Do the Right Thing (1989), written and directed by Spike Lee, takes place over a single sweltering day in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn — building through racial tension to an act of police violence and the destruction of a beloved neighborhood pizzeria. Ernest Dickerson's saturated, heat-hazy cinematography makes the film feel ready to combust.
Why It Matters
- Named the greatest film of the 1980s by many critics and the most important American film of its decade on the subject of race
- Its police chokehold murder scene was seen as prophetic when filmed — and devastatingly relevant at every subsequent moment of racial violence in America
- Public Enemy's Fight the Power, which opens and closes the film, became one of the most politically important records in American music history
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated it for Screenplay but not Best Picture — a snub that generated enormous controversy and is still cited as one of the worst Oscar oversights in history.
Reference:
TaskLoco™ — The Sticky Note GOAT
