Mo' Better Blues is a 1990 American musical comedy-drama film starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, and Spike Lee, who also wrote, produced, and directed.

The film was released five months after the death of Robin Harris and is dedicated to his memory, being his final acting role.

In Brooklyn, New York in 1969, a group of four boys walk up to Bleek Gilliam's Brownstone apartment and ask him to play baseball with them.

Giant, childhood friend and the band's manager, advises Bleek to stop allowing his saxophone player Shadow Henderson to grandstand with long solos.

He meets Bleek at the club with the rest of the band, except for the pianist, Left Hand Lacey, who arrives late with his French girlfriend and is scolded by Giant.

When loan sharks stake out Giant's home, he goes to Bleek for a place to stay who agrees to help him raise the money but fires him as manager.

Still with scars on his lips and unable to play well, Bleek walks off the stage, gives his trumpet to a supportive Giant, and goes directly to Indigo's house.

Angry with him because he hasn't contacted her in over a year, she tries to reject him but agrees to take him back when he begs her to save his life.

Initially contemplating the use of real musicians, Lee opted mostly for actors, with Jeff "Tain" Watts being an exception, playing drums in the actual Branford Marsalis Quartet.

Branford Marsalis, making a cameo, was originally cast as saxophonist "Shadow Henderson," but Lee chose a professional actor, Wesley Snipes, for the role.

The consensus states: "Mo' Better Blues is rich with vibrant hues and Denzel Washington's impassioned performance, although its straightforward telling lacks the political punch fans expect from a Spike Lee joint."

The ADL claimed that the characterizations of the nightclub owners "dredge up an age-old and highly dangerous form of anti-Semitic stereotyping", and the ADL was "disappointed that Spike Lee – whose success is largely due to his efforts to break down racial stereotypes and prejudice – has employed the same kind of tactics that he supposedly deplores.

"[3] Lee eventually responded in an editorial in The New York Times,[4] alleging "a double standard at work in the accusations of anti-Semitism" given the long history of negative portrayals of African-Americans in film: "Not every black person is a pimp, murderer, prostitute, convict, rapist or drug addict, but that hasn't stopped Hollywood from writing these roles for African-Americans".

Lee argues that even if the Flatbush brothers are stereotyped figures, their "10 minutes of screen time" is insignificant when compared to "100 years of Hollywood cinema... [and] a slew of really racist, anti-Semitic filmmakers".

Lee refused to apologize for his portrayal of the Flatbush brothers: "I stand behind all my work, including my characters, Moe and Josh Flatbush... if critics are telling me that to avoid charges of anti-Semitism, all Jewish characters I write have to be model citizens, and not one can be a villain, cheat or a crook, and that no Jewish people have ever exploited black artists in the history of the entertainment industry, that's unrealistic and unfair.

A couple of them had spent time together on previous Spike films, and their characters in Mo’ Better Blues were kind of chauvinistic.