How many movies has Denzel Washington directed?
Denzel Washington is a dying breed in Hollywood these days – a genuine movie star whose name guarantees butts in cinema seats. Over the years, his films have collected box office receipts and award nominations in equal measure, with his performances in classic films like Malcolm X, Training Day, The Hurricane and Glory being among his nine acting nominations at the Academy Awards.
Washington isn’t only an actor, though—he has also tried his hand at directing several times throughout his career. In 2021, though, he revealed to AP News that he still feels insecure about how accomplished he is as a director, admitting, “I don’t call myself a director. I’m still learning.”
The Equalizer star has also confessed that, in an ideal world, he would stay entirely behind the camera when he chooses to direct. He reasoned, “I prefer not being in the films.”
Unfortunately, though, that’s rarely the reality in Hollywood, with the star confirming, “Early on, it had to do with me being able to raise the money to get the films made…But I enjoy being a more behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”
The movies Denzel Washington directed:
Of the 60+ movies Washington has made in his career, he has taken up directing duties on just four, taking on biographical dramas, real stories, and depictions of working-class African-American lives.
Antwone Fisher (2002)
When Washington was approached with the opportunity to star in this autobiographical film as psychiatrist Jerome Davenport, he connected to the material so much that he insisted it become his directorial debut. Unusually, the script for the film was actually written by the subject of the story – Antwone Fisher, a US Navy man who overcame being born to an incarcerated mother and being abused in childhood before growing up in the George Junior Republic all-boys institution in Pennsylvania.
At the time, Washingon told the BBC that taking on the mantle of director and co-star simply made sense after meeting the real Fisher. He said: “I was just touched by him as a human being and by his story, and I wanted to be a part of it. And it’s a performance movie, and we worked on developing it for a long time, several years, so it just felt like the right thing to do.”
The Great Debaters (2007)
Five years after Antwone Fisher, Washington signed up to direct another film based on a stirring real-life story. The tale of the all-black Wiley College debate team that beat the almighty Harvard in the National Championships in 1935 spoke to Washington, although he was initially adamant that he would only direct it.
Producers insisted he also star as the team’s inspiring professor, but he resisted – so they cancelled the entire project. Eventually, Washington relented and agreed to act in the picture alongside his directing duties.
Fences (2016)
In 2010, Washington starred in a 12-week Broadway run of the August Wilson play Fences, and six years later, he returned to the project to transform it into a feature film. Wilson himself wrote the script for the screen adaptation, and Washington immediately knew he wanted to direct it in addition to starring as frustrated baseball hopeful turned sanitation worker Troy Maxon.
The material made Washington analyse his relationship to his craft more than any other, and he told Empire, “It reawakened me about the work, and my commitment to the work. I said to myself: ‘I’ve got to dig deeper.'”
A Journal for Jordan (2021)
Five years after Fences, Washington finally helmed the first film he didn’t also star in. A Journal for Jordan starred Michael B Jordan as Charles Monroe King, a sergeant in the Iraq War who kept a journal filled with love and advice for his infant son. The script was developed over a period of ten years, and the draft Washington was shown in 2018 convinced him he needed to direct it.
Fascinatingly, Washington actually knew King’s fiancé Dana Canedy and her son Jordan in real life, as she came into contact with the star while she served as senior editor at The New York Times. She told the LA Times that she first met the star while he was shooting The Taking of Pelham 123, and revealed, “I still have pictures of Denzel holding Jordan on the set of his movie when Jordan was three years old. So, he knew me and my son not just as characters but as real people. And he got to know Charles as a real person through us.”
