Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his performance on stage and screen. Washington made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981). 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. 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.

He has since gained recognition as one of the greatest actors in the 21st century. 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) and his second for Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as a corrupt cop in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). 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. His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).

Washington also established himself as a leading man in Hollywood acting in films such as the 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. He is set to return to Broadway in the 2025 revival of Shakepeare's Othello playing the title role.

Film

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

Key

†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

Television

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

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
1981	When the Chickens Came Home to Roost	Malcolm X	New Federal Theatre
1981–1983	A Soldier's Play	Private First Class Melvin Peterson	Theatre Four	Nov. 20, 1981 − Jan. 2, 1983
1988	Checkmates	Sylvester Williams	46th Street Theatre	August 4 − December 31
1990	The Tragedy of Richard III	Richard III of England	Joseph Papp Public Theater	August 3 − September 2
2005	Julius Caesar	Marcus Brutus	Belasco Theatre	April 3 − June 12
2010	Fences	Troy Maxson	Cort Theatre	April 26 − July 11
2014	A Raisin in the Sun	Walter Lee Younger	Ethel Barrymore Theatre	April 3 − June 15
2018	The Iceman Cometh	Theodore "Hickey" Hickman	Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre	April 26 − July 1
2025	Othello	Othello	TBA	Spring 2025

See also

• List of awards and nominations received by Denzel Washington