Biography
Spike Lee is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He was born Shelton Jackson Lee on 20 March 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia. He studied at Morehouse College and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where his student film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) won a Student Academy Award. He founded the production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.
Lee made his feature directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986). His subsequent films include Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), in which he also wrote the screenplay, produced and appeared as Shorty, 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He appeared as himself in the documentary Hoop Dreams (1994).
Lee won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. He has received additional Academy Award nominations and other honours including a Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Malcolm X.
