While Denzel Washington has many major hits to his name, one recent arrival on Netflix is still the actor’s most financially successful leading role to date. Although Denzel Washington’s movies have earned him a reputation as one of the greatest actors of his generation, his multiplex outings have not always been the financial hits that viewers might assume from his fame and acclaim.
Washington’s earliest movie, 1981’s comedy Carbon Copy, flopped upon release, and his Spike Lee collaboration, He Got Game, was a box office disappointment in 1997. Of course, the success of Lee and Washington’s earlier movies together ameliorated this letdown, but it wasn’t the last flop of Washington’s career.
While Washington’s first three movies as a director, Antwone Fisher, The Great Debaters, and Fences, were all critical and commercial successes, his 2021 war drama A Journal For Jordan was a massive final flop. However, while these movies prove even Washington isn’t immune to box office failure, 2007’s Ridley Scott crime drama American Gangster was a staggering success for the star.
American Gangster Is Still Denzel Washington’s Most Successful Lead Role
While Denzel Washington enjoyed many box office successes before American Gangster, the Frank Lucas biopic was still a historic win for the star. With a budget of $100 million, American Gangster earned a staggering $269 million upon its 2007 release. The movie was also a major critical success, with reviewers calling Washington’s portrayal of Lucas one of his best performances.
Loosely based on a real-life story, American Gangster chronicled Lucas’s audacious plan to smuggle heroin into America via US military planes that were returning from Vietnam. Russel Crowe played Lucas’s nemesis, detective Richie Roberts, while Josh Brolin, Carla Gugino, Common, RZA, Norman Reedus, Ruby Dee, Idris Elba, and Chiwetel Ejiofor rounded out the movie’s stacked supporting cast.
Although Tom Cruise’s underrated American Made tackled a similar story a decade later, American Gangster was a bigger hit. By 2007, Washington had won a Best Actor Oscar for playing another bombastic criminal mastermind in Training Day, but that earlier crime drama earned only $104 million. Similarly, Scott’s Gladiator 2 was a bigger box office hit, but Washington only played a supporting role in that 2024 sequel.
Few of Washington’s earlier movies could come close to the box office dominance of American Gangster, although the 1993 legal thriller The Pelican Brief and the same year’s superb drama Philadelphia managed to earn around the same amount adjusted for inflation. Even Washington’s explosive action movie collaborations with Tony Scott, Man on Fire and Déjà vu, couldn’t hit the $200 million mark.
American Gangster Is A Truly Great Gangster Movie
Of course, part of the reason that American Gangster fared so well was that Ridley Scott’s 70s-set epic was simply a superb gangster movie. This isn’t always a guarantee of success, as Washington’s earlier flop Fallen is one of his most underrated outings despite its box office underperformance. Nonetheless, American Gangster more than earned its millions.
Washington is peerless as the captivating, calculating, warm but terrifying Lucas, and Crowe provides a perfect foil as the blustering, brooding Roberts. Scott’s meditatively paced movie also has a long enough runtime to truly explore its supporting cast, but it doesn’t drag out its plot pointlessly and remains propulsive and engaging throughout.
After the success of The Godfathrr trilogy in the early ‘70s, Scarface in the early ‘80s, and Goodfellas in the early ‘90s, it was tempting to suggest that the gangster movie was dead and buried by the 2000s. The small screen success of The Sopranos, which ended the same month American Gangster was released, only served to reinforce this idea.
After audiences spent six years entranced by the pathetically suburban Tony Soprano complaining to his therapist, it was hard to imagine cinema goers getting invested in a traditional cops vs the mob storyline again. However, American Gangster’s compelling period story managed to revive the genre and highlighted an odd trend in the process.
American Gangster’s Success Highlights Ridley Scott’s Weirdest Career Trend
If the success of American Gangster proves one thing, it is that Denzel Washington’s box office appeal can’t be dented by a few missteps. However, if there is another takeaway from the movie’s success, it is that Ridley Scott’s contributions to the crime genre are among his most underrated movies.
This is hardly surprising, since Scott’s historic epic Gladiator, his space-set horror Alien, and his sci-fi noir Blade Runner are among the most influential movies ever made. As such, it would be tough for any crime drama to equal their acclaim. However, from American Gangster to House of Gucci, to Black Rain, to The Counselor, a lot of his most underappreciated movies are crime dramas.
15 Best Movies Like American Gangster
Denzel Washington’s charm in American Gangster can persuade anyone to delve into the many crime epics of cinema. Here are some films to start with.
Even the iconic feminist classic Thelma and Louise fits this description, and, like American Gangster, the 1990 hit is rarely listed among Scott’s most important movies despite its massive critical and commercial success. Even though American Gangster is still Denzel Washington’s biggest movie ever, the crime drama isn’t viewed as an essential Ridley Scott project.
- Release Date
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November 2, 2007
- Runtime
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157 minutes
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
