Do the Right Thing · reception & legacy

1989 · Spike Lee

How Do the Right Thing has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

In 1989 some critics literally warned it would incite riots, Cannes passed it over, and the Oscars didn't even nominate it for Best Picture — the year Driving Miss Daisy won. Now it's untouchable: National Film Registry in its first eligible year and a fixture near the top of the Sight & Sound poll.

What's debated

The eternal debate is the ending — and Spike Lee has long noted that it's overwhelmingly white viewers who ask him whether Mookie did the right thing.

Its footprint

Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power' is inseparable from the film, Rosie Perez's furious opening-credits dance is endlessly referenced, and Radio Raheem's LOVE/HATE rings monologue is one of cinema's most quoted setpieces.

Where it stands

A consensus all-timer and Exhibit A in every 'biggest Oscar snubs' conversation — the film cinephiles cite to prove the Academy gets it wrong.

★ Did you know? Barack and Michelle Obama saw Do the Right Thing on their first date in the summer of 1989 — Lee later joked that Barack owed him.

Named by the director

Influences Spike Lee has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Night of the Hunter (1955) — Lee acknowledged Radio Raheem's LOVE/HATE rings speech as a direct homage to Robert Mitchum's knuckle-tattoo sermon — the character even name-checks the story.