Denzel Washington is one of the last remaining superstars in an industry deprived of talents that carry his weight. The veteran actor is still an artist who garners critical acclaim and can open a movie to box office success. The name itself, Denzel, is one of mystique and power. His name carries a legacy of consistency, elegance, and grandeur.

Update September 1, 2023: In honor of the release of The Equalizer 3, this article has been updated with even more great Denzel Washington movies.

Washington is an actor who never seems to lose himself in the role and remains his trustworthy self while also acting everyone in front of him off the screen. He has the charm of a leading man and the terror of a great screen villain. Washington can make you fearful or have you shaking in fits with his humor. He’s now an acclaimed director with a trophy case that only Jack Nicholson could rival. Washington is, above all else, ione of the great talents whose work continues to carry generations while creating relevant work deep into his old age, building an everlasting catalog of classics.

15 Glory (1989)

Glory movie with Civil War soldiers
Tri-Star Pictures

Denzel Washington rose to prominence as a lead by taking powerful secondary roles in great films from the start. Glory is one of his earliest efforts, directed by Edward Zwick and written by Kevin Jarre. In this historical drama, he co-stars with Matthew Broderick and Morgan Freeman. Washington takes on the role of Private Silas Trip, one of the many African American soldiers in the Civil War in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and their fight to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

14 The Pelican Brief (1993)

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Warner Bros 

Only a few years later, Denzel was already a high-profile co-lead with some of the biggest stars in the 1990s. The Pelican Brief is a film written and directed by Alan J. Pakula based on the novel by John Grisham. With his co-stars Julia Roberts and Sam Shepard, they tell a story where journalist Gray Grantham assists a law student in uncovering a conspiracy that places their lives in danger with findings involving deep state conspirators, corruption, and election tampering.

13 Crimson Tide (1995)

Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as Ron and Frank in Crimson Tide
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Crimson Tide is an absolute banger written by Michael Schiffer and directed by the ever-reliable Tony Scott. Denzel Washington stars alongside Gene Hackman and Matt Craven as the two chief officers in a nuclear submarine. Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter is pushed by his superior to take action and launch an attack on Russian soil with incomplete information, prompting a tense military crisis with many layers of intensity.

12 The Hurricane (1999)

The Hurricane 1999
Universal Pictures

One of the greatest strengths of Denzel Washington is biopics, and he has made quite a few about some of the most controversial historical figures in modern times. The Hurricane is a movie written by Dan Gordon and directed by Norman Jewison. For this story, Washington takes on the role of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer and former civil rights activist who finds himself wrongfully convicted of murder, as he fights for his freedom and to get justice against a racially based system.

11 John Q. (2002)

John Q
New Line Cinema

John Q. might be one of the most relatable characters ever played by Denzel Washington. This powerful film is two decades old, but it tells a story that could very well be set in the present day. In the story written by James Kearns and directed by Nick Cassavetes, we follow the misfortunes of John Quincy Archibald, a desperate father who takes matters into his own hands, using violent means to ensure his son receives a life-saving heart transplant. It's a hard watch that explores themes of social equality.

Related: Denzel Washington’s 15 Most Underrated Movies

10 Man on Fire (2004)

Man-on-Fire
 20th Century Studios

Frequent and key Denzel Washington collaborator Tony Scott is one of the best at utilizing Washington's dark charisma into heroism while maximizing his sheer badassery. Man on Fire saw Scott double down on his mix of blending over-the-top melodrama, romance, and bloody carnage with Washington's Creasy on a redemptive path of violence through the chaotic streets of Mexico City. As Creasy nearly eviscerates everything in his path for the sake of saving the little girl (Dakota Fanning) he swore to protect, Washington's performance is baptism by fire.

9 The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of Macbeth
A24, Apple TV+

Working with one-half of the dynamic directing duo, Joel Coen brings a Theodore Dryer visual literacy that imbues all the dark poetry from Shakespeare's Macbeth to the screen in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Inhabiting the role of the man who will be King, Washington soars, reciting the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare with the command and precision that tears through the frames. Washington has often acted in Broadway plays between films and the residuals of reciting those lines come off like daggers with the auteurism of Joel Coen behind the camera.

