Poster © Focus Features. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreBiography, Comedy & Crime
RatedR
Runtime2 hr 15 mins
ReleasedAugust 10, 2018
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorSpike Lee
StarringJohn David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier
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BlacKkKlansman (2018)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| BlacKkKlansman's Details | |
| Genre | Biography, Comedy & Crime |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 05/14/2018 (Cannes); 08/10/2018 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 15 mins |
| Budget | $15M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| BlacKkKlansman's Interests | |
| General | Landlines, wiretaps, police files, 1970s Colorado Springs, the Black Student Union, courage. |
| Music | Terence Blanchard, Spike Lee's longtime composer. The score earned an Oscar nomination. |
| Movies | Do the Right Thing (1989). Spike Lee, three decades earlier, just as sharp. |
| Television | She's Gotta Have It. Spike Lee turned his own debut film into a series. |
| Heroes | Ron Stallworth, the real detective who made the call and later wrote the book. |
| BlacKkKlansman's Crew | |
| Director | Spike Lee |
| Writers | Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee |
| Producers | Jason Blum, Spike Lee, Raymond Mansfield, Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele, Shaun Redick |
| Cinematography | Chayse Irvin |
| Music | Terence Blanchard |
| Edited By | Barry Alexander Brown |
| Production | Legendary Pictures, Perfect World Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Monkeypaw Productions, QC Entertainment, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks |
| Distributed By | Focus Features (United States), Universal Pictures (International) |
A Black detective picks up a phone in 1970s Colorado, calls the local Klan chapter, and talks his way in using his own name. Those phone calls are where Spike Lee lets you laugh. John David Washington’s Ron puts on a perfectly polite voice, and Topher Grace plays David Duke as a smug, fussy man who’s sure he can hear race over the phone. Adam Driver is great as Flip, the Jewish colleague who sits across from these men in person and starts rethinking who he is. The honest problem: it zigzags between buddy comedy, thriller and history lesson, and the romance with Laura Harrier’s Patrice gets squeezed. Harry Belafonte’s scene, an elderly man telling young activists about a lynching he witnessed decades earlier, is the heaviest moment, and Lee doesn’t rush it. It made $93.4 million worldwide on a reported $15M. An 8.4 because it’s funny, furious and sincere at once, even when the pieces wobble. $839.18 says you quote Ron’s phone voice by tomorrow, and you bring up the ending to someone without being asked.
What works: John David Washington and Adam Driver make a great pair, the phone calls are genuinely funny, and Harry Belafonte’s scene is unforgettable.
What doesn’t: It swerves between comedy, thriller and history lesson, and the romance with Patrice feels crammed in between the bigger scenes.
Who it’s for: Anyone who likes true stories with sharp edges and wants a movie that’s funny and serious in the same breath.
Spoilers
The Klan’s bombing plot falls apart, and Ron finally tells David Duke on the phone exactly who he’s been talking to, right before the department shuts the investigation down. The movie closes with real news footage from the Charlottesville rally, including the car attack that killed counter-protester Heather Heyer, and fades out on an upside-down American flag.
In 1972, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) joins the Colorado Springs police force as its first Black officer. Stuck in the records room and treated badly by colleagues, he asks to go undercover. Then he spots the local Ku Klux Klan chapter in the newspaper, picks up the phone, and poses as a white man who wants to join. It works, which creates a problem: someone has to show up in person. That job goes to his Jewish colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). Spike Lee adapts the real Stallworth's memoir. One hundred thirty-five minutes, one phone line, two detectives sharing one name.
Anyone ready for a true story that makes you laugh and then makes you think hard.
Detective Philip "Flip" Zimmermanphoto: Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| John David Washington | Detective Ron Stallworth |
| Adam Driver | Detective Philip "Flip" Zimmerman |
| Laura Harrier | Patrice Dumas |
| Topher Grace | David Duke |
| Corey Hawkins | Kwame Ture |
| Harry Belafonte | Jerome Turner |
| Jasper Pääkkönen | Felix Kendrickson |
| Ryan Eggold | Walter Breachway |
| Frederick Weller | Patrolman Andy Landers |
| Paul Walter Hauser | Ivanhoe |
| Ashlie Atkinson | Connie Kendrickson |
| Michael Buscemi | Jimmy Creek |
| Ken Garito | Sergeant Trapp |
| Robert John Burke | Chief Bridges |
| Alec Baldwin | Dr |
| Isiah Whitlock Jr. | Mr |
| Nicholas Turturro | Walker |
| Damaris Lewis | Odetta |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +520 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $93.4M; Domestic box office $49.3M; Opening weekend $10.8M; Profit / loss (est.) +$24.2M; Rotten Tomatoes 96%; CinemaScore A−; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 96% (450 reviews); Metacritic 83 / 100; PostTrak audience 85% positive; CinemaScore A−; IMDb users 7.5 / 10 (318,157 votes); movie.guru score 8.6.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.