Henry O'Brien
Spike Lee didn’t even realize that it had been nearly two decades since he last worked with Denzel Washington. While the actor and director had made four films—each with their own distinct flair, arresting nature, and pivotal place in cinema history—Lee seemed to almost downplay his bond with Washington in a recent interview with Film Comment’s Beatrice Loayza, where he was asked about how often the two see each other: “He has a place near me, but we don’t see each other every day. We’re cool. But it’s not like we’re calling each other up all the time,” Lee said in his interview with the outlet. “It’s not that type of relationship.”
Lee’s coy response feels odd, considering the legendary director has always had a knack for shooting Washington. While the 70-year-old actor has been widely regarded as one of the greatest performers of this century, Lee understands how to frame Washington in a way that elevates him from his other roles. While he has such an impeccable ability to make any middle-of-the-road film seem interesting, Washington’s commanding and charismatic presence only intensifies when he works with Lee.
Both men have gone on to produce great works on their own and win Oscars (Glory and Training Day for Washington, and a Best Original Screenplay award for Lee and his film, BlacKkKlansman). But the magic they have created speaks interminable ability to pave their own path and never let anyone in the industry slow them down. In their respective fields of acting and directing, Washington and Lee have made it possible for Black artists to receive the spotlight.
The duo’s fifth collaboration together, Highest 2 Lowest, a modern-day remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, speaks to the stature that the two have now achieved in part because of their creative partnership. The film follows Washington as a powerful music mogul who is targeted by a ransom plot similar to the one in the Japanese original.
All the films, including Highest 2 Lowest, feature Washington as some sort of character in authority, power and grace. They look to challenge depictions of Black men on screen while also examining aspects of Black culture and history like jazz, basketball and civil rights leaders. With their latest effort coming out for an insulting three weeks in theaters before being dumped on Apple TV+, it’s fitting to honor Lee and Washington’s cinematic accomplishments.
5. Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
The duo’s first collaboration back in 1990, with Lee fresh off his Brooklyn masterpiece Do The Right Thing and Washington a year out from winning Best Supporting Actor for Glory, offered a zag for director and actor. Mo’ Better Blues tells the story of jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (Washington) and the hard decisions and mistakes he makes along the way. The movie features plenty of exhilarating jazz sequences but is far more lowkey than other, more provocative Spike joints. The film does have major third-act scenes and the occasional bouts of violence, but Lee’s interests really lie in understanding Bleek’s psychology, relationships with his romantic partners and fellow performers and the underlying questions of what it takes to be a “great performer.”
Washington has the interesting task of finding the anxiety and sensitivity that he doesn’t always get to show in his other films like his works with Tony Scott, The Equalizer franchise or Training Day. Even in other notable recent roles like Gladiator II, he has to display a level of cunning and brashness to get what he wants. In Mo’ Better Blues, Washington has to confront the sadness, regret and pain Bleek feels about losing the ability to play the trumpet and his inability to initially connect with lovers Indigo Downes (Joie Lee) and Clarke Bentancourt (Cynda Williams).
That isn’t to say Washington doesn’t play up the charisma, however, as Film Obsessive’s Matthew Percefull points out, “His natural charisma and star power make Bleek a likable character even through the mistakes he makes.”
For Lee, Mo’ Better Blues is a deep dive into the life and career of his father, Bill Lee, who was a jazz bassist and composed the film’s score. In fact, the nickname of Bleek comes from Bill. But Lee also has a key filmmaking influence from his old pal and fellow New Yorker: Martin Scorsese. Although Mo’ Better Blues and Scorsese’s masterwork GoodFellas came out in the same year, there’s an unmistakable similarity between the two films as immersions into a world: one, a look at jazz culture, and the other an examination of the Italian mob. There’s also a crane steadicam shot in Lee’s film that is eerily similar to the legendary Copacabana sequence.
Even though Lee and Washington went on to further success in later films together, they hit the ground running with the energy and thematic insight they would bring to the stories they wanted to tell in the future. Mo’ Better Blues may be in the fourth spot, but it speaks to the greatness that lies ahead on the list.
4. Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
The latest Spike Lee-Denzel Washington Joint certifies that we are certifiably in Late Spike. You can easily claim that his 2020 film, Da 5 Bloods, a movie about older Black men re-examining their past, starts this new era. Both Lee and Washington are now looking back on how they have made movies together within the systems they have upheld and critiqued over four decades in the business.
