Denzel Washington is one of the most acclaimed and versatile actors in Hollywood. He has won two Oscars, three Golden Globes, and a Tony Award. He has starred in a variety of genres, from biopics to thrillers, from dramas to action. He has played heroes and villains, historical figures and fictional characters, and has always delivered memorable performances. Here are his top 10 movies ranked from worst to best, based on their critical and audience ratings.
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2023) The Tragedy of Macbeth Traile
This is the latest film by Denzel Washington, directed by Joel Coen. It is a faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, with Washington playing the ambitious and doomed Scottish king. The film has received rave reviews for its stunning cinematography, atmospheric score, and powerful acting by Washington and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. The film is a dark and haunting masterpiece that showcases Washington’s...
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2023) The Tragedy of Macbeth Traile
This is the latest film by Denzel Washington, directed by Joel Coen. It is a faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, with Washington playing the ambitious and doomed Scottish king. The film has received rave reviews for its stunning cinematography, atmospheric score, and powerful acting by Washington and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. The film is a dark and haunting masterpiece that showcases Washington’s...
- 9/3/2023
- by amalprasadappu
- https://thecinemanews.online/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4649
Spike Lee's Inside Man (2006) and Do the Right Thing (1989) are showing on Mubi in many countries around the world in January and February, 2019.Forty-five minutes into Spike Lee’s 2006 Inside Man, Clive Owen’s mysterious bank robber Dalton Russell negotiates with Denzel Washington’s detective Keith Frazier a food delivery for the 50 or so people he’s holding hostage inside the fictional Wall Street-headquartered Manhattan Trust Bank. The food smuggled through the horde of cops surrounding the building is pizza, and the boxes the slices come in read: Sal’s Famous Pizzeria. I wish I could say I spotted the intertextual connection right away, but it took Lee’s DVD commentary to illuminate the link between his 2006 star-studded thriller and the family-owned Bedford-Stuyvesant restaurant that staged his 1989 Do the Right Thing. “Sal’s pizzeria,” Lee comments, somewhat sarcastically, “burned down in Brooklyn, and moved to Wall Street.”Revisiting the...
- 1/29/2019
- MUBI
Exclusive: Aml Ameen has been tapped to play Remy, the lead character in Inside Man 2, a follow-up to the 2006 thriller that starred Denzel Washington and was directed by Spike Lee. The sequel hails from Universal 1440 Entertainment, the production entity of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, and Imagine Entertainment.
Mj Bassett, who has directed episodes for Power, Da Vinci’s Demons, Ash vs. Evil Dead, and Iron Fist, will helm the second installment, which was penned by Brian Brightly.
Released by Universal Pictures, the original had Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, NYPD hostage negotiator who gets involved with a cunning bank robber and heist mastermind (Clive Owen) and a high-powered Manhattan broker (Jodie Foster) in a high-stakes hostage negotiation. It remains Lee’s highest-grossing film, with $88.5 million.
The Inside Man 2 logline: The U.S. Federal Reserve is robbed by a highly organized and cleverly orchestrated team of crooks.
Mj Bassett, who has directed episodes for Power, Da Vinci’s Demons, Ash vs. Evil Dead, and Iron Fist, will helm the second installment, which was penned by Brian Brightly.
Released by Universal Pictures, the original had Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, NYPD hostage negotiator who gets involved with a cunning bank robber and heist mastermind (Clive Owen) and a high-powered Manhattan broker (Jodie Foster) in a high-stakes hostage negotiation. It remains Lee’s highest-grossing film, with $88.5 million.
The Inside Man 2 logline: The U.S. Federal Reserve is robbed by a highly organized and cleverly orchestrated team of crooks.
- 11/1/2018
- by Amanda N'Duka
- Deadline Film + TV
The illustrious ‘Ocean’s’ franchise has returned to the big screen with its new instalment, Ocean’s 8 – 17 years after the original feature, Ocean’s Eleven. Notably fronted by an all-female cast, the film has already received considerable attention and we are all interested to see this revamp and advocate some girl power. And if this comedy heist movie is up your street – we’ve selected some epic movie heists from the past to indulge in after…
Heat (1995)
Fronted by a triple threat of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer, Heat is a compelling and action-packed crime-drama where the heist incites a story of mindless revenge. The beauty of this heist, is the calm and collected way in which the heist itself takes place and the contrasting chaos that ensues.
De Niro’s character McCauley oversees a perfect robbery, keeping the hostages on side and executing it cleanly, but...
Heat (1995)
Fronted by a triple threat of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer, Heat is a compelling and action-packed crime-drama where the heist incites a story of mindless revenge. The beauty of this heist, is the calm and collected way in which the heist itself takes place and the contrasting chaos that ensues.
