For all its flash and agitated rhythms, Clockers has the thoughtful down time that allows actors to act and the narrative to hold its course.

| Dec 27, 2022

With Clockers, director Spike Lee achieves his best work so far.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 18, 2021

A story told with mournful, epic vision that rises high above its grim setting.

| Apr 9, 2020

In many ways, it's better than the book it's taken from: tighter, tauter, with a deeper vein of sadness opening underneath.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 9, 2020

"Clockers" is as grim as it is good. This is not an"entertaining" popcorn- type movie. It's timely. It's tragic in many ways. And it leaves a provocative and lasting impression.

| Apr 9, 2020

Clockers may be Lee's strongest film since Do the Right Thing, but he runs into trouble at the end when he tries to tie up all his threads in neat bows...the passion of this raw, mournful urban epic remains in spite of the false moves.

| Feb 26, 2018

There's no denying the movie's greatness: the depth of the characters, the urgency of its narrative, the nightmarishness of its vision.

| Aug 16, 2016

Lee has jettisoned most of his trademark technical razzmatazz; it's as if he were trying to burn straight through to the heart of his material.

| Original Score: A | Sep 7, 2011

There is a force and focus in Lee's work, an absence of intellectual posturing and a willingness to let his material speak for itself that he has not achieved before.

| Sep 22, 2008

Average Lee, but still enjoyable overall.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 22, 2008

The performances are strong, but the spectator often feels adrift in an overly busy intrigue.

| Sep 22, 2008

A study of the urban dope-dealing culture and its toll on everyone who comes in contact with it, the picture has an insider's feel that is constantly undercut by the filmmaker's impulse to editorialize.

Full Review | Jun 9, 2008

The result is a more sober, mournful and meditative expressionism than you'd expect. That's not to say the film isn't suspenseful, but the director's distaste for the inner city's gun culture is clear to see. Superbly acted.

| Feb 9, 2006

Helping make these points is as strong a cast as Lee has yet worked with.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2002

Has the strengths of Spike Lee's best work without the preachiness and gimmicky camera moves of his weakest.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 18, 2002

Clockers thunders home with the bruising urgency of a story that needs to be told.

Full Review | May 12, 2001

From the novel by Richard Price (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Spike Lee) comes Lee's first real look at urban drug dealing and the effects it has on life in the 'hood.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

A real, wicked thrill.

| Jan 1, 2000

Lee captures the despair, self-delusion, occasional terror and frequent humor of a praised and popular novel, aided by the potent acting his direction virtually guarantees.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Although Clockers is, as I suggested, a murder mystery, in solving its murder, it doesn't even begin to find a solution to the system that led to the murder. That is the point.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000