Denzel Washington names the three movies everyone needs to see before they die
Despite being one of America’s greatest-ever big-screen actors, delivering top-tier movie performances for the last four decades, Denzel Washington isn’t much of a cinephile. Or at least, that’s what he claims.
In fact, the two-time Academy Award winner and ten-time nominee bristles at the mere suggestion that he’s a part of the Hollywood machine, with Washington making it clear that he’s always viewed himself as a stage performer who happens to spend most of his time working on features.
Seeing as he’s appeared in five plays in the last 20 years while starring in 20 movies during the same period, it’s debatable whether that’s true. Then again, if he says it is, then who’s going to argue? He’s one of cinema’s most decorated veterans, but he’s never seemed too interested in its machinations or history.
When Washington was asked to name his favourite Stanley Kubrick movie, he said he didn’t have one because at the time the legendary auteur was churning out masterpieces like 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon, he was running amok on the streets of New York City.
Similarly, due to his strict upbringing in a devoutly religious household with a pastor for a father, the actor revealed that the only films he was allowed to watch as a child were biblically-themed epics like King of Kings and The Ten Commandments, so he wasn’t raised on a steady diet of celluloid.
Of course, being steeped in cinema isn’t a requirement to succeeding in the medium, and Washington is one of the marquee examples. He followed the tried-and-trusted path of cutting his teeth on the stage before upgrading to television and then segueing into movies, but it wasn’t as if he fell in love with movies at an early age and maintained that obsession throughout his life.
With that in mind, he’s probably the wrong person to ask for three pictures everybody needs to see at least once before they die. Still, GQ gave it a shot when conversing with the storied superstar, and it would appear that his answer was rooted more in unexpected panic than anything else.
“Wow. Oh no. I have no idea,” he stumbled before using a film that’s known to be one of his personal favourites as the springboard to coming up with an answer. “The Godfather trilogy. I don’t think I know the other two. You know, the thing is so many different films have affected me in different ways, but they may not have necessarily affected others.”
Washington holds Francis Ford Coppola’s crime saga in the highest regard, so it makes sense that he’d throw the other two in there, even if he’s not as well-versed in Parts II and III as the original. It’s a decent enough response, but if not The Godfather sequels, he suggested that he get a pat on the back.
“I’m going to say two others by me,” he added, without clarifying which ones. “There it is, a politically correct answer.” It’s not exactly the most illuminating must-see list, but Denzel Washington wants everyone to watch either The Godfather trilogy or the first Godfather and any two of his movies before they die.