You’ll notice in this modern retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (itself an adaptation of Evan Hunter’s 1959 novel “King’s Ransom”), which follows Washington as music mogul David King trying to negotiate a targeted ransom plot, that the bleak tone and police procedural nature of the Japanese film is out the window. The audience is with King for nearly the entire time, including the final showdown with the perpetrator (played wonderfully by rapper A$AP Rocky), and the ending is quite hopeful while still being self-exmaining enough to be one of 2025’s most interesting works.
Washington has all the bravura that has made him such a compelling figure for so long. But the more fascinating achievement from Washington in this film is how he’s able to dive through King’s multitudes. There’s a clear hardened sense of violent masculinity that underlies King and his success, and now that his mind is only thinking about money, his worst impulses emerge. The introspection that Washington displays truly makes King a fascinating character study.
But Lee muddies the waters of where he stands on being an example of Black Excellence. Lee seems to be aware of the negative effects of his upholding of American power structures and modes of production. He doesn’t fully give out a condemnation of these systems, but notices something in his own life needs to change. This look at how a successful artist can work with morals in America may not be as provocative as Lee’s previous works, but the director once again gives plenty of ideas for the audience to chew on.
3. He Got Game (1998)
What places He Got Game, a sports drama that both feels like it’s attached and totally removed from this earth, above Mo’ Better Blues and Highest 2 Lowest is the fact that it is an emotional examination of basketball as a cultural, political and economic force in Black American society. The film follows Washington as Jake Shuttlesworth, imprisoned for killing his wife, can now be released early as long as he helps his son pick the “right school” (a politician’s alma mater who has the power to get Jake free).
The movie features a plethora of cameos from college basketball coaches, 90s NBA stars and has Hall of Fame guard Ray Allen as the top-ranked prospect Jesus Shuttlesworth. At the same time, the film is littered with inaccuracies about college recruiting and the decision-making process of basketball prospects (a fact pointed out at length by Bill Simmons in the 2000s) and an ending that throws verisimilitude to the wind. Plus, it doesn’t help having Allen, who is not an actor by trade, as a star with significant screentime for a movie.
But Lee blends melodramatic storytelling and the connection between Jesus and imprisoned father Jake Shuttlesworth (Washington) to tell a story about where basketball stands within American life and capitalism. The movie is very explicit in showing how schools and teams will look to get the edge on recruiting by giving money to players. Further than that, Lee shows how everyone in Jesus’ life has an angle, including his father. That’s why the cameos, aside from being a crowd-pleasing aspect of the film, are so vital. Athletes become simultaneously more and less than a person; they become an ideal, a marketable asset, a sign for a program that does things “the right way,” a chance for alumni to make their old college team look good or simply just an opportunity to get more money in their pocket.
It’s why in a metatextual sense, Allen’s performance, despite not being “good” by the traditional methods of people grading acting (if that even means anything), works for He Got Game. With all the pressure about choosing where to go and providing for his siblings, Allen’s performance comes off as somebody who can’t articulate his thoughts because he literally has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It didn’t help that Allen was also sharing scenes with one of the greatest actors ever. Washington dials up the charm to 11 and has to balance wanting to get out of prison and genuinely help his son. For most of the runtime, Washington is equally convincing and mysterious in determining what his motives are, even as he plainly states them.
He Got Game is far from perfect; Milla Jovovich plays a very hollow love interest for Jake. But Lee’s examination of basketball and the sheer force of Washington’s charisma make the film such a fascinating work to chew on. And now in an era of college athletics that is solely defined by name, image and likeness, He Got Game takes on a whole new meaning.
2. Inside Man (2006)
While 25th Hour is rightfully described as Lee’s “9/11 film” because of the immediacy of its release following the September 11th attacks and the movie’s depiction of life on the ground after the devastation, it’s Inside Man, the 2006 crime thriller about a Wall Street bank heist/hostage situation, that goes further in depicting the ramifications and atmosphere of New York City half a decade after 9/11.
