Highest to Lowest

In Spike Lee’s reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s crime thriller HIGH AND LOW (1963), the activist artist is reunited for the fifth time with collaborator Denzel Washington (MO’ BETTER BLUES, MALCOLM X). Kurosawa’s psychological thriller explored social inequality through the story of a wealthy executive who becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by mistake. Spike Lee transposes Kurosawa’s Yokohama to the mean streets of New York, with Denzel Washington as the titan music mogul — the “best ears in the business” — targeted with a ransom plot and jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. Also starring Jeffrey Wright and A$AP Rocky — under his own name, Rakim Mayers.

Directed by Spike Lee | 2025