Your Favorite Denzel Washington Performance?

The Great Debaters (2007)

I don't have one.

Sauvé?

I love him in those Equalizer movies so much. I can’t believe it but I think McCall has become my fave Denzel character. That third one in Italy is the best film yet. They might as well keep going.

It IS Your Favorite Denzel Washington Performance!

Joe Miller in Philadelphia really pulls at my heart strings.

Man on Fire (2004) is by far his best movie and best performance.

I Only ever found him hot in Malcolm X. I was 10 when that came out and watched it repeatedly.

Flight. It should have been an option in the poll.

I just realized I've never seen a Denzel movie. He was good in St. Elsewhere.

R10 never?!

R10 is a fucking LIAR. Nobody can claim to have never seen a Denzel movie.

Training Day is his best, with Malcolm X a close 2nd but my favorite is probably his performance in Flight. He just gives an excellence performance in very well done film. Equal parts sad and triumph. He probably would have won a 2nd lead Oscar but Daniel Day Lewis just had to give one of the greatest screen performances of all time that very same year.

I spent the 90s partying and watching indie movies, not Hollywood blockbusters, action movies, star vehicles, or earnest biopics. So I saw none of the movies on that list. Maybe I saw him in some other movie?

I was going to say it’s plausible if one routinely avoided mainstream films for a good chunk of time.

Philadelphia.

He was such as asshole and didn’t shy away from showing that.

I likes 'em ALL - I likes me some DARK man and DARK meat!

How do you not have Flight. Thats probably his best.

Denzel in "Flight"

OP, how could you omit Mississippi Masala from your list? My favorite performance of his, before Denzel became “Denzel!”

Interesting side note. Its director is the mother of NYC’s next mayor. 🤞

R20 shut up . Madmani’s mom directed Mississippi Masala? Omg get out of town. Ok it’s official he is my new Obama. I’m officially sold even though I’m not that hard left anymore.

[quote] Nobody can claim to have never seen a Denzel movie

Hi.

Honorable mentions that OP forgot in her drunken stupor:

Crimson Tide

Flight

The Siege

The Bone Collector (non-porn version)

John Q.

Much Ado About Nothing

Training Day, but any respect I had for him died with his advice to Will Smith.

R25 He said that shit in 1993. Your president was publicly advocating to kick uncloseted gays out of the military while his wife was passively aggressively thanking women for not speaking about their rapes. Not statutory or sexual harassment. Forced rape and yet I still respect the shit outta Bill Clinton as a public figure.

He was actually funny engaging and sweet in that early film he did with George Segal--was it Carbon Copy? Where he discovers his real dad was Segal. Takes you on a whole-ass journey.

Critics savaged it iirc, but I found it charming. Denzel should stop being so ponderous and do another comedy.

Good for you, R26. Respect whomever. I believe people when they show me who they are the first time, and it takes a lot to bring that respect back. I have no respect for Bill either. That doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the good things Washington and Clinton have done, but it doesn't erase the damage they've also done.

Hard to choose a favorite but one of mine is Glory.

His role as Hollywood Black Godfather at the Oscars the year of the slap attempting to soften one clumsy cunt's world wide public humiliation.

I am not.....one of his faaaaans

R31 why?

"I am a stage actor that happens to do films."

I second R9.

Fallen

The Bone Collector

Glory

Training Day

Which is the one where he spends the whole movie shouting with righteous indignation?

He was the only good thing about Philadelphia. I had already read the Malcolm X autobiography and was very disappointed with the movie, which was not even close to gritty enough.

I find Denzel basically the same in every movie he does