Denzel Washington on screen and stage

Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his performances on stage and screen as well as for his work as director and producer on the latter. Washington made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981).^[1] In 1982, Washington made his first appearance in the medical drama St. Elsewhere as Dr. Philip Chandler. The role proved to be the breakthrough in his career.^[2][3] He starred as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the drama A Soldier's Story (1984). The film was an adaptation of the Off-Broadway play A Soldier's Play (1981–1983) in which Washington had earlier portrayed the same character.^[4]

Washington attending the Berlin International Film Festival in 2000

He has since gained recognition as one of the greatest actors in the 21st century.^[5] Washington went on to win two Academy Awards, his first for Best Supporting Actor as a former slave-turned-soldier in Civil War film Glory (1989)^[6][7] and his second for Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as a corrupt cop in the crime thriller Training Day (2001).^[8][9] By virtue of his win, he became the first African American actor to win two competitive Academy Awards, and the first since Sidney Poitier in 1964 to win the leading actor award.^[10][11] His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Cry Freedom (1987),^[12] Malcolm X (1992),^[13] The Hurricane (1999),^[14] Flight (2012),^[15] Fences (2016),^[16] Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017),^[17] and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).^[18]

Washington also established himself as a leading man in Hollywood acting in films such as The Mighty Quinn (1989), Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues (1990), the romantic drama Mississippi Masala (1991), Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the thriller The Pelican Brief (1993), the AIDS drama Philadelphia (1993), the action thriller Crimson Tide (1995), the war drama Courage Under Fire (1996), the sports drama Remember the Titans (2000), the action thriller Man on Fire (2004), the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (2004), the crime thrillers Inside Man (2006), and American Gangster (2007). He has starred in the action thriller The Equalizer franchise (2014–2023) and has directed films such as Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), and Fences (2016).

He has also asserted himself onstage acting in The Public Theatre productions of William Shakespeare's tragedies Coriolanus (1979), and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990). He made his Broadway debut in Checkmates (1988). He went on to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for playing Troy Maxson in the August Wilson play Fences (2010). His other Broadway roles include Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (2018), the later of which earned him another Tony Award nomination.^[19] He is set to return to Broadway in the 2025 revival of Shakepeare's Othello playing the title role.^[20]

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref(s)
1981	Carbon Copy	Roger Porter		[21]
1984	A Soldier's Story	Private First Class Melvin Peterson		[22]
1986	Power	Arnold Billings		[23]
1987	Cry Freedom	Steve Biko		[24]
1988	For Queen and Country	Reuben James		[25]
1989	The Mighty Quinn	Xavier Quinn		[26]
	Glory	Private Silas Trip		[23]
1990	Heart Condition	Napoleon Stone		[27]
	Mo' Better Blues	Bleek Gilliam		[28]
1991	Mississippi Masala	Demetrius Williams		[29]
	Ricochet	Nick Styles		[30]
1992	Malcolm X	Malcolm X		[23]
1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Don Pedro of Aragon		[31]
	The Pelican Brief	Gray Grantham		[32]
	Philadelphia	Joe Miller		[33]
1995	Crimson Tide	Lt. Commander Ron Hunter		[34]
	Virtuosity	Lt. Parker Barnes		[23]
	Devil in a Blue Dress	Easy Rawlins		[23]
1996	Courage Under Fire	Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Serling		[23]
	The Preacher's Wife	Dudley		[35]
1998	Fallen	Detective John Hobbes		[36]
	He Got Game	Jake Shuttlesworth		[23]
	The Siege	Anthony Hubbard		[23]
1999	The Bone Collector	Lincoln Rhyme		[23]
	The Hurricane	Rubin Carter		[14]
2000	Remember the Titans	Herman Boone		[37]
2001	Training Day	Alonzo Harris		[23]
2002	John Q.	John Quincy Archibald		[38]
	Antwone Fisher	Dr. Jerome Davenport	Also director and producer	[39]
2003	Out of Time	Matt Lee Whitlock		[40]
2004	Man on Fire	John W. Creasy		[41]
	The Manchurian Candidate	Maj. Ben Marco		[42]
2006	Inside Man	Keith Frazier		[43]
	Déjà Vu	Doug Carlin		[44]
2007	American Gangster	Frank Lucas		[23]
	The Great Debaters	Melvin B. Tolson	Also director	[23]
2009	The Taking of Pelham 123	Walter Garber		[23]
2010	The Book of Eli	Eli	Also producer	[45]
	Unstoppable	Frank Barnes		[46]
2012	Safe House	Tobin Frost		[47]
	Flight	William "Whip" Whitaker Sr.		[48]
2013	2 Guns	Robert "Bobby" Trench		[23]
2014	The Equalizer	Robert McCall	Also producer	[49]
2016	The Magnificent Seven	Sam Chisolm		[50]
	Fences	Troy Maxson	Also director and producer	[51]
2017	Roman J. Israel, Esq.	Roman J. Israel	Also producer	[52][53]
2018	The Equalizer 2	Robert McCall		[54]
2020	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	—	Producer only	[55]
2021	The Little Things	Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon		[56]
	The Tragedy of Macbeth	Lord Macbeth		[57]
	A Journal for Jordan	—	Director and producer only	[58]
2023	The Equalizer 3	Robert McCall	Also producer	[59]
2024	The Piano Lesson	—	Producer only	[60]
	Gladiator II	Macrinus		[61]
2025	Highest 2 Lowest †	TBA	Post-production	[62]