8 Inside Man (2006)

Inside Man
Universal Pictures 

As a superstar actor, sometimes you just need to turn the charm, sexy, and humor to an 11. That’s what Washington does as the lead detective in Spike Lee’s twisty genre fair Inside Man. Never going too big to steal the show from the film's intricate plot, Washington instead finds chemistry with the rest of a stacked cast of superb actors like Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Clive Owen while remaining wholly magnetic throughout the story.

7 Philadelphia (1993)

Denzel Washington as Joe Miller in TriStar Pictures' Philadelphia
TriStar Pictures

Playing opposite Tom Hanks, the only actor who could rival his star power, was a match made in heaven. Philadelphia is Jonathan Demme’s open-hearted, humanist drama about the AIDs epidemic and how homophobia dictated how the judicial system treated those who contracted the horrific disease. Washington's Joe Miller attempts to overcome his hatred for Hanks’ Andy Beckett in order to represent him in the lawsuit. Towards the end of the film, we’re not quite sure if he ever gets there. Making the provocative lawyer one of his most complex roles.

6 American Gangster (2007)

Denzel Washington in American Gangster
Universal Pictures

Washington could have easily tapped once again into the villainy of his dirty cop character in Training Day; instead, Washington doubles down on the suave charisma that turns audiences near-envious of how his Frank Lucas character can be such a smooth operator. Using the fortune he accumulates from the heroin trade to make a better life for some of his family before his arc becomes ruthless yet again, American Gangster shows Washington on the razor's edge of excess and criminality.

Related: Ranking Every Time Denzel Washington Played a Real-Life Figure

5 Fences (2016)

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in Fences
Paramount Pictures

Adapting and directing the work of one of the great American playwrights August Wilson, Washington tapped into a newfound profundity of Black generational fatherhood in Fences and the roles a man plays in his son's life. “I don’t have to like you!”, he yells at his son as he wrestles with making him a man who can support himself while also battling his wife’s expectations. A family in a desolate economic place, Washington's Troy's world turns on him as his hardened exterior cracks and he reconciles the decisions of his entire life.

4 Remember The Titans (2000)

Remember the Titans
Buena Vista Pictures

This is the kind of role an actor like Washington slips into like a glove. Turning on his room-commanding charisma, punctuating voice, and the ability to articulate words of wisdom to inspire those around him, Washington's Herman Boone has to coach to a newly segregated school in Virginia after placing their longtime white coach. Washington uses his prowess to calm the coach and also bring the kids together with his hard fatherly ways while being the center of feel-good sports drama.

3 He Got Game (1998)

Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's He Got Game
Buena Vista Pictures 

One of the best roles Washington fills is the hardened father figure. Throughout his career, it’s a note he’ll lean on in a way only he can. But, with the subtle nuances of his character in He Got Game he plays the broken portrait of a man trying to live vicariously through his son with such heartbreaking touches. The basketball games between him and his son ”Jesus Shuttleworth” scored by Aaron Copland’s soaring orchestral music are things of sweltering and mystic beauty. Washington's character returns to prison even after his son lets him know how hurt his actions be him but still changes his mind in a way only Washington could.

2 Training Day (2001)

Training Day
Warner Bros. Pictures 

The first collaboration between Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington that would spawn a tight-knit partnership, Training Day, led Washington to his first Oscar as a leading man. One of the few times Washington has been cast as an outright villain, he patrols the streets of Los Angeles as a dirty cop looking to make busts that help his own pockets. Playing the devil with a badge, he lures the young Ethan Hawke into a harsh reality of police corruption. With the “King Kong ain’t got shit on me!” scene, Washington cemented himself as the villain we love to watch.

1 Malcolm X (1992)

Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's Malcolm X
Warner Bros.

Probably the only combination of leading man and director that would do the revolutionary spirit of Malcolm X right. Spike Lee and Washington crafted an old-school American epic around one of the most influential civil rights and spiritual leaders of the 50s and 60s. Lee crafted a tale in scope that spoke to the heart of Malcolm X's nature. Essentially having to play three different characters, Washington's performance paints a vivid portrait of a criminal, reformed to radical ways of thinking in prison about white violence and white supremacy. While also playing the man whose life was cut short as his violent temperament began to wane and waver to a more empathetic side like that of Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington's performance is a nuanced ode to a man whose teachings are still relevant today.