First Look Teaser for Spike Lee’s ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Film with Denzel
by Alex Billington
May 5, 2025
Source: YouTube
“That’s the question I have you… can you handle it?” A24 has unveiled the first teaser trailer for Spike Lee’s latest feature film titled Highest 2 Lowest, a modern remake of Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low (aka Heaven and Hell). Spike was shooting this movie in NYC last year, and now it’s ready for release this summer. Highest 2 Lowest will premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival playing out-of-competition in a few weeks (full line-up here), then it’ll open in theaters at the end of August. After nearly twenty years, two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington reunites with the legendary Spike Lee for a new joint. This pulse-pounding NYC thriller follows a mastermind in music biz. When a titan music mogul is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. A reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s kidnapping thriller High and Low, now played out on the mean streets of modern day New York. Starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, A$AP Rocky, Ice Spice, Dean Winters, and John Douglas Thompson. Not a ton of footage to see in here, but so far so good – I’m ready for this
Here’s the first teaser trailer (+ poster) for Spike Lee’s film Highest 2 Lowest, from A24’s YouTube:
A contemporary remake of Kurosawa’s movie High and Low (1963). When a titan music mogul (Denzel Washington), widely known as having the “best ears in the business”, is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. Brothers Denzel Washington and Spike Lee reunite for the 5th in their long working relationship for a reinterpretation of the great filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s crime thriller High and Low, now played out on the mean streets of modern day New York City. Highest 2 Lowest is directed by the prolific award-winning American filmmaker Spike Lee, of films including Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Clockers, He Got Game, 25th Hour, Inside Man, Red Hook Summer, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Chi-Raq, Rodney King, BlacKkKlansman, Da 5 Bloods, and David Byrne’s American Utopia previously. The new screenplay is written by Alan Fox; based on the novel novel “King’s Ransom” by Evan Hunter and the original 1963 film written by Hideo Oguni & Ryûzô Kikushima & Eijirô Hisaita & Akira Kurosawa. Produced by Jason Michael Berman and Todd Black. This is premiering at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival this month. A24 will then debut Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest film in select US theaters on August 22nd, 2025 this summer, then it’ll be streaming on Apple TV+ starting on September 5th. Who’s down?