Ranking All Of Director Spike Lee’s Movies
“What are Spike Lee’s Best Movies?” We looked at all of Lee’s directed filmography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the movies directed by Spike Lee and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, Metacritic, Metacritic User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked in our list below based on which movies have the highest overall score between all 6 review sites in comparison with all of the other movies by the same director. The process is all very scientific with no flaws at all.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.
Happy Viewing!
The Top Film’s Of Spike Lee
38 ) Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 28
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 38
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 16
- IMDB User Review Score: 38
- Letterboxd User Score: 35
Dr. Hess Green becomes cursed by a mysterious ancient African artifact and is overwhelmed with a newfound thirst for blood. Soon after his transformation he enters into a dangerous romance with Ganja Hightower that questions the very nature of love, addiction, sex, and status.
37 ) Girl 6 (1996)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 30
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 36
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 36
- Letterboxd User Score: 33
A struggling actress in New York City takes a job as a phone sex operator.
35 ) Oldboy (2013)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 29
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 35
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 17
- IMDB User Review Score: 31
- Letterboxd User Score: 38
An everyday man has only three and a half days and limited resources to discover why he was imprisoned in a nondescript room for 20 years without any explanation.
35 ) Red Hook Summer (2012)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 24
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 37
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 37
- Letterboxd User Score: 33
When his mom deposits him at the Red Hook housing project in Brooklyn to spend the summer with the grandfather he’s never met, young Flik may as well have landed on Mars. Fresh from his cushy life in Atlanta, he’s bored and friendless, and his strict grandfather, Enoch, a firebrand preacher, is bent on getting him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Only Chazz, the feisty girl from church, provides a diversion from the drudgery. As hot summer simmers and Sunday mornings brim with Enoch’s operatic sermons, things turn anything but dull as people’s conflicting agendas collide.
34 ) Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 30
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 33
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 15
- IMDB User Review Score: 29
- Letterboxd User Score: 35
Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four American soldiers who are members of the all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.
33 ) Kobe Doin’ Work (2009)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 32
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 28
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
A documentary following Kobe Bryant during one day of the 2008 NBA playoffs.
32 ) Sucker Free City (2004)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 25
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 19
- Letterboxd User Score: 29
The film follows three young men as they are drawn into lives of crime. Nick (Crowley) uses his entry-level corporate job to commit credit card fraud and deals drugs on the side. K-Luv (Mackie) is a member of the “V-Dubs”, an African-American street gang. Lincoln (Leung) is a rising figure in the Chinese mafia. Gentrification forces Nick’s family to move out of their home in the Mission District into Hunter’s Point where they are harassed by the V-Dubs. K-Luv’s side business of selling bootleg compact discs leads him to enlist Nick’s help to bootleg CDs and to negotiate a truce with Lincoln. Lincoln conducts an affair with his boss’ daughter Angela (Carpio), a Stanford student engaged to a medical student classmate.
30 ) Summer of Sam (1999)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 26
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 30
- Metacritc Critic Score: 14
- Metacritic User Score: 18
- IMDB User Review Score: 23
- Letterboxd User Score: 29
Spike Lee’s take on the “Son of Sam” murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American South Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.
30 ) School Daze (1988)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 23
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 16
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 30
- Letterboxd User Score: 32
Fraternity and sorority members clash with other students at a historically black college during homecoming weekend.
29 ) She Hate Me (2004)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 32
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 30
- Metacritc Critic Score: 3
- Metacritic User Score: 2
- IMDB User Review Score: 35
- Letterboxd User Score: 37
Fired from his job, a former executive turns to impregnating wealthy lesbians for profit.
28 ) Jim Brown: All-American (2002)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 24
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 16
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 13
- IMDB User Review Score: 34
- Letterboxd User Score: 29
Jim Brown: All-American is a 2002 documentary film directed by Spike Lee. The film takes a look at the life of NFL hall-of-famer Jim Brown. The film delves into his life—past, present and future—focusing on his athletic career, acting and activism. Many people from Hollywood and sports backgrounds were interviewed for the film. Members of Brown’s family were also interviewed for the film.
27 ) Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth (2013)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 27
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 11
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
Mike Tyson’s one-man show is a fascinating journey into his storied life and career. MIKE TYSON: UNDISPUTED TRUTH is a rare, personal look inside the life and mind of one of the most feared men ever to wear the heavyweight crown. Directed by Academy Award® nominee Spike Lee, this riveting one-man show goes beyond the headlines, behind the scenes and between the lines to deliver a must-see theatrical knockout.
26 ) Jungle Fever (1991)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 17
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 26
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 25
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He’s quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.
25 ) Chi-Raq (2015)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 16
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 33
- Metacritc Critic Score: 7
- Metacritic User Score: 14
- IMDB User Review Score: 32
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
24 ) All the Invisible Children (2005)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 28
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 13
Seven short films – each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
23 ) Bamboozled (2000)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 27
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 21
- Metacritc Critic Score: 13
- Metacritic User Score: 12
- IMDB User Review Score: 25
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
TV producer Pierre Delacroix becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a 21st century minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it becomes a smash hit.
22 ) Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 21
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 20
- Metacritc Critic Score: 19
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 23
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Opens with Bleek as a child learning to play the trumpet, his friends want him to come out and play but mother insists he finish his lessons. Bleek grows into adulthood and forms his own band – The Bleek Gilliam Quartet. The story of Bleek’s and Shadow’s friendly rivalry on stage which spills into their professional relationship and threatens to tear apart the quartet.
