Full Trailer for ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Movie Starring Denzel Washington
by Alex Billington
August 4, 2025
Source: YouTube
“You let him go, I’ll make sure you set free.” Apple TV & A24 have finally revealed the main official trailer for Spike Lee’s latest film titled Highest 2 Lowest, a modern remake of Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low (aka Heaven and Hell). It first premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival a few months ago – and will open in theaters soon for a few weeks before it’s streaming on Apple TV+ in September. After nearly twenty years, two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington reunites with the legendary Spike Lee for a new joint. This pulse-pounding New York City thriller follows a mastermind in music biz who gets rocked by a kidnapping. When a titan music mogul in the Big Apple 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, John Douglas Thompson, and Aubrey Joseph as Trey. Unfortunately this is one of the worst films of 2025 – I loathe it. My Cannes review tries to explain why, but it’s really sloppy, lazy filmmaking that betrays the original film. Kurosawa would be pissed.
Here’s the official trailer trailer (+ poster) for Spike Lee’s film Highest 2 Lowest, from A24’s YouTube:
You can rewatch the fest teaser trailer for Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest right here for the first look again.
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 15th, 2025 this summer, then it’ll be streaming on Apple TV+ starting on September 5th. Who’s down?
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