Denzel Washington could accomplish a rare career milestone if his next movie performs well. Washington is a celebrated actor whose career kicked off in 1975, though he did not have his breakthrough onscreen role until he took on the role of Dr. Phillip Chandler in the medical drama St. Elsewhere, which ran for six seasons from 1982 through 1988.

Although Washington was part of the main cast of the series through season 6, he had already begun to transition into being a movie star by the time it went off the air, with his most notable role during that period being that of real-life South African activist Steve Biko in the 1987 apartheid drama Cry Freedom.

A wide variety of notable Denzel Washington movies have come to the big screen since then. These range from comedies like 1990’s Heart Condition to Westerns like 2016’s The Magnificent Seven to action movies such as 2013’s 2 Guns and the Equalizer trilogy to dramas including 1991’s Mississippi Masala and 1993’s Philadelphia.

Most recently, Washington played Macrinus in the Ridley Scott legacy sequel Gladiator II, starring opposite Paul Mescal, Pedro Pasal, Connie Nielsen, Fred Hechinger, and Joseph Quinn. However, his next movie is even more promising than that тιтle, which was the 12th highest-grossing release of 2024.

Denzel Washington Can Achieve His 10th Oscar Nomination With His Next Movie

It Reunites Him With An Iconic Director After Nearly 20 Years

The movie that could put the star in one of the loftiest tiers for any actor is 2025’s Highest 2 Lowest, which is the next collaboration between Denzel Washington and Spike Lee. Lee previously directed Washington in 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues, 1992’s Malcolm X, 1998’s He Got Game, and 2006’s Inside Man.

Highest 2 Lowest, which also stars Jeffrey Wright, ASAP Rocky, Ilfenesh Hadera, and Ice Spice, is a modernized remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 movie High and Low, which itself is based on Ed McBain’s 1959 book King’s Ransom and follows a tycoon’s conflict with a kidnapper.

The movie earned glowing reviews after its Cannes premiere on May 19. At the time of writing, it holds a solidly Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 89% aggregated from 36 different critics’ reviews. One of these critics was ScreenRant‘s own Graeme Guttman, who gave the movie a score of 7 out of 10.

Read an excerpt from his Highest 2 Lowest review below:

There’s plenty to love in Highest 2 Lowest. If you ever wanted to see ASAP Rocky and Denzel Washington in a rap battle, here’s your chance. Washington is, as always, on fire, and his performance easily moves between morally dubious tycoon, loving family man, and vengeful anger.

If its critical reception continues in this vein, Highest 2 Lowest could earn Denzel Washington his 10th nomination for an acting Oscar. He was previously nominated as an actor for Cry Freedom, 1989’s Glory, Malcolm X, 1999’s The Hurricane, 2001’s Training Day, 2011’s Flight, 2016’s Fences, 2017’s Roman J. Israel, Esq., and 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, and as a producer for Fences.

Every Actor With 10 Or More Acting Nominations At The Oscars

Denzel Washington Could Become The Sixth

If Denzel Washington, who won Best Supporting Actor for Glory and Best Actor for Training Day, gets his 10th Oscar nomination for his performance in Highest 2 Lowest, he would become only the sixth actor in history to have hit that awards milestone. Below, see a breakdown of every star with eight or more acting nominations:

The Spike Lee movie could end up making Denzel Washington only the third male actor in history to ever hit that milestone, and the first Black actor of any gender to do so. In the history of the Academy Awards, only 53 Black male actors have earned Oscar nominations in either the Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor categories.

While it is unknown how many Black actors might be nominated alongside Denzel Washington in the 2025-2026 awards season, earning his 10th nomination in 2026 would mean that roughly 18% of that entire slate of nominations for Black male actors have gone to Washington over the course of his career.

Denzel Washington Winning An Oscar Would Be Another Huge Milestone

There Are Very Few Three-Time Winners

While the Denzel Washington remake could help him hit an impressive milestone even if it only gets him a nomination, if it nabs him his third Oscar win, it would also cement his status in Hollywood history. It would put him in even more rarefied air, as only three of the stars with more than 10 nominations won three or more times.

Overall, only seven people of any gender have so far won three or more acting Oscars. Washington would be joining an elite group that includes Katharine Hepburn (whose four wins make her the single person with the most acting Oscars), Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, and Walter Brennan.

Brennan won for Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938), and The Westerner (1940), Bergman won for Gaslight (1944), Anastasia (1956), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Day-Lewis won for My Left Foot (1989), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Lincoln (2012), and McDormand won for Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020).

Should Denzel Washington join that group as well, he would become the fourth male actor to do so and the first Black actor. Additionally, he would become the first male actor to have won three Oscars in more than a decade.

Denzel Washington’s Oscars Nominations Streak Would Be Very Impressive

His Career Longevity Is Almost Unprecedented

While earning 10 potential Oscar nominations and three potential wins would be impressive in its own right, adding Highest 2 Lowest to the roster of Denzel Washington’s Oscar-nominated performances would also mark an astounding chronological streak for the actor.

So far, Washington has been nominated at least once per decade since his original nomination in 1988, earning two nods in the 1990s, two in the 2000s, three in the 2010s, and one so far in the 2020s. However, the Spike Lee movie offers him an opportunity to continue this streak for every decade of his life since his nomination for Cry Freedom.

So far, the actor has been nominated in his thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties. However, he did not turn 70 until 2024, two years after his most recent nomination, for The Tragedy of Macbeth. Therefore, a nomination for Highest 2 Lowest would allow him to continue his streak into his seventies.

While Denzel Washington is already one of the most decorated actors in history, accomplishing these milestones with his next movie would further enhance his legacy. It would also be a fitting way to honor what is likely to be the final collaboration between him and Spike Lee, as Lee told audiences at Cannes (per The Guardian).

Source(s): The Guardian