Spike Lee (born 1957, Atlanta) is an American film director, screenwriter and actor whose work consistently examines racial inequality and the African American experience. He broke through with Do the Right Thing (1989), earning an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, and later won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman (2018). A five-time Oscar nominee, he runs his Brooklyn-based production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks and teaches film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
The film Highest 2 Lowest (produced by A24 and Apple Original Films) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025 and was released in American cinemas on August 15, 2025; it has been available on Apple TV+ since September 5, 2025.
Highest 2 Lowest - Lee's first narrative film in five years - was presented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2025; it is a loose adaptation of Kurosawa's thriller Heaven and Hell with Denzel Washington in the lead role.
President Joe Biden presented Spike Lee with the National Medal of Arts at a ceremony at the White House on October 21, 2024.
Spike Lee was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a lifetime NBA superfan.
Lee's fund supporting student films at NYU Tisch has exceeded a total of 1 million dollars paid out since its establishment in 1989.
