Spike Lee Reveals What He Thinks His Legacy Will Be After He Dies (Exclusive) Brian Anthony Hernandez, Stephanie SengweDecember 14, 2025 at 4:00 AM 0 Brianna Bryson/WireImage Spike Lee on Dec. 9, 2025 Spike Lee revealed what he wants his legacy to be after his death in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE Lee is a prolific filmmaker and a longtime professor of film studies and directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Some of his most iconic projects include She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X and Da 5 Bloods Spike Lee knows how he want...
- - Spike Lee Reveals What He Thinks His Legacy Will Be After He Dies (Exclusive)
Brian Anthony Hernandez, Stephanie SengweDecember 14, 2025 at 4:00 AM
0
Brianna Bryson/WireImage
Spike Lee on Dec. 9, 2025 -
Spike Lee revealed what he wants his legacy to be after his death in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE
Lee is a prolific filmmaker and a longtime professor of film studies and directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Some of his most iconic projects include She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X and Da 5 Bloods
Spike Lee knows how he wants to be remembered.
Speaking with PEOPLE exclusively at the Critics Choice Association's 8th Celebration of Black Cinema & Television, the Academy Award winner, 68, revealed what he thinks his legacy will be after his death.
"It's two things: it's the films, and also I'm a teacher," Lee, a longtime professor of film studies and directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, said.
Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty
Spike Lee receiving Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois Medal on Nov. 4, 2025
"So my students … a lot of them have gone and made careers in it," the Do the Right Thing and BlacKkKlansman director continued.
"I've been teaching 31 years. But not all those years were tenured. That came around recently. So they can't fire me. NYU can't fire me," Lee added.
At the Critics Choice ceremony, the Malcolm X filmmaker was presented with the Career Achievement Award for "his extraordinary body of work that has made an indelible mark on popular culture over the last four decades, including most recently A24 and Apple Original Films' Highest 2 Lowest."
The Critics Choice Association detailed his career successes in a statement, writing, "Lee has explored race, politics, and African American life in such iconic films as She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X and Da 5 Bloods."
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
"He also directed the double Emmy Award-winning documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise, as well as the Oscar-nominated feature documentary 4 Little Girls about the 1963 bombing of a Black church in Birmingham that killed four young girls," the statement concluded.
— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Earl Gibson III/Deadline via Getty
From left: Michael B. Jordan, Spike Lee and Ryan Coogler on Dec. 9, 2025
Lee — who recently also received the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal (Harvard's highest honor in the field of African and African American studies) — previously said his two children will be a major part of his legacy.
"My No. 1 legacy is going to be through my children," he told Vulture of his kids, Satchel, 31, and Jackson, 28.
Lee added, "They both are definitely going to do something in the arts. And they are going to be successful too. I know they are going to be the best legacy that my wife, Tonya, and I leave behind."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: December 13, 2025 at 10:36PM on Source: RED MAG
#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle