Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated American Indie Films of 2018: #56. Spike Lee’s Black Klansman

Published on January 16, 2018

Black Klansman

In a career that spanning three decades, even as of late, we’ve seen Spike Lee work in just about every genre from Red Hook Summer (2012), to Old Boy (2013) to Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2015) to Chi-Raq (2016) with a nice dollop of docus films in-between. So it comes as no surprise when he teamed with Get Out‘s Jordan Peele to produce and direct what we hope might be another pointy politicized, food for thought item in Black Klansman. Lensing on the crime thriller started in September.

Based on Ron Stallworth’s book, written by Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel and Kevin Willmott, this stars John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace and Corey Hawkins, this follows an African American detective in Colorado Springs, Colorado who infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and eventually becomes the head of the chapter.

Release Date/Prediction: Focus Features will have to decide whether they want fest play or to make some coin and program it accordingly.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).