Denzel Washington and Spike Lee’s latest collaboration, Highest 2 Lowest, marks their most critically acclaimed movie in nearly two decades. The new Spike Lee joint is a reimagining of the classic 1963 Akira Kurosawa movie, High and Low, which is often considered one of the greatest movies of all time. Highest 2 Lowest premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 19th and is set to be released theatrically in the United States by A24 on August 22, 2025. It will then become available to stream exclusively on Apple TV+ on September 5, 2205.

Highest 2 Lowest has been celebrated by critics, earning the film an impressive 90% Rotten Tomatoes score following its Cannes premiere. Although Washington and Lee are two prolific filmmaking figures, they have remarkably not made a film together since the 2006 American crime thriller Inside Man, which also received strong critical reception with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86%. Several of Denzel Washington’s greatest all-time movies have been directed by Lee, which makes Highest 2 Lowest even more exciting following its positive response months ahead of its U.S. release.

Denzel Washington & Spike Lee’s Highest-Rated Movie Together Is Right Now Highest 2 Lowest

It Currently Has A Slightly Higher Rotten Tomatoes Score Than Malcolm X

Out of the five movies that Washington and Lee have now made together, Highest 2 Lowest currently ranks as the most critically acclaimed. The current 90% rating of Highest 2 Lowest is slightly ahead of Malcolm X’s 89% score, which was previously considered the most celebrated Spike Lee movie starring Denzel Washington. Unless additional reviews for Highest 2 Lowest negatively affect its overall score, which very well may be the case since only 31 reviews have been written on it at the time of writing, the 2025 Spike Lee joint could be his greatest all-time Washington collab.

Lee recently commented at a Cannes 2025 press conference that Highest 2 Lowest could very well be the last film he ever makes with Washington, who is rumored to be retiring from acting sometime in the near future. “This is the fifth one we’ve done together. It has been a blessing, this body of work between us, doing films that people love. And I think this is it. He’s been talking about retirement. But five films together: that’s good, they stand up.” This would certainly end their collaborative efforts on a high note and cement their director-actor duo as one of the most legendary in Hollywood history, right up there with De Niro and Scorsese.

Highest 2 Lowest Is Denzel Washington & Spike Lee’s First Movie Together In 20 Years.

It Should End Their Five-Movie Run On A High Note

While Washington and Lee’s last movie together was Inside Man, which came out nearly 20 years ago, Lee directed Washington’s son, John David Washington, in 2018’s BlacKkKlansman, a film that earned Lee three of his five total Oscar nominations and his first-ever non-honorary win (Best Adapted Screenplay).

Highest 2 Lowest will also star Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction, The Last of Us) as well as music artists A$AP Rocky, who has appeared in Dope (2015) and Zoolander 2 (2016), and Ice Spice in her big screen debut. Washington will star as David King, a music mogul caught up in a kidnapping scheme.

Highest 2 Lowest’s Record RT Score Makes The 20-Year Gap Worth It

It Also Has Inside Man’s Impressive Box Office Number To Aim For

While the 20-year time ago between projects is certainly significant, it shows how much time was taken to find the right project, especially given that both figures have been busy with other projects. Even if Highest 2 Lowest turns out to be their last feature film collaboration, early reception suggests that the duo is going out with a bang.

It will be impressive if Highest 2 Lowest can maintain or improve on its 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, but even more impressive if its box office can exceed the $186 million total of Inside Man. Highest 2 Lowest also marks Lee’s first directed feature in five years, another reason to celebrate its upcoming arrival.