20 Greatest Movie Villains Of The 2000s

Boasting the kind of impeccable history of roles and performances that he does, to say that his work in Training Day was arguably Denzel Washington's best is no small feat. It is what earned him his Best Actor Oscar, as Alonzo Harris has gone down as one of his greatest ever characters, and a villain at that.

The film shows Washington's Harris taking Ethan Hawke's Jake on a day with a view to potentially bringing him into his undercover narcotics unit, something that ultimately ended with Harris revealing to Jake the extent of exactly what he was willing to do with the power he had got.

Of course, the nature of the villain, using and abusing his position as a high-ranking and respected police officer, was bad enough, but exactly how self-involved he was, how brutal he was, and what he was willing to do to protect himself were shocking.

But Washington's performance was so commanding, so convincing, and so damn compelling that it's easy to fall into the trap and begin to believe what he's saying. He was a bad guy who did bad things, made so memorable and moving by a truly Oscar-worthy performance.