10 Black movie roles that carried films… but the Oscars looked the other way

10 Black movie roles that carried films… but the Oscars looked the other way

Malcolm X If there’s ever been a performance that embodied a man’s spirit, it was Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in Malcolm X. Denzel didn’t just play Malcolm—he became him. The cadence, the conviction, the transformation from Malcolm Little to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz—it was layered, precise, and deeply human. You felt the fire, the evolution, the internal conflict. It wasn’t imitation—it was resurrection. Denzel Washington in a scene from Spi…