During the 1990 Oscar ceremony, while announcing the Best Picture nominees, Kim Basinger caused some controversy when she ignored her scripted text and said: "We've got five great films here, and they're great for one reason: because they tell the truth. But there is one film missing from this list, that deserves to be on it, because ironically, it might tell the biggest truth of all, and that's Do the Right Thing (1989)." Spike Lee would later thank her for it in a 2019 episode of the podcast "Unspooled".
All of the scenes of the corner men (Robin Harris, Paul Benjamin, and Frankie Faison) were improvised.
Despite Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) and Mother Sister (Ruby Dee) being enemies in the film, the actors were actually husband and wife in real life and frequently performed together until Davis' death in 2005.The two would appear in a later film done by Lee, Jungle Fever (1991) where they played a married couple.
Spike Lee criticized several (white) critics for their perceived racist reviews, in which they stated that the movie would incite anger and cause riots in the black population, and if this were to happen, the blood would be on Lee's hands. Lee defended his movie by stating that if white people can contain themselves from causing trouble after seeing movie violence in Arnold Schwarzenegger films, then so can black people. He would later praise Roger Ebert as one of the few white critics who understood the film's message of mutual understanding.
Radio Raheem's explanation of the love and hate rings he wears, is an homage to the speech that Robert Mitchum's Preacher gives in The Night of the Hunter (1955), one of Spike Lee's favorite movies. The preacher has "Love" and "Hate" tattoos on his hands.