Denzel Washington Knows Exactly Why Some Of His Movies Sucked

There are actors, and there are movie stars. Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington is both. Since kicking off his acting career nearly five decades ago, Washington has starred in over five dozen movies. Anyone with that kind of output, regardless of their own skills, is bound to be in a few stinkers, and Washington isn't shy about admitting that some of his movies sucked.

"After 'Malcolm X' I made some real clunkers," Washington said in an interview with The Times. "Look them up — I won't say their names." Washington avoided titles but did name a decade, saying that his worst movies were in the '90s and frankly admitting that at the time he needed to make money. "I was earning. I had responsibilities," he explained, adding that he imagines life in thirds, with one for learning, one for earning money, and one for giving back. Washington said, "So in that era I was earning ... With a great agent, my career built into making money and so the earning kicked in and then life also kicked in, with bills, four kids and a house."

For Washington, the '90s included schlocky action flicks and cheesy sci-fi movies, but luckily for him, even some of Washington's flops are worth still watching. It's true that a majority of Washington's best movies came out after the '90s, but looking at what critics have said, Washington may be judging his own work too harshly. His earning era did have a few clunkers, but his worst films are actually from earlier in his career.

Denzel Washington didn't want to name any specific movies when he was talking about his rough patch in the '90s, but it's not hard to guess what films he was thinking about. The year after Washington starred in "Malcolm X," he appeared alongside Julia Roberts in the John Grisham legal thriller "The Pelican Brief," which failed to impress critics. Then in 1995 Washington played an imprisoned former police officer who's forced to test a virtual reality program in the sci-fi disaster "Virtuosity." With just a 33% approval rating, that movie is one of Washington's worst, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

There were definitely low moments for Washington in the '90s, but he might remember the decade as worse than it actually was. The same year that "The Pelican Brief" turned off critics, Washington made a huge impression starring alongside Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia." In 1995, "Devil in a Blue Dress" didn't perform particularly well at the box office, but was a critical darling. 

Washington has said that his real-life responsibilities forced him into making those '90s clunkers, but those same responsibilities also ended up pushing him into some truly memorable performances. That decade laid the groundwork for some of the biggest movies of Washington's career, like "Deja Vu" and "American Gangster." 

Critics and moviegoers alike disagree with Denzel Washington about when his worst movies debuted. Washington remembers the flops of the '90s because that was the decade in which he was most focused on making money as an actor. According to Rotten Tomatoes, however, his two worst films actually came out before the decade really got started.

In 1990, Washington starred as a lawyer named Napoleon Stone in "Heart Condition." Stone dies and his heart is transplanted into a racist cop named Jack Mooney (Bob Hoskins), who starts seeing Stone's ghost and changing his outlook on life after the operation. At a whopping 10% approval rating, "Heart Condition" is Washington's worst movie according to critics by a full 16-point margin.

General audiences, on the other hand, have named 1988's "For Queen and Country" as Washington's worst film with a 28% score. Washington plays a British former paratrooper named Reuben James. When he returns to his home in London, Reuben finds the neighborhood overrun with crime, and as he settles in, things go from bad to worse. Both movies are among Washington's lowest-grossing of all time, and, though personal tastes may vary, both are a good deal worse than anything the actor put out in the mid-'90s.