John David Washington’s Favorite Movies Include Two Starring His Father Denzel

It’s not that Denzel Washington hasn’t made some bad movies — the one where he played the ghost of a lawyer who has to guide Bob Hoskins through a police investigation is pretty indefensible. But the fact is that the best Denzel movies are some of the best movies ever made. The man just knows how to radiate charisma no matter what part he’s playing, and his films are all the better for it. Does it mean that you can’t help but see Denzel instead of his character most of the time? Well, it depends what era you’re talking about.

For many who grew up with Denzel in his “Training Day” era, the actor very much just seemed like his whole MO was to just show up, be Denzel, and go home (which wasn’t a bad thing, simply by virtue of the aforementioned effortless charisma). But those of us who were, at the time, too young to remember “Malcom X”-era Denzel were missing a whole chunk of the actor’s filmography that very much proved he was capable of disappearing into his characters.

Case in point: Denzel’s best movie according to Rotten Tomatoes. “Glory” is Edward Zwick’s 1989 Civil War drama, which told the story of one of the Union’s earliest Black regiments. It saw Washington play the formerly enslaved Silas Trip, who enlists in the regiment as a private and helps lead the charge against Fort Wagner. Denzel’s performance was enough to win him his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and “Glory” currently enjoys a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But while Oscars and stellar RT scores are all well and good, Denzel would surely be most pleased to know that his own son, John David Washington, considers “Glory” to be one of his top five films of all time.

There’s an argument to be made that “Glory” remains the best Civil War movie ever made. Edward Zwick didn’t cut any corners when it came to authenticity, which, when coupled with the director’s obvious respect for the subject matter and some truly great performances, made for a moving tribute to the men of the 54th regiment and one of the best-reviewed films in both Denzel Washington and Zwick’s careers.

If you ask Denzel’s son John, however, his father’s 1989 breakout film is important on a deeply personal level. The actor once spoke to Rotten Tomatoes about his all-time favorite movies, and ended up losting “Glory” among his top five picks. John David Washington extolled Zwick’s ability to let the film’s characters and their story speak for themselves, describing “Glory” as being personally “transformative.” To quote him directly:

“It was not only a history lesson, it was a meaningful time in the business of diversity and seeing characters that look like me — you know, that they were my color — in the business at the time have that sort of platform to embrace the inner workings, from the slave trade to the first soldiers, the emancipated men. I felt like that was such an important film. I knew every line for every character. I mean, I lived that movie. It was my upbringing.”

For Washington, it really does seem as though “Glory” is about much more than his father’s performance, with the actor speaking about how he knew every line of the film and “broke the VHS tape” rewatching it. Rather than heap praise on his dad, the “Tenet” star reserved his adulation for Zwick himself, saying the director “deserved more credit than he got” for making a “perfect film.”

Denzel Washngton actually made his son’s top five list of films not once, but twice — although the second entry was a far cry from Edward Zwick’s stirring Civil War drama. In fact, this second movie belongs to the early-aughts era of Denzel films, and sees the man in full-on action mode as the star of Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire.”

It might have a surprisingly low Rotten Tomatoes score, but “Man on Fire” is now considered one of Denzel’s better action offerings. While critics at the time of the film’s 2004 release took issue with the level of violence on display, the movie has since undergone a reappraisal, with many considering it to be the best of director Tony Scott and Denzel’s five collaborations — the others being “Crimson Tide,” “Déjà Vu,” “The Taking of Pelham 123,” and “Unstoppable.”

It’s a good thing people have come to their senses, too. The premise of “Man on Fire” was simple: John Creasy (Washington) is a bodyguard whose charge, young Guadalupe Ramos (Dakota Fanning), is kidnapped. Cue Denzel going on a protracted and unapologetically violent killing spree as he hunts for the girl, and that’s pretty much all you needed from early 2000s Denzel. When paired with Scott’s increasingly experimental and frenetic style, “Man on Fire” made for a true standout in Denzel’s filmography that couldn’t have been further from his Oscar-winning performance in “Glory.” Happily, it seems his son got the memo, with John David Washington naming “Man on Fire” as one of his top five films.

John David Washington is no stranger to action himself, having performed the most dangerous stunt in Netflix’s “Becket” in addition to headlining two epic sci-fi action outings in “Tenet” and “The Creator.” It’s not all that surprising that “Man on Fire” is in the man’s top five, then — though the reasons why it’s there aren’t quite what you might expect.

Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes, Denzel’s son noted how “what Tony Scott did was ahead of his time” and “revolutionary,” praising the “Top Gun” director for how he “maximized his ability to shape a film with sound.” The actor continued:

“He would loop in, like, tiger, animal noises with Lupita Ramos’ scream. He put in a foreshadowing scene, like when we first see Creasy in the cab with the beard, and he flashes to the end when he dies, and then he flashes back to the cab scene, and we didn’t even know. It took me like four times to realize, ‘Oh, that was at the end!'”

Beyond Scott’s stylistic choices, John David Washington also praised the way the director captured Mexico in “Man on Fire,” along with the performance of his father, whom he referred to as “Mr. Washington.” The actor even went as far as to dub “Man on Fire” the “perfect film,” adding, “It was the perfect balance of art and commerce. You could sell this thing, but again, like ‘Dances with Wolves,’ [Scott] didn’t compromise anything for the sake of story.”

Sound design and Tony Scott’s presentation of the film’s locale might not be what you’d expect to hear, but there you have it. The rest of Washington’s list, for those interested, was not made up of Denzel classics. Instead, the aforementioned “Dances with Wolves” made the cut, alongside Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” and “Coming to America.”