5 - 25th Hour

4 - Inside Man

3 - Malcolm X

2 - When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

1 - Do The Right Thing

I believe this is the first time in Top Five history that we've allowed a TV movie into the list. Upon further review, everyone who suggested Lee's Emmy- and Peabody-winning When the Levees Broke is right; that is one of his best films, and it also points to Spike's versatility as a filmmaker.

And because HBO has helped so many great pieces of filmmaking come to television, it's easy to make the case that without HBO, there would be no John Adams or When the Levees Broke at all, so we'll make an exception in this case.

Outside of 25th Hour, the other theatrical releases are well known to almost everyone, if only by reputation. People know Spike Lee directed Malcolm X and Do The Right Thing, even if they've never seen them, and for a director who plays so far out of the mainstream so often, that's a credit to him, as well.

Why do we have them in the order we do? Why isn't Malcolm X on top? I think Do The Right Thing so succinctly introduces what Lee's entire career has been about, and did so in dramatic fashion (and only a miniscule budget), that it's his purest film. It's not as polished as Inside Man, certainly, which is one of the best bank heist movies in a long time, but it's political, vibrant, confrontational, and thought-provoking.

Malcolm X feels like Lee's open letter to Hollywood; it's a big bio-pic, it stars Denzel, and it's "important." It's also a great film, no question. But I think it's ever so slightly compromised by commercialism. And I think if you look at a lot of Spike's films in the 20 years since, you can see he's tried hard the majority of the time to steer clear of conventions (movies like Get on the Bus, Bamboozled, and even Clockers).

There's nothing particularly commercial about 25th Hour, and in a weird sense, it's the best of his two worlds; it courts contemporary issues and concerns in the wake of 9/11, has a less-than-specific narrative, but it does those things with a cast of recognizable faces like Edward Norton and Rosario Dawson.