August 15, 2025
We’re in the middle of what is usually a sleepy time for the entertainment industry. Mid-August is the doldrums, when not a lot is going on. The biggest summer movies have already come out and the box-office tends to wind down until we get to the busy fall season. Although, we have another sensation on our hands with Weapons, an outstanding horror-thriller from the writer-director of Barbarian, one of my favorite (and most insane) films of 2022. Weapons has been a critical and box-office success and one I highly recommend. I’ll share more of my thoughts in my monthly movie report later this month.
For now, it’s time to focus on an important event this week. No, I’m not going to waste your time with 3,000 words about my excitement for the new album from Taylor Swift that she announced a few days ago. Needless to say, October 3rd can’t come soon enough, plus at that point I should be planning my schedule for the Philadelphia Film Festival. Good times ahead.
No, this week is all about Denzel Washington. He has a new movie with Spike Lee that is out in theaters. Well, kind of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Highest 2 Lowest is getting a very wide release. It is not playing any of the large theater chains near me and is only screening at small independent theaters. So, I have to travel a little bit to see it, as I want the theater experience rather than waiting until it appears on Apple TV+ in September.
Why do studios do this? I have no idea. A24 produced this film and partnered with Apple for the distribution and I can only imagine Apple wanted a limited theatrical rollout to entice people to sign up for their streaming service to watch it. I hate this approach as I feel studios should be making their movies (especially ones with big names like Spike and Denzel attached) available to as wide an audience as possible. A24 pulls this crap all the time, with last year’s botched rollout of Sing Sing a prime example. At the Philadelphia Film Festival last year, before a screening of The Brutalist, the guy next to me said that he heard a few people from A24 were in the audience. I told him that I wish I could ask them why they don’t want people to see their movies. I was kidding (not really.) Anyway, if you aren’t able to catch Highest 2 Lowest in a theater, you can watch it on Apple TV+ in a few weeks. I’ll share my thoughts on it later this month.
For now, we’re going to reveal my top five Denzel movies. If you missed part one, you can read it here.
#5 – Training Day (2001)
The film that is probably best known for delivering Denzel his long awaited Best Actor Oscar, making up for the travesty nine years earlier, which we’ll get to shortly. You could argue that this award could have gone to Will Smith for his excellent performance in Ali, or Tom Wilkinson for his touching portrayal of a grieving father in Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, but Denzel is still a worthy winner this year.
Coming off a series of films where he played the “hero” or the “good guy,” it was jarring to realize while watching Training Day for the first time that his character Alonzo Harris is the worst of the worst kind of police officer. He is corrupt to the core, willing to lie, steal, and even kill to get the money he needs to satisfy the gangsters he owes. Even worse, he is doing all of this on the day he is training his brand new partner, a wide-eyed innocent young cop played to perfection by Ethan Hawke. Jake is initiated to the world of his new partner very quickly when he is pressured by Alonzo to try some marijuana, only to learn it was laced with PCP. Jake’s world spirals from there as he tries to decide how to handle his new partner and not lose his job or his life when he encounters some of Alonzo’s “colleagues.”
While I wouldn’t consider Training Day a fun movie to rewatch given the tough subject matter and stressful situations, it is an acting showcase for Denzel and Hawke, who is magnificent in an Oscar-nominated performance. Sometimes it’s fun to watch a talented actor devour a script and showcase their talents, even if they are playing a despicable character. While I will likely never watch Raging Bull again in my lifetime, I can admire what Robert De Niro did in the role that won him an Oscar. Same here for Training Day. This year’s Oscars ceremony was memorable for when Denzel stepped to the stage to receive his award. He became the second Black man to win the Best Actor award, the first since Sidney Poitier in 1963, who was in attendance as he received an honorary Oscar that year. Denzel’s speech included a touching tribute to Poitier, and a moment where we saw the torch being passed to the next generation of great actors.
#4 – Philadelphia (1993)
Yes, you can argue that this is really Tom Hanks’s movie, as he won the Oscar for his moving portrayal of Andrew, an attorney suffering from AIDS who sues his law firm for wrongful termination. But the last time I watched Philadelphia, brilliantly directed by Jonathan Demme, I focused on Denzel’s performance, which is just as impressive. Much like Tom Cruise in Rain Man and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, who were overshadowed by the towering performances of their co-stars, it’s easy to see how people would overlook Denzel’s portrayal of Joe, the attorney who takes on Andrew’s case.