Key

†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

Television

Year(s)	Title	Role(s)	Notes	Ref(s)
1977	Wilma: The Wilma Rudolph Story	Robert Eldridge – age 18	Television film	[63][64]
1979	Flesh & Blood	Kirk		[65][66]
1982–1988	St. Elsewhere	Dr. Philip Chandler	118 episodes	[67]
1984	License to Kill	Martin Sawyer	Television film	[68]
1986	The George McKenna Story	George McKenna	Also known as Hard Lessons; Television film	[69]
1992	Great Performances	Narrator	Episode: "Jammin': Jelly Roll Morton on Broadway"	[70]
	Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II	Narrator	Documentary	[71]
1995, 1997	Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child	King Omar / Humpty Dumpty / Crooked Man	Voice, 2 episodes	[72][73]
2013	The March	Narrator	Documentary	[74]
2016	Grey's Anatomy	—	Director of episode: "The Sound of Silence"	[75]

Theatre

Year(s)	Production	Role(s)	Theater	Notes	Ref.
1979	Coriolanus	Aediles / Roman Citizen / Voscian Citizen Roman Soldier / Voscian Soldier	Joseph Papp Public Theater	June 22 − July 22	[76]
1981	When the Chickens Came Home to Roost	Malcolm X	New Federal Theatre		[77]
1981–1983	A Soldier's Play	Private First Class Melvin Peterson	Theatre Four	Nov. 20, 1981 − Jan. 2, 1983	[78]
1988	Checkmates	Sylvester Williams	46th Street Theatre	August 4 − December 31	[79]
1990	The Tragedy of Richard III	Richard III of England	Joseph Papp Public Theater	August 3 − September 2	[80]
2005	Julius Caesar	Marcus Brutus	Belasco Theatre	April 3 − June 12	[81]
2010	Fences	Troy Maxson	Cort Theatre	April 26 − July 11	[82]
2014	A Raisin in the Sun	Walter Lee Younger	Ethel Barrymore Theatre	April 3 − June 15	[83]
2018	The Iceman Cometh	Theodore "Hickey" Hickman	Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre	April 26 − July 1	[84]
2025	Othello †	Othello	Ethel Barrymore Theatre	February 24 − June 6	[85]

See also

• List of awards and nominations received by Denzel Washington