21 ) Get on the Bus (1996)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 11
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 24
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 19
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
Several Black men take a cross-country bus trip to attend the Million Man March in Washington, DC in 1995. On the bus are an eclectic set of characters including a laid-off aircraft worker, a man whose at-risk son is handcuffed to him, a black Republican, a former gangsta, a Hollywood actor, a cop who is of mixed racial background, and a white bus driver. All make the trek discussing issues surrounding the march, including manhood, religion, politics, and race.
20 ) Pass Over (2018)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 7
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 29
- Metacritc Critic Score: 10
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 32
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Moses and Kitch, two young black men, chat their way through a long, aimless day on a Chicago street corner. Periodically ducking bullets and managing visits from a genial but ominous stranger and an overtly hostile police officer, Moses and Kitch rely on their poetic, funny, at times profane banter to get them through a day that is a hopeless retread of every other day, even as they continue to dream of their deliverance.
18 ) Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 13
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 19
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 13
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Ten Minutes Older is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films entitled The Trumpet and The Cello. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of the Millennium. Fifteen celebrated film-makers were invited to create their own vision of what time means in ten minutes of film.
18 ) The Original Kings of Comedy (2000)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 13
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 18
- Metacritc Critic Score: 8
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 21
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
The Original Kings of Comedy achieves the seemingly impossible task of capturing the rollicking and sly comedy routines of stand-up and sitcom vets Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac and the magic of experiencing a live concert show. Director Spike Lee and his crew plant a multitude of cameras in a packed stadium and onstage (as well as backstage, as they follow the comedians) to catch the vivid immediacy of the show, which is as much about the audience as it is about the jokes.
17 ) Clockers (1995)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 22
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 21
- Metacritc Critic Score: 12
- Metacritic User Score: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 16
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Strike is a young city drug pusher under the tutelage of drug lord Rodney Little. When a night manager at a fast-food restaurant is found with four bullets in his body, Strike’s older brother turns himself in as the killer. Det. Rocco Klein doesn’t buy the story, however, setting out to find the truth, and it seems that all the fingers point toward Strike & Rodney.
16 ) If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise (2010)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 4
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 14
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
Spike Lee returns to New Orleans five years after Katrina to see how the ambitious plans to reinvent the Crescent City are playing out.
15 ) She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 9
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 23
- Metacritc Critic Score: 6
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 21
- Letterboxd User Score: 13
The story of Nola Darling’s simultaneous sexual relationships with three different men is told by her and by her partners and other friends. All three men wanted her to commit solely to them; Nola resists being “owned” by a single partner.
14 ) John Leguizamo: Freak (1998)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 33
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 1
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 2
- Letterboxd User Score: 13
John Leguizamo’s semi-falsified, one-man stand-up performance as…himself. This is his autobiographical story, about his life growing up, and his journey to try to be accepted by his father. We see this story through a bizarre myriad of characters and situations, which include the eccentric Uncle Sanny, the Fat Boy Called Bitch (John’s little brother, Poochie), his mom, his evil grandmothers, and Lee Stratsberg, not to mention a brief appearance by Cantinflas as God.
13 ) He Got Game (1998)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 18
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- Metacritc Critic Score: 18
- Metacritic User Score: 2
- IMDB User Review Score: 16
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
A basketball player’s father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter sentence.
12 ) Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 6
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 8
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 11
- Letterboxd User Score: 13
Director Spike Lee chronicles Michael Jackson’s early rise to fame.
11 ) A Huey P. Newton Story (2001)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 15
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
A Huey P. Newton Story is a 2001 film directed by Spike Lee. It is a filmed performance of Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show of the same name. Smith sits in a chair on a stage and tells about the past, mostly dealing with Huey P. Newton’s life and times.
10 ) Crooklyn (1994)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 20
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 4
- Metacritc Critic Score: 16
- Metacritic User Score: 8
- IMDB User Review Score: 16
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in ’70s Brooklyn.
9 ) Passing Strange (2009)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 9
- Metacritc Critic Score: 4
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 27
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
A young black artist leaves his Los Angeles digs and travels to Europe to find himself. A theatrical stage production of the original Broadway musical
8 ) Inside Man (2006)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 13
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 12
- Metacritc Critic Score: 8
- Metacritic User Score: 9
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.
7 ) 25th Hour (2002)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 19
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 12
- Metacritc Critic Score: 14
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 6
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
In New York City in the days following the events of 9/11, Monty Brogan is a convicted drug dealer about to start a seven-year prison sentence, and his final hours of freedom are devoted to hanging out with his closest buddies and trying to prepare his girlfriend for his extended absence.
5 ) When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 2
- Metacritc Critic Score: 20
- Metacritic User Score: 19
- IMDB User Review Score: 1
- Letterboxd User Score: 2
Spike Lee’s award-winning documentary follows the events that preceded and followed Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic passage through New Orleans in 2005.
5 ) Bad 25 (2012)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 7
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 9
- Metacritc Critic Score: 16
- Metacritic User Score: 4
- IMDB User Review Score: 3
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
Spike Lee pays tribute to Michael Jackson’s Bad on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the epochal album, offering behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson recording the album and interviews with confidants, musicians, choreographers, and such music-world superstars as Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Cee Lo Green and Mariah Carey.
4 ) BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 5
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 9
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 4
Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
3 ) Malcolm X (1992)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 11
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 3
- Metacritc Critic Score: 11
- Metacritic User Score: 6
- IMDB User Review Score: 6
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the ’50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
2 ) 4 Little Girls (1997)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 7
- Metacritc Critic Score: 2
- Metacritic User Score: 7
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 4
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation–and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
1 ) Do the Right Thing (1989)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 9
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 4
- Metacritc Critic Score: 1
- Metacritic User Score: 4
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 1
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone’s hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