Joe is a personal injury attorney who wins cases with his guile in the courtroom, outsmarting his opposing attorneys. When Andrew asks for his representation in the lawsuit against his former firm, Joe feels uncomfortable taking the case, even worrying he might have contracted AIDS after shaking his hand. He soon encounters Andrew in a law library and sees how others treat him, realizing that he is facing a type of discrimination that he has experienced himself as a Black man. He decides to take on the case and the two lawyers, while probably not becoming “friends,” gain a level of respect for each other’s legal talents as the case develops.
If I were ranking the quality of Philadelphia as a film, I would consider placing it even higher than fourth on this list. It’s that beautiful of a story, told with poignance by Demme, who is truly one of the best directors we have seen in the last forty years. He puts the ignorance and bigotry that Andrew faces on display in a way that is designed to make the viewer uncomfortable. Choosing a film icon like Jason Robards to play the head of the firm (and chief bigot) was a brilliant casting choice. And Demme includes not only the legal merits of the suit, but showcases Andrew’s relationship with his partner Miguel (Antonio Banderas) and his family members in a touching way. Andrew is truly loved and they accept him for who he is, which may sound natural in 2025, but in the early 1990s, that was not the case for many people in his situation. Like Training Day, I wouldn’t consider this a fun rewatch, as the end of the film is incredibly emotional, but when you want a textbook definition of acting brilliance, look no further than Hanks and Washington in Philadelphia.
#3 – Inside Man (2006)
What’s more fun than a classic heist movie with twists and turns to keep you guessing until the final act emerges? How about one of the greatest actors and directors teaming up to tell the story? Of the four movies that Denzel had made with Spike Lee, this one is my favorite to rewatch given its fun premise and great cast. Is it the “best”? No, that one is coming up shortly. But Inside Man sure is a lot of fun. As far as the other two, I was lukewarm on He Got Game (1998), in which Denzel played a reformed convict trying to reconnect with his estranged son (real-life NBA star Ray Allen), and thought Mo’ Better Blues (1990) was a very good look at a complicated jazz musician, but it didn’t quite crack my top ten. If you want more of my hot takes on Spike’s filmography, I covered it back in 2020 here.
In this Spike Lee joint, Denzel plays Keith Frazier, a New York City cop called in to investigate and defuse a bank heist that turned into a hostage crisis. He works with his partner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the other cops to try to rescue the hostages and capture the criminals, led by Dalton (Clive Owen). Throughout the ordeal, which will bring Dog Day Afternoon to mind given the film’s setup, Dalton and his crew (all masked and going by the same name so we don’t know their identities) play the cops like a fiddle as they conduct their robbery. They manage to escape, which brings in the other aspect of this brilliantly-written screenplay.
Throughout Inside Man, we bounce back and forth between the heist itself, and the interviews Keith and his partner conduct with everyone in the bank afterward, as they try to figure out who the perpetrators really were and what the heck actually happened. There’s also a side plot with Jodie Foster playing a “fixer” who assists the head of the bank (Christopher Plummer) to obtain a delicate item located in one of the bank’s safety deposit boxes. That part of the film is a little clunky, but it helps facilitate the robbers’ motivation, so we’ll let it pass. Of all of the movies on this list, this is a rare one that will not stress you out or make you overly emotional. Just enjoy the clever story and ending you (most likely) won’t see coming.
#2 – Flight (2012)
We all know that Denzel can play the hero, the bad ass action star, or even the villain. But have we seen him play a broken man with enormous shortcomings, but somehow keeps his life together? Such is the case with this story directed by Robert Zemeckis that puts Denzel in the cockpit as Whip, an airline pilot forced to pull off an unbelievable maneuver to avoid a catastrophic crash. He is hailed as a hero, but we know that he was severely impaired with alcohol and drugs, a fact he needs to hide from the officials investigating the crash.
