Born Shelton Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Ga., Spike Lee moved with his parents to Brooklyn, N.Y., when he was just a boy. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program and won a student Academy Award for his short film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983).Lee caught the nation's attention with She's Gotta Have It (1986), in which he also starred. His racially charged works continued with School Daze and Do the Right Thing (1989), which earned Lee an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Throughout his career, Lee has balanced controversial subjects in works such as Jungle Fever, Malcolm X and Bamboozled with more mainstream profiles of New York life, such as Clockers, Summer of Sam and 25th Hour. He also made a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker with the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls (1997) and Jim Brown: All American (2002).
Mo' Better BluesSpike Lee wrote and directed this story about fictional musician Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington), a trumpeter with an equal talent for music, women and trouble. Bleek is a self-centered man with his own quartet -- and two women vying for his attention. The Branford Marsalis Quartet dubs Gilliam's... Read More
Miracle's BoysFive renowned directors (Spike Lee, Ernest R. Dickerson, Neema Barnette, Bill Duke and LeVar Burton) take their place at the helm of this Nickelodeon-produced miniseries based on Jacqueline Woodson's award-winning novel. Set in Harlem, the series chronicles the lives of three recently orphaned half... Read More
If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't RiseIn this follow-up to his Emmy-winning documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, director Spike Lee revisits the still-struggling area five years later to document the progress made -- or lack thereof. The current lives of many people from the first film are examined, as are... Read More