With an increase in Islamophobia following 9/11 and a distrust of elite, powerful figures in America as a result of the war in Iraq, Lee examines how these feelings are simultaneously in flux and becoming crystallized. Whether it be in little moments where the police accuse a Muslim of being involved in the heist or a bank robber revealing the Nazi secrets of a respected chairman of a bank (Christopher Plummer), Lee makes an action movie definitively set in the 2000s.
But Lee never gets enough credit for how he can toy with and play within genres. That ability is on full display in Inside Man, which is a harrowing and mature caper. The script by writer Russell Gewirtz unfolds like a puzzle box, but it’s up to Lee to create the tension, suspense, and mystery that make Inside Man feel light on its feet, even with a runtime of over two hours. Lee gives the whole film a puppeteer-like quality, fitting since robber Dalton Russell masterfully orchestrates and gets away with his master heist.
Fortunately for Lee, he caught Washington smackdab in the middle of the actor’s 2000s run with action auteur, Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable were all released between 2004-10). In Inside Man, Washington plays Detective Keith Frazier, who tries to stop Russell and save the hostages inside the bank.
Throughout the film, Washington has to uphold a veneer of confidence, believing he understands where Russell is going with this heist. But Lee does a great job of always depicting Frazier as one or two steps behind Russell and letting the detective’s frustration boil over. In a tense scene toward the end of the film, Russell seemingly executes a hostage, causing Frazier to run toward the bank, demanding an explanation.
Instead of having a shot of Frazier running, Lee uses a “double dolly” shot, mostly used by Lee and Washington in Malcolm X (more on that down below), to display his anger and focus. This contrasts with the other times Lee has used that shot to depict more moments of clarity and otherworldliness in Mo’ Better Blues and Malcolm X. A shot like this proves that Lee is not just playing around with genre, but also with his own style and his depiction of Washington.
1. Malcolm X (1992)
I mean, come on. I know it’s basic to say, “Did you expect anything different?” But did you seriously think Malcolm X wouldn’t be at the top spot? It’s very easy to argue that the film about the civil rights leader is the greatest biopic of all time and that Washington was robbed of Best Actor by Al Pacino and Scent of a Woman. But those clichéd platitudes overlook the undeniable brilliance in form for both Lee and Washington in this film.
Lee has undoubtedly made bigger narrative and genre swings with other films. Just look at his ode to Bill Gunn’s underground cinema in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus or his remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy. But what makes Malcolm X such an achievement is how he subverts and toys with the pacing, structure and characterization of the biopic genre.
The mission with Lee’s film was to re-educate or newly educate Americans to the life and times of Malcolm X, who, after his assassination, was truly erased from the history books. But Lee did far more than just make a sprawling epic to reveal Malcolm X’s existence. Far from it. He displayed a full life of a revolutionary. It takes nearly an hour into the 202-minute runtime for Washington’s character to even learn about the Nation of Islam.
Lee relishes the first hour of revealing the childhood and criminal escapes of Malcolm, while also revealing the systemic racism that showed itself explicitly and implicitly throughout the early years of the activist’s life. But even as the film progresses into the major events that made Malcolm X into such a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Lee wanted to get the imperfections and small moments of grace that no one would even have bothered to show. Additionally, in typical Lee fashion, he connects the life of Malcolm X to the struggle for Pan-Africanism, with a final cameo from South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela.
But there are so many scenes that go against the grain of a typical biopic. As the tensions between the Nation of Islam rise and the FBI increases its surveillance, Malcolm takes a trip to Mecca. Lee and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson beautifully capture the enlightenment and beauty that strike against the idea that Malcolm was a dangerous Black supremacist radical. It’s not in some neoliberal attempt on Lee’s part to tone down Malcolm’s politics, but rather to set the record straight and show that this leader was a beautiful person.
In comes Washington, who has the mighty task of displaying the oratory ability and charm of Malcolm X, while also showing his fragility. When Malcolm comes to learn the teachings of Islam, Washington understands how to depict awe and the feeling that your whole world has significance and purpose. The esteemed actor hints at so much more and so much of the pain that came from living his whole life in a racist world. Washington had a clear understanding of how to show that the weight and enormity of Malcolm X’s power took an undeniable toll on the man himself.
That’s what makes Malcolm X so distinct and elevated among other biopics. The combination of knowledge and understanding from both Lee and Washington makes this their finest collaboration and quite possibly the pinnacle of both of their careers.
