Do the Right Thing is set in Brooklyn, New York City.
Spike Lee’s 1989 film takes place on a single hot summer day in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The story follows residents and workers whose arguments about race, identity, policing and community tensions intensify as the temperature rises.
Lee wrote, directed and starred in the film as Mookie, a pizza-delivery worker. The fictional Sal’s Pizzeria is a central location, and the neighborhood setting is essential to the film’s focus on relationships among Black, Italian American, Korean American and Puerto Rican characters.
Do the Right Thing was filmed primarily in the Bedford–Stuyvesant area. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and has since been recognized by major film institutions as an important work of American cinema.