Spike Lee is something of a Cannes legend—a festival regular who was president of the jury in 2021 and returned this year with his latest high-octane romp, Highest 2 Lowest , a reunion with long-time collaborator Denzel Washington. Ahead of its arrival in theaters this week, we revisit the boundary-pushing auteur’s most impactful work to date, from the sun-soaked highs of Do the Right Thing to the devastating gut punch of Da 5 Bloods .

She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

Lee’s breakthrough came at the age of 29, with his raucous, ultra-low budget feature-length directorial debut: the zippy tale of a Brooklyn artist (Tracy Camilla Johns) struggling to choose between three lovers, which earned him Cannes’s Youth Prize for young directors as well as the Independent Spirit Award for best first

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