Denzel Washington

Acting

Born 1954-12-28 Mount Vernon, New York, USA 127 credits Academy Awards 2 Golden Globe Awards 2 Cannes Film Festival 1 Tony Awards 1 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture 3 Presidential Medal of Freedom 2 MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 1

Awards

Won 2 Academy Awards

Academy Awards 2 won · 8 nominated

2022 Best Actor Nominated The Tragedy of Macbeth
2018 Best Actor Nominated Roman J. Israel, Esq.
2017 Best Actor Nominated Fences
2017 Best Picture Nominated Fences
2013 Best Actor Nominated Flight
2002 Best Actor Won Training Day
2000 Best Actor Nominated The Hurricane
1993 Best Actor Nominated Malcolm X
1990 Best Supporting Actor Won Glory
1988 Best Supporting Actor Nominated Cry Freedom

Golden Globe Awards 2 won

2000 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Won The Hurricane
1990 Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Won Glory

Cannes Film Festival 1 won

— Honorary Palme d'Or Won

Tony Awards 1 won

2010 Best Actor in a Play Won Fences

NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture 3 won

2003 Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture Won John Q
2001 Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture Won Remember the Titans
1996 Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture Won Crimson Tide

Presidential Medal of Freedom 2 won

2025 Presidential Medal of Freedom Won
2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom Won

MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 1 won · 1 nominated

2008 Best Villain Nominated American Gangster
2002 Best Villain Won Training Day

Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor 2 nominated

2002 Best Actor Nominated Training Day
1997 Best Actor Nominated Courage Under Fire

Award data from Wikidata (CC0). Coverage may be incomplete.

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Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, an Actor Award, two Golden Globes, two Silver Bears and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2020, The New York Times named Washington the greatest actor of the 21st century. He has also been honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2025, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025. Films in which he has appeared have grossed over $5.1 billion worldwide. After training at the American Conservatory Theater, Washington began his career in theatre, acting in Off-Broadway performances. He first came to prominence in the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), and in the war film A Soldier's Story (1984). Washington won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his roles 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 has starred in other notable films, including The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia (both 1993); Crimson Tide, Devil in a Blue Dress (both 1995); He Got Game (1998); Remember the Titans (2000); Man on Fire (2004); Déjà Vu, Inside Man (both 2006); American Gangster (2007); Unstoppable, The Book of Eli (both 2010); The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023), Gladiator II (2024), and Highest 2 Lowest (2025). Washington has also directed the films Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), Fences (2016), and A Journal for Jordan (2021). On stage, he has acted in The Public Theater productions of Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990). He made his Broadway debut in the Ron Milner play Checkmates (1988). He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as a disillusioned working-class father in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences (2010). He has also acted in the Broadway revivals of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005) and Othello (2025), Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).