. The few celeb speaking heads seem solely close to the top. He depends on excessive close-ups of the topics fairly than staid medium pictures. He doesn’t impose a linear, upward trajectory on historical past. Via oral historical past, he reminds us of the unhealthy that occurred and the racial violence that continues to afflict America right this moment.

2. Bamboozled (2000)

Pierre “Peerless Dothan” Delacroix (Damon Wayans), a jaded tv government, steers us via the inner racism of mass leisure when he decides on a reckless gambit. In a bid to be fired so he would possibly depart this poisonous white setting, Delacroix and his assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith) resolve to create a contemporary minstrel present replete with Blackface, faucet dancing, and a home band known as the Alabama Porch Monkeys (performed by the Roots). To star on this present, he recruits two hoofers (performed by Tommy Davidson and Savion Glover) and an emcee (Thomas Jefferson Byrd, an underrated and integral collaborator for Lee). It’s all certain to fail — till it doesn’t. Mantan: New Millennium Minstrel Present is successful that conjures up widespread controversy and massive scores.

You’d suppose Lee would then use the movie to wholly demonize Blackface and all who use it. However Lee takes a nuanced method to Blackface, particularly denouncing it and the racist stereotypes it wrought, whereas highlighting the work and artistry by the Black performers who used the make-up. The ultimate montage, an aching reel of racist caricatures, films, and cartoons, is amongst editor Sam Pollard and composer Terence Blanchard’s finest work. It articulates the painful previous and soul-crushing negotiations that finally obliterated generations price of Black expertise. Messy and bold, satirical and mournful, Bamboozled is a piece of genius threatening to spin into dribble.

1. Crooklyn (1994)

What makes Lee’s early movies so particular is the closeness derived from household. His sister Joie Lee seems in 10 of his movies, and his father Invoice Lee composed the rating for the director’s first 4 movies (after Jungle Fever, Lee and his father skilled a falling out). And whereas Jungle Fever and Mo’ Higher Blues offers us a window into the father-son dynamic shared by the 2, they don’t give us full perception. In spite of everything, the director isn’t an solely little one. That’s why Crooklyn’s script — written by the filmmaker, his sister Joie, and brother Cinqué Lee — is so nuanced and full.

Based mostly on the trio’s childhood (particularly from Joie’s perspective), the movie follows nine-year-old Troy Carmichael (Zelda Harris) and her brothers as they watch the disintegration of their musician father (Delroy Lindo) and hardworking mom’s (Alfre Woodard) marriage. In contrast to Jungle Fever, which is advised with a tinge of anger, Crooklyn is a coming-of-age story about pulling understanding out of disappointment. Troy goes from idolizing her father to recognizing his lesser qualities (a task that Lindo is outstanding in). It’s additionally about remembering the quirks and unforgettable characters of a neighborhood, together with being a tribute to an indomitable Black mom (an incredible Woodard). That includes Lee’s finest use of the double dolly — a tripped out Troy flying towards the black-blue sky — Crooklyn is a quintessential Brooklyn film that reveals Lee at his finest, specializing in household, neighborhood, and the colourful, indelible neighborhood of Mattress-Stuy.

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Robert Daniels is a Chicago-based movie critic with freelance bylines within the New York Occasions, within the Los Angeles Occasions, at RogerEbert.com, at IndieWire, and within the Criterion Assortment. He has written extensively about Black American popular culture and problems with illustration.