Denzel Washington and Spike Lee have made several movies together, but their first collaboration remains highly underrated. Spike Lee directed his first film, She’s Gotta Have It, in 1986, and his breakout came three years later in 1989 with Do The Right Thing. Denzel Washington took on his first movie role in 1981 with Carbon Copy. He earned his first Oscar nomination in 1987 with Cry Freedom, and his breakout arguably came in 1989 with the Civil War movie Glory, when Washington won his first Oscar.

It can’t be a coincidence that the two men found each other in 1990, one year after each of them had their major breakthroughs. In 1990, Lee directed his fourth feature film, Mo’ Better Blues, a film following a jazz trumpeter named Bleek Gilliam (Washington) who makes several poor decisions that jeopardizes his career and personal life. Washington acted alongside some huge names, including Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and John Turturro, but few people mention Mo’ Better Blues when discussing Washington and Lee’s movie collaborations.

Mo’ Better Blues Sees Both Denzel Washington & Spike Lee At Their Best

Denzel Washington & Spike Lee Respected The Black Experience

Mo’ Better Blues is a movie following the trumpeter Bleek Gilliam, someone whose mother demanded he work hard to become a skilled musician when he was a child. As an adult, he has succeeded and has his own jazz band. The film sees Washington star as a man who can’t seem to get what he wants out of life, often thanks to his own decisions and the poor decisions of those people he trusts. This includes Spike Lee himself, who plays the band’s manager, Giant, who has gone into debt with loan sharks.

The movie fits in perfectly with Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s themes over their work together, as Lee directs a movie that is both a love letter to the art of jazz and a story about how hard it is for Black men and women to gain mainstream acceptance, especially in the era of this film’s release. However, the movie also worked hard to show that Bleek had sheltered himself so much that he couldn’t see that he was making things even worse than they already were.

Denzel Washington turned in an impressive performance, and one that fans don’t see from him anymore, as a man who knows he is involved in a never-ending uphill battle and only does things to make it harder on himself and the people who count on him. Lee works this into his story in a more straightforward manner than in his other movies, which slightly hurts the film’s ability to really make the message stick, but his camerawork and skill at directing talent shines through, and the movie showed hints of the greatness that was to come for these two stars.

Why Mo’ Better Blues Isn’t Spoken About More

The Spike Lee Joint Is Only Part Of A Larger Legacy Of Films

One big problem with Mo’ Better Blues legacy is that it was one of four movies that Spike Lee and Denzel Washington made together, and it is one of the weakest of the releases based on critical acclaim and box office success. After Mo’ Better Blues, Lee and Washington made Malcolm X, with Washington starring as the civil rights leader. They made the sports drama He Got Game in 1998 and their last film together arrived in 2006 with Inside Man.

Washington earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Malcolm X, which immediately had people talking about that movie and mostly forgetting about Mo’ Better Blues. Washington has earned nine Oscar nominations, and that gives him an incredible filmography, but one that doesn’t include Mo’ Better Blues, at least award-wise. Spike Lee has seven Oscar nominations, but few people mention his first movie with Washington when looking at his career. The two men’s success makes their smaller movies less notable, at least for mainstream audiences. Mo’ Better Blues deserves better.

Denzel Washington & Spike Lee Have A New Collaboration Coming Up

Denzel & Spike Are Remaking Akira Kurosawa’s High And Low

Thirty-five years after making Mo’ Better Blues, and 19 years since their last movie together, Inside Man, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are back with their fifth collaboration in 2025. This is an exciting movie since it is a remake of a classic Akira Kurosawa crime film called High and Low. With the new name Highest 2 Lowest, this movie is an English-language reinterpretation of the story, which was based on an Ed McBain novel called King’s Ransom.

Highest 2 Lowest premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received high praise, with an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score coming out of that screening. According to critics, Lee and Washington didn’t copy what Kurosawa did in his masterpiece and instead used that film as a starting point, and brought in music, history, and his directorial expertise to make what they call a true Spike Lee Joint. The film has a lot to live up to, but if Mo’ Better Blues showed fans anything, it’s that Washington and Lee know how to make magic together.