De Niro’s character McCauley oversees a perfect robbery, keeping the hostages on side and executing it cleanly, but...
- 6/22/2018
- by Olivia Haines
- The Cultural Post
Few things are more identifiable to New Orleans than the Rebirth Brass Band. It's fitting then that "The Wire" creator David Simon kicks off his post-Katrina Crescent City series with a second line featuring the legendary performers. Rebirth was recently in New York City for a couple of shows, and we chatted with bass drummer and co-founder Keith Frazier to hear his thoughts on the series and its New Orleans inspiration.
- 4/12/2010
- by Adam Rosenberg
- MTV Movies Blog
"Inside Man" is the dull title of a crackerjack crime thriller that also is the most commercial movie Spike Lee has directed.
Everything clicks. It has a solid, substantial marquee cast in Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster; a cagey, even at times -- for a thriller -- thoughtful screenplay by Russell Gewirtz; and a production beautifully calibrated for its story and stars. This is the mother lode all action/suspense directors search for and Lee, who usually doesn't work in that genre, has hit it.
Boxoffice is bound to be strong, but can be even stronger if Universal's marketing and promotions successfully convince a broad spectrum of moviegoers that this is their movie. "Inside Man" takes material familiar to the point of triteness -- a bank heist, a hostage standoff and corruption New York-style, elements that have an almost nostalgic 1970s glow -- then turns everything on its head so the movie actually ends up saying something about American culture in 2006.
Without pushing things too far, "Inside Man" is the anti-"Crash" movie. Not that the film has no racial tensions and occasional flashes of prejudice, but "Inside Man" ultimately embraces the enormous ethnic and cultural diversity that is New York and by extension America. It even is a key plot point that in any give street of Manhattan you can broadcast a baffling language and someone is bound to know that language. Someone does.
The setup is indeed familiar enough that Lee and Gewirtz -- what a writing debut! -- actually rush through it. Four bad guys -- OK, it's really three guys and a girl -- take over a Manhattan branch bank disguised as painters. They hold about 50 people hostage. The NYPD gathers. Hostage negotiators Keith Frazier (Washington), who is under the cloud of a corruption scandal, and partner Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejoifor) arrive on the scene. Emergency Services Unit Capt. John Darius (Willem Dafoe) bristles in a fit of jurisdictional pride and then the siege begins.
Only nothing goes as expected -- either for a bank heist or a bank heist movie. The head robber, Clive Owen's Dalton Russell, is a character at least as old as Alan Rickman's Eurotrash villain in "Die Hard", but this guy is somehow different: Unusually cool and calm, he is fully in control of the situation as he keeps a step or even a step and a half ahead of Frazier at all times. His gang blinds the bank's closed-circuit cameras, then force the hostages to dress in coverall outfits and facial disguises so police cannot tell the difference between hostage and hostage taker.
There is another perplexing element: The bank's board chairman Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) clearly is more concerned about certain items in the safety deposit vault than in the lives of the hostages. So he hires slick, amoral power broker Madeline White (Foster) to handle very delicate negotiations with the New York mayor, Frazier and the hostage ringleader to protect his "interests."
For all the rising tension, beautifully orchestrated by Lee, Gewirtz leaves plenty of "air" in his story. Meaning, spaces to further develop characters or themes -- some an end to themselves and others that will pay off later. Example: An interchange between Dalton and a young black boy, who is his hostage, regarding the boy's super-violent pocket video game, in which a gangsta hero shoots his way through an urban environment, inspires moral indignation in the old-school thief. Seemingly fringe characters also have the encouraging habit of abruptly becoming integral to the plot or the conveyors of sharp observations about current American culture.
In the end, this "air" turns out to be more than air. There is an agenda within this intricately plotted, witty crime thriller. Helping Lee, whose direction has never been more astute, realize the script's high ambition is production designer Wynn Thomas, who keeps a claustrophobic experience feeling almost expansive; cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who makes things gritty but with dark, saturated, burnished tones that are never quite real; and Terence Blanchard's musical score, which becomes almost a character in itself, commenting on situations, holding back for others, then swelling expressively when circumstances warrant.
The film is even hip enough to open with "Chaiyya Chaiyya", one of the biggest Bollywood hits last year, then close with the same song remixed with rap. Very cool.
INSIDE MAN
Universal Pictures
Imagine Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Spike Lee
Screenwriter: Russell Gewirtz
Producer: Brian Grazer
Executive producers: Daniel M. Rosenberg, Jon Kilik, Karen Kehela Sherwood, Kim Roth
Director of photography: Matthew Libatique
Production designer: Wynn Thomas
Music: Terence Blanchard
Co-producer: Jonathan Filley
Costumes: Donna Berwick
Editor: Barry Alexander Brown
Cast:
Keith Frazier: Denzel Washington
Dalton Russell: Clive Owen
Madeline White: Jodie Foster
Arthur Case: Christopher Plummer
John Darius: Willem Dafoe
Bill Mitchell: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Steve Carlos: Andres Gomez
Stevie: Kim Director
Steve-O: James Ransone
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 128 minutes...
