Introduction by cinematographer Ernest Dickerson.

Spike Lee’s microbudget feature She’s Gotta Have It announced him as a filmmaking force to be reckoned with upon its release in 1986 and earned Lee a special Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival. Tracy Camilla Johns plays Nola Darling, an independent young woman struggling to balance the men in her life, among them Lee himself playing the droll Mars Blackmon. Boasting vivid black-and-white cinematography by Ernest Dickerson and a jazz score by the filmmaker’s father, Bill Lee, She’s Gotta Have It is a signature piece of American independent cinema.

DIRECTOR: Spike Lee. WRITTEN BY: Spike Lee. CAST: Tracy Camilla Johns, Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell, Joie Lee. 1986. 84 min. USA. B&W and Color. English. 35mm.

All film screenings in the Director’s Inspiration: Spike Lee series are available here.  

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.