The three most recent movies of Denzel Washington – and the next effort that he has lined up – illustrate the three most distinct strands of his long and illustrious career.
Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth saw the actor take Shakespeare head-on. The project is a gripping black-and-white subversion of the classic text and landed his tenth Oscar nomination for doing so, all shortly before he indulged his directorial side by helming and producing A Journal for Jordan without even appearing on-screen.
Washington followed that up by returning to running and gunning and experiencing the requisite commercial success audiences have been conditioned to expect in The Equaliser 3, with Ridley Scott’s blockbuster Gladiator sequel marking a very rare foray into the world of historical epics.
Held up as one of the greatest actors of all time for a myriad of very good and entirely accurate reasons, the following five movies helped create the mythology that surrounds Washington to this day, displaying the various weapons in his performative arsenal that have seen him recognized the world over as one of the best to ever do it.
Five iconic Denzel Washington movies:
5. Fences (Denzel Washington, 2016)
Washington’s first two feature-length efforts from behind the camera in Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters had been solid as opposed to blow-away spectacular, but Fences showed that he was more than capable of being a powerhouse on either side of it.
Directing, producing, and starring in the adaptation of August Wilson’s play, it was comfortably both his best movie as a filmmaker yet and arguably his finest performance in years. At the time, Washington had dedicated the majority of his time to broad thrillers, making it refreshing to see him back and firing on all cylinders on multiple fronts.
Prior to Fences, seven of his previous eight on-screen credits had him chasing down bad guys while aiming for box office success, but a pair of Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Actor’ in an acclaimed and moving drama offered a reminder that his penchant for less fantastical material remained undiminished.
4. Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)
What makes Washington’s incendiary work in Training Day all the more impressive is that while Alonzo Harris is comfortably one of his most memorable characters brought to life through an Oscar-winning performance dripping in charisma and malevolence, the movie itself is hardly held up as a classic.
Critical notices were strong without being overwhelmingly enthusiastic, with his ‘Best Actor’ victory accounting for one of just two Oscar nominations alongside Ethan Hawke being shortlisted for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, while he secured Training Day‘s only Golden Globes recognition and didn’t even win.
Antoine Fuqua’s tale of corrupt cops is a good film without being a truly great one, but it’s undeniable that Washington’s second Oscar win was fully deserved. Alonzo is calculated, conniving, and both the coolest and smartest person in any room, with his multi-faceted turn making that abundantly clear.
3. Mo’ Better Blues (Spike Lee, 1990)
Firmly established as a star on an unstoppable upward trajectory, Malcolm X is perhaps the best collaboration between Washington and Spike Lee, but it’s Mo’ Better Blues that allowed the actor to showcase different sides of himself as a performer outside of straightforward drama and broad comedy.
If anything, the role of Minifield ‘Bleek’ Gilliam was the perfect showcase for both, combining the best elements of his entire filmography up to that point into one tour-de-force turn. Allowed to be funny but never forgetting the weight required to convey the emotional turmoil he finds himself in, it was the ideal balance that came along at precisely the right time.
Prior to Mo’ Better Blues, Washington had only been the top-billed name in three of his movies. Afterwards, though, he was rarely ever anything but. It doesn’t always get held up as one of his very best, but it laid the groundwork for his 1990s, a pivotal decade that would see him reach brand new heights by effortlessly moving between genres at will and almost always outshining his co-stars in the process.
2. Crimson Tide (Tony Scott, 1995)
It might have been Ricochet that gave Washington his first taste of headlining an action thriller in 1991, with The Pelican Brief experiencing blockbuster-sized success two years later, but it was Crimson Tide that set the heroic template the star has largely followed ever since.
The first of five partnerships with Tony Scott, at the time, Washington and Gene Hackman’s submarine spectacular was comfortably the biggest box office hit of his career when his name was the one listed first in his credits, underlining that as well as being one of his generation’s most prominent dramatic talents, he could also be a bankable action hero.
That sentiment has remained true for the last three decades, with any hard-boiled genre film featuring his name plastered all over the marketing virtually guaranteed to be a hit. There’s a distinct line between an ‘actor’ and a ‘movie star,’ but Crimson Tide was the start of Washington eventually cementing himself as being one of the very few names in modern Hollywood history who could master both.
1. Glory (Edward Zwick, 1989)
It was Cry Freedom that served as Washington’s breakthrough performance by landing him his first Academy Award nomination and opening the eyes of the industry to his potential as being a great-in-waiting, but it was Glory that made it inarguable.
Winning the Oscar and Golden Globe for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, Edward Zwick’s historical war drama wasn’t a runaway smash hit at the box office but nonetheless offered the second indication in quick succession that Washington was on course to rise to the very summit of the A-list.
After just seven big screen credits – which yielded two Oscar nominations and a win – Glory was the movie that let the entire world know in no uncertain terms that greatness was on the horizon for Washington. It wasn’t his big break, nor is it the best performance he’s ever given, but it may well be the most pivotal looking at what it meant for his career and, ultimately, legacy.
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