Everything clicks. It has a solid, substantial marquee cast in Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster; a cagey, even at times -- for a thriller -- thoughtful screenplay by Russell Gewirtz; and a production beautifully calibrated for its story and stars. This is the mother lode all action/suspense directors search for and Lee, who usually doesn't work in that genre, has hit it.
Boxoffice is bound to be strong, but can be even stronger if Universal's marketing and promotions successfully convince a broad spectrum of moviegoers that this is their movie. "Inside Man" takes material familiar to the point of triteness -- a bank heist, a hostage standoff and corruption New York-style, elements that have an almost nostalgic 1970s glow -- then turns everything on its head so the movie actually ends up saying something about American culture in 2006.
Without pushing things too far, "Inside Man" is the anti-"Crash" movie. Not that the film has no racial tensions and occasional flashes of prejudice, but "Inside Man" ultimately embraces the enormous ethnic and cultural diversity that is New York and by extension America. It even is a key plot point that in any give street of Manhattan you can broadcast a baffling language and someone is bound to know that language. Someone does.
The setup is indeed familiar enough that Lee and Gewirtz -- what a writing debut! -- actually rush through it. Four bad guys -- OK, it's really three guys and a girl -- take over a Manhattan branch bank disguised as painters. They hold about 50 people hostage. The NYPD gathers. Hostage negotiators Keith Frazier (Washington), who is under the cloud of a corruption scandal, and partner Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejoifor) arrive on the scene. Emergency Services Unit Capt. John Darius (Willem Dafoe) bristles in a fit of jurisdictional pride and then the siege begins.
Only nothing goes as expected -- either for a bank heist or a bank heist movie. The head robber, Clive Owen's Dalton Russell, is a character at least as old as Alan Rickman's Eurotrash villain in "Die Hard", but this guy is somehow different: Unusually cool and calm, he is fully in control of the situation as he keeps a step or even a step and a half ahead of Frazier at all times. His gang blinds the bank's closed-circuit cameras, then force the hostages to dress in coverall outfits and facial disguises so police cannot tell the difference between hostage and hostage taker.
There is another perplexing element: The bank's board chairman Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) clearly is more concerned about certain items in the safety deposit vault than in the lives of the hostages. So he hires slick, amoral power broker Madeline White (Foster) to handle very delicate negotiations with the New York mayor, Frazier and the hostage ringleader to protect his "interests."
For all the rising tension, beautifully orchestrated by Lee, Gewirtz leaves plenty of "air" in his story. Meaning, spaces to further develop characters or themes -- some an end to themselves and others that will pay off later. Example: An interchange between Dalton and a young black boy, who is his hostage, regarding the boy's super-violent pocket video game, in which a gangsta hero shoots his way through an urban environment, inspires moral indignation in the old-school thief. Seemingly fringe characters also have the encouraging habit of abruptly becoming integral to the plot or the conveyors of sharp observations about current American culture.
In the end, this "air" turns out to be more than air. There is an agenda within this intricately plotted, witty crime thriller. Helping Lee, whose direction has never been more astute, realize the script's high ambition is production designer Wynn Thomas, who keeps a claustrophobic experience feeling almost expansive; cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who makes things gritty but with dark, saturated, burnished tones that are never quite real; and Terence Blanchard's musical score, which becomes almost a character in itself, commenting on situations, holding back for others, then swelling expressively when circumstances warrant.
The film is even hip enough to open with "Chaiyya Chaiyya", one of the biggest Bollywood hits last year, then close with the same song remixed with rap. Very cool.
INSIDE MAN
Universal Pictures
Imagine Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Spike Lee
Screenwriter: Russell Gewirtz
Producer: Brian Grazer
Executive producers: Daniel M. Rosenberg, Jon Kilik, Karen Kehela Sherwood, Kim Roth
Director of photography: Matthew Libatique
Production designer: Wynn Thomas
Music: Terence Blanchard
Co-producer: Jonathan Filley
Costumes: Donna Berwick
Editor: Barry Alexander Brown
Cast:
Keith Frazier: Denzel Washington
Dalton Russell: Clive Owen
Madeline White: Jodie Foster
Arthur Case: Christopher Plummer
John Darius: Willem Dafoe
Bill Mitchell: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Steve Carlos: Andres Gomez
Stevie: Kim Director
Steve-O: James Ransone
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 128 minutes...
- 3/20/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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