It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John Turturro and Samuel L. Jackson and is the feature film debut of Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez.

The story explores a Brooklyn neighborhood's simmering racial tension between its African-American residents and the Italian-American owners of a local pizzeria, culminating in tragedy and violence on a hot summer's day.

A critical and commercial success, the film received accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (for Aiello's portrayal of Sal, the pizzeria owner).

[4][5] In 2022, the film was ranked the 24th greatest of all time in Sight and Sound magazine's decennial poll of international critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics.

[7][8][9][10][11] Twenty-five-year-old Mookie lives in Bedford–Stuyvesant with his sister Jade, has a toddler son named Hector with his Latina girlfriend Tina, and works as a delivery man at a pizzeria owned by Italian-American Salvatore "Sal" Frangione.

Other residents of the neighborhood include friendly drunk Da Mayor; Mother Sister, who observes the block from her brownstone; Radio Raheem, who blasts Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on his boombox; Buggin' Out, a fast-talking young man who talks about Black civil rights to anyone who'll listen; Smiley, a mentally disabled man who meanders around town with hand-colored pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.; and local DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy.

During the day, local teenagers open a fire hydrant to beat the heat wave before white police officers Mark Ponte and Gary Long intervene.

Smiley sets the building ablaze, and Da Mayor pulls Sal, Pino, and Vito away from the mob, which turns toward the Korean market across the street to destroy it, too.

Mookie leaves to visit Hector as Mister Señor Love Daddy announces that the mayor of New York City has founded a committee to investigate the incident and dedicates a song to Raheem.

An epilogue shows two quotations that demonstrate the dichotomy of the film's theme – one from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who claims violence is never justified, and one from Malcolm X, who claims violence is "intelligence" when used in self-defense – and dedicates the film to six Black people, five—Eleanor Bumpurs, Arthur Miller Jr., Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart—killed by police officers and one—Michael Griffith—killed by a white mob.

[13] Lee was also influenced by the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Shopping for Death," in which the main characters discuss their theory that hot weather increases violent tendencies, and the killing of Eleanor Bumpurs by police.

Lee has not explicitly explained why he changed the ending but his contemporaneous notes compiled in the film's companion book indicate Lisa Jones expressed Sal's reaction as "too nice" as originally written.

[14] Lee originally wanted Bill Nunn to play the role of Mister Señor Love Daddy but later recast him as Radio Raheem.

The acting couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who were friends of Lee's father Bill, were cast as Da Mayor and Mother Sister.

Production designer Wynn Thomas altered the street's color scheme, using a great deal of red and orange paint to convey the sense of a heatwave.

[13] During the final confrontation between Aiello's "Sal" and Giancarlo Esposito's character, "Buggin Out," Lee allowed the actors to improvise racist remarks.

[20] In the film, Raheem recites a soliloquy on love and hate, an ode to a similar monologue delivered by Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter (1955).

[23] Critic Ted Kulczycky comments on Spike Lee's use of direct address in Radio Raheem's soliloquy on love and hate as a "break from realism", thus creating an "atypical effect".

Kulczycky describes Raheem's direct address as having the dual effect of reminding viewers of the constructed nature of the film, but also "fueling their involvement".

[24] The boombox prop used in the film is on display in the A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

[26] Siskel described the film as "a spiritual documentary that shows racial joy, hatred and confusion at every turn",[27] while Ebert lauded it for coming "closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time.

"[32] Ralph Novak, writing for People, panned the film as incoherent and having an unclear message and no likable characters: "If Lee is saying that racism is profoundly painful, frustrating and confusing, no one will argue.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Smart, vibrant and urgent without being didactic, Do the Right Thing is one of Spike Lee's most fully realized efforts – and one of the most important films of the 1980s.

[37] Lee criticized White reviewers in turn for suggesting that Black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture.

"[39] An open question near the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" by throwing the garbage can through the window, inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria.

Drawing a loud applause from attending press, he pointed to the continued relevance of the film's story, more than three decades on, saying: "You would think and hope that 30-something motherfucking years later that Black people would have stopped being hunted down like animals.

"[47] American Film Institute lists Do the Right Thing was released on VHS after its theatrical run, and on DVD by The Criterion Collection on February 20, 2001.

[57] The scene where Buggin' Out confronts the white Celtics fan about scuffing his Air Jordans is parodied in the music video for the 2008 Nelly song "Stepped on My J'z".