Why Didn’t Denzel Washington Get an Oscar for ‘American Gangster’?

Denzel Washington is widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s finest leading men. He belongs in that rare echelon of A-Listers who can take just about any role and turn it into something special AND something that audiences will want to see.

He’s also in that rare echelon of actors who have won two Academy Awards for acting. The first came in Best Supporting actor for the 1989 Civil War film Glory. The second came 13 years later, a Best Actor trophy for Training Day, making him only the second black man at that time to win that award. (Since then, Jamie Foxx and Forest Whitaker have also won.) And while Glory was a popular film in its time (a Best Picture nominee about an all-black regiment in the Civil War, albeit one directed by white Edward Zwick and starring white Matthew Broderick), and Training Day was sticky enough in pop culture to spawn a catch phrase, it’s still more than a little bewildering that these are the two movies Denzel won his Oscars for.

In 20 more years, won’t it be bizarre when we have to clarify that, no, Denzel Washington did not win his two Oscars for Malcolm X. Nor did he win for The Hurricane in 1999. Nor for Fences in 2016. All of Washington’s most dramatic and well-known movies? Nope. Glory. Okay.

American Gangster is one of those movies where, had it come in the days before Denzel had won his second, he’d have been a huge contender. Director Ridley Scott’s epic crime drama attracted awards attention for legendary actress Ruby Dee, but seeing as Denzel had recently won his second Oscar, there wasn’t much of a campaign for him. Which is too bad, because watching Washington compete against Daniel Day Lewis — who won that year for There Will Be Blood — might have been the most epic Best Actor showdown of my lifetime. Especially if both were seeking their second trophy.

American Gangster is i terrifically underrated film, with Ridley Scott combining a mob movie with a historical drama, a sleek NYC-based tale about a black gangster (Washington) trying to evade the bad guys (Josh Brolin) and the cops (Russell Crowe). And if it were Martin Scorsese directing Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in the same role, the Oscars might have come calling. But Oscar had already come calling for The Departed the year before, perhaps answering the question of why the Academy wasn’t in the mood for a gangster crime saga two years in a row.

So instead of Oscar glory, American Gangster remains an intriguing what-if footnote in Oscar history. It’s also streaming right now on Netflix, so you can judge for yourself. Was this the great award-worthy Denzel performance that got away?

Stream American Gangster on Netflix