Today is Spike Lee's birthday, check out a trip down memory lane via the Oscar nominee's films. 

A young Spike Lee ushered in the new era of independent Black filmmaking with She’s Gotta Have It, a film he shot on a budget of $175,000. (It went on to make $7 million.) About a urban professional Black woman and her three lovers, the film—eschewing the pimp-ho-criminal-brute focus of many Hollywood Black movies—is a not only a breath of fresh air, but a game changer, paving the way for a Black cinema resurregence in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

(Photo: 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks)