Here's how 2019 sequel Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever and Malcolm X, with his movies regularly confronting topics like race relations and politics.
In addition to his movies, Spike Lee has also made several documentaries, including When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. One signature element of his work is calling his movies "A Spike Lee t," with the only exception being his lukewarm remake of Da 5 Bloods - being critically acclaimed.
One of Spike Lee's most mainstream efforts was 2006's Inside Man, a heist movie starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster. The movie's slick direction, witty dialogue and clever plotting made it one of Lee's most successful movies financially, but while he and the cast were attached to a sequel, the director declared it dead a few years later as he couldn't secure financing. A STV sequel later arrived in 2019 in the form of Inside Man: Most Wanted, with neither Lee nor any of the original cast returning.
Inside Man: Most Wanted takes five years after the events of the original, which saw Clive Owen's Dalton pull off an elaborate diamond heist in a New York bank. He also exposed the bank's owner Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) as having gotten rich during the 1940s from dealings with the Nazis. Most Wanted sees a new band of robbers led by Ariella (Roxanne McKee, Strike Back) pulling off an eeriely similar heist, with their target being a stash of Nazi gold held in a different bank. Ariella deals with negotiator Remy (Aml Ameen) during the robbery, with the latter quickly sussing there's more going on than meets the eye.
Inside Man: Most Wanted reveals Ariella is the sister of Clive Owen's Dalton, who has been kidnapped by Arthur Case's son Dietrich. Arthur died offscreen after being convinced of war crimes following the first movie, and in revenge his son wants Dalton's sisters Ariella and Ava (Jessica Sutton, Escape Room) to steal the gold for him. The sisters instead set Dietrich up to be arrested with the gold after they escape with it, but Dalton - while wearing a bag over his head to cover up that it's not Clive Owen - is executed by Case's men in revenge.
The ending of Inside Man: Most Wanted implies Ariella later tracked down Dietrich and killed him. While Denzel Washington doesn't appear physically in the sequel, a portrait of his character Frazier is shown early on in the movie.
