20 Best & Worst Movies From 2017 Oscar Nominees

Best: Training Day (2001)

Washington's turn as corrupt Detective Alonzo Harris probably isn't the most complex character he's ever played: it isn't the most subtly crafted, or the most politically important or the most emotionally devastating. But it is the most explosive and the most transformative, redefining the parameters of what Washington could do on screen.

He's done nothing like it since, but watching his tour de force performance of towering menace, fully aware of his snivelling vulnerability is the perfect insight into how well he crafts the character. We know he's a dangerous man and a bully, but this grotesque monster is rooted in the mortifying, accessible horror that he's no better than those he claims dominion over. And that on a knife-edge, they could devour him.

That realisation inspires a swaggering, contradictory performance, at once snake-like but also terrified, and it's spell-binding to watch.

Worst: Heart Condition (1990)

Have you ever wondered what a racially-charged comedy in which Denzel Washington plays a ghost haunting Bob Hoskins would look like? No, me neither, but Hollywood made it, and for all our sins, some of us even watched it. The film is based on the horrifying conceit of a racist cop getting a black man's heart, and his ghost following him around, causing what the director and writers presumably thought were "wacky results".

Luckily, this tepid, laughless mess kept Washington mostly away from comedy for the rest of his career. So it did have SOME value.