As a squeamish Christian I have a fundamental position against swearing, and for me there are three evils in modern movies that are displayed gratuitously: horrific murders, expletives, and extra marital sex. I avoid the horror genre most of the time so that eliminates the first to some degree; I don't watch porn, which helps a little with the last; but who can escape the plague of expletives in modern movies. Unless you only view family rated channels where the content is prescreened and filthy segments bleeped or removed. I resent that I have to put up with such challenges in order to enjoy any blockbuster movie these days. Signs of the times.

Having said all that I believe that my favourite Denzel movie is Training Day.

It could be the story and not the acting itself that has left a deep imprint on me. You are drawn into the story of the young cop played by Ethan Hawke who must defeat the corrupt cop played by Denzel in order to stay alive.

His most inspiring performance though is as an activist who coaches the debating team in The Great Debaters. Based on a true story the 2007 film leads us to Wiley College in Marshall, Texas where, in 1935-36, inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and his clandestine work as a union organizer, Professor Melvin Tolson coaches the debate team to unprecedented success which sees the first debate between U.S. students from white and Negro colleges, and ends the debating season with an invitation to face Harvard University's national champions. In their epic trajectory the team must confront racism, sexism, a lynch mob, an arrest and near riot, a love affair, teenage hormones and jealousy, and deliver eloquently to a national radio audience.

Denzel is a very believable actor whose performances are unforgettable. I would have to say that Collateral Damage and The Manchurian Candidate are the films in which he appears most vulnerable, and his most dangerous characters would be in American Gangster and Training Day.

I just received a comment on the Facebook link in which a friend Denzel Washington's performance in Malcolm X as the greatest.  How could I have left out that movie?  Remember Malcolm, the bad boy turned Nation of Islam preacher and activist.  I think it belongs in the category of Denzel's best historical movie or something like that.  

The reader needs to know that I have not seen all of his movies so my judgement is based on what I have viewed..