Much is made about Flight’s preposterous sequence where Whip turns a jumbo airliner upside down in an effort to keep it from crashing. Sure, I’m not an engineer or aeronautics expert, but I would argue that the crux of this story is not whether he could have pulled off this maneuver. This is about a man who cannot escape his demons, is dealing with the guilt of those people who were killed or injured in the crash, and is living literally minute to minute trying to hang onto his sobriety. He meets up with another recovering addict (played by Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone fame) who kind of helps him, but he simply can’t keep it together.
The film’s climax features a sequence that I was recently texting with my friend Jean about. When Whip is put up in a hotel to keep him out of trouble before his testimony, he discovers that they have cleaned out the mini-bar and we breathe a sigh of relief as we know he can’t drink himself into a stupor, until…..he discovers an open door to the adjoining room, which naturally, has a fully-stocked mini-bar. And then we let out a quiet, “Oh, no…..”
When I was rewatching this scene recently, I was reminded of two movie-watching experiences. First, in 2020’s The Way Back, Ben Affleck played an alcoholic coaching a youth basketball team, but when he falls off the wagon, he drinks beer after beer after beer and it’s just so depressing to see it unfold. The second example would be any horror movie where you are peeking through your fingers at the screen because that’s what I felt like doing while watching Whip spiral out of control, once again. When he is discovered by his handlers, it sets off a sequence that is part funny (thanks to a terrific supporting performance by John Goodman) and part sad, as we ultimately see Whip’s demise when he hits rock bottom. Again, probably not the most fun watch of Denzel’s filmography, but damn if this isn’t some top-tier acting.
#1 – Malcolm X (1992)
The easiest pick to be number one of any list that I have ever done – there’s no contest. Now, when you are an Oscar nerd like me and someone asks “What’s the biggest Oscar travesty ever?” there are three likely answers. Crash beating Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture in 2005, which is just laughable. Quick sidebar – I recently saw Brokeback Mountain in the theater for its 20th anniversary re-release. I don’t think I’ve seen it since it first came out and god damn if that is not just an absolutely beautiful movie with some of the finest acting you could want in a film. The second example is Art Carney beating Al Pacino for Best Actor in 1974 when Pacino starred in The Godfather II. The third example is tied directly to the second, because had Pacino won for that performance, the Academy might not have felt obligated to award him the Best Actor award for Scent of a Woman in 1992. If there was ever an example of the Academy giving prizes out as “career achievements” instead of “this specific role,” it was 1992, because no one on Earth could agree that Pacino should have won over Denzel’s performance in Malcolm X.
Let’s start with some obvious points about Spike Lee’s brilliant biopic about the civil rights leader who was tragically murdered at the age of 39 in 1965. First, this film is made with exacting precision by Spike, and is probably his second best movie behind Do the Right Thing. The casting, the costumes, the music, the production design, all fit the story perfectly. The bar for this picture was incredibly high as Malcolm was an iconic leader in the Black community and the film was based on his autobiography, which was widely read.
Spike delivered a story that covers all aspects of Malcolm’s life – his days as a young delinquent criminal, his time in prison, his conversion to the Islamic religion, his time as a disciple of the Nation of Islam’s leader, his break with that group, ascension into a leadership role, and his time as a husband and father. That’s a lot of movie! Sure, it’s well over three hours long, but it never seems to drag and that’s because primarily of Denzel’s captivating performance and Spike’s propulsive filmmaking style.
As we see the evolution of Malcolm over his lifetime, his beliefs, demeanor, and appearance all radically change. Denzel captures every aspect of these phases in a way that perfectly demonstrates who Malcolm was throughout this time. Don’t believe me? Go watch a clip from the movie and then watch a clip of Malcolm giving a speech. It is downright eerie how Denzel embodied him in this performance. It feels like he “became” Malcolm for a period of time while filming and somehow emerged as Denzel again after Spike called “Cut” for the final time. A true performance for the ages and for my money, the best Denzel has ever been on film.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back later this month with my thoughts on Denzel’s new movie Highest 2 Lowest, as well as other new releases including two very silly comedies (one of which worked and one of which was dreadful), the masterpiece horror-thriller that is now in theaters (Weapons), and much more. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe below.