Director

Denzel Washington

Acting

Career Snapshot

Explained

These indicators come from TMDB. They are relative signals, not review ratings.

Directed credits

Emerging

Beginning to build directing work.

TMDB popularity

6.9

Moderate attention

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 4Directed series: 1All crew credits: 15

TMDB ID: 5292

IMDb ID: nm0000243

Known for: Acting

Born: December 28, 1954

Age: 71

Place of birth: Mount Vernon, New York, USA

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1944 - 2025

Years active: 82

Average TMDB rating: 6.61

Wikidata: Q42101

Also known as

Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. • Denzel Hayes Washington • دنزل واشینگتون • 丹素·华盛顿 • デンゼルワシントン • دِنزل واشینگتن • دِنزِل هِیز واشینگتن جونیور • Дэнзел Вашингтон • Дэнзэл Вашингтон

Frequent jobs

Director (5)Producer (8)Executive Producer (1)Thanks (1)

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Biography

Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with The New York Times declaring him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. Over his career, he has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. After training at the American Conservatory Theatre, Washington began his career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway. 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). He won two Academy Awards, his first for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and his second for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his performances 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). A prominent leading man, Washington also acted in Mo' Better Blues (1990), Mississippi Masala (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Courage Under Fire (1996), Remember the Titans (2000), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), American Gangster (2007), and The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023). Washington directed and starred in the films Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), and Fences (2016). On stage, he has acted in productions of both Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990) at the Public Theater. 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), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).