NEED TO KNOW
Spike Lee reflected on his and Denzel Washington’s three-decades-long friendship after first starring together in 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues
This comes after Lee and Washington released their fifth movie together called Highest 2 Lowest earlier this year
Lee previously shared that it was a “blessing” that they got to work on “films that the people love” together
Spike Lee is revealing the key ingredient to his and Denzel Washington’s longtime friendship.
The Malcolm X filmmaker, 68, reflected on how his friendship with Washington, 70, has grown over the last three decades since they first collaborated together on Mo’ Better Blues in 1990.
“Dennis and I, our relationship is based upon love and trust, trust and love,” Lee tells PEOPLE at the Wall Street Journal Innovator Awards 2025 on Wednesday, Oct. 29.
“And our families are close too,” he adds of wife Tonya Lewis Lee and their two children, daughter Satchel, 30, and son Jackson, 28. (Washington shares sons John David, 41, and Malcolm, 34, and daughters Katia, 38, and Olivia, 34, with his wife Pauletta Washington.)
Lee notes that his latest film with Washington Highest 2 Lowest, which premiered in select theaters in August before heading to Apple TV+ in September, was his fifth project with the star after Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998) and Inside Man (2206).
Robin Platzer/FilmMagic
Denzel Washington and Spike Lee
It also may be their last, as he notes that his longtime friend and collaborator “has been talking about retirement, even though he just did another deal.”
“The five films together, you know, they stand up. Malcolm X, I mean, what he did with that film, it’s amazing,” he explains.
“It’s been a blessing to have this body of work of us doing films that the people love, so it’s a blessing, again,” he adds.
It’s a sentiment that Washington shares as well. After the director presented him with the honorary Palme d’Or at the premiere of their film at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the Fences actor said during his speech that “it was a great opportunity to collaborate with my brother once again — brother from another mother, Spike.”
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Spike Lee and Denzel Washington
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The filmmaking duo also have each other’s backs both on screen and off screen. Lee shared at Cannes that he still believed Washington should have won an Academy Award for their Malcolm X biopic over Al Pacino, who won Best Actor at the 1993 Oscars for Scent of a Woman. Washington eventually earned his first Oscar win through 2001’s Training Day.
“With these awards, it’s like basketball, where a ref blows the call and then you got the make up call. So the make up call I think was Training Day, which [Washington] won the Oscar for,” Lee said at the time.
“But we don’t do our work for awards, which are nice, and I think that it’s the work that’s going to stand above all awards,” he added.
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