Affleck in MANCHESTER BY SEA or Washington in FENCES

Washington by far.

Ben Affleck's brother by far.

Denzel by not that far. Affleck's also great.

Washington by the power of infinity. How on earth a performance as "ok" as Affleck's got hyped like it was some DeNiro in Raging Bull level achievement will forever remain a mystery. Affleck was/is an actor with limited range acting like a moody depressed teenager that perfectly accentuates exactly that limited range. I can immediately think of a dozen actors who could have been directed to that performance, and maybe better. Yes, it was a sad story, and fine, give the guy a nomination, but critics went insane on that performance. Washington's been robbed a couple of times, but this one felt almost as bad as Malcolm X.

 I thought Steve Biko in Cry Freedom was one of his most transformative performances, and he really should have won supporting actor for that (I'm sure his loss there, helped him win supporting actor with  Glory 2 years later). I get it. It was his first nomination and he was new to the game. Odds were not with him. He lost out to Sean Connery for The Untouchables, as an Irish Cop with a Scottish accent. Love Connery, great movie star. But that was a career capper win. Didn't matter who had the technically strongest performance that year, which was Washington, imho. It was Connery's time to win. But that's how the Oscars often works.

Washington was very good, Affleck was legendary

Affleck. Damn if you don't feel that aura of depression above him, it's great work. I'm not a big fan of the film, but he was great playing a depressed and sad Casey Affleck.

I feel like if this poll was on Twitter or any other social media, Washington would have about 97% of the vote. And not just because SJW's dislike Affleck either. Always found it curious how IMDB oscar buzz (and by extension this forum) were always so completely out of step with how almost the rest of the world and his peers felt about Washington and his work. I always expect him to lose polls here, but so many other places, he destroys everyone.

I wouldn't call polls here a reliable metric either. They are fun and I partake, but it's ultimately just a circle jerk of a minority subset of fans with similar tastes and biases.

Washington is popular, but he's never been the most popular, if you know what I mean. He's never had peak level box office power like Hanks, Dicaprio, Depp etc. His popularity explains some of how he wins these things, but not all. I think in the "real world" as it were, he's considered by the majority to be the greatest (male) actor, and it's probably been that way for a long time.

I think even I, as a massive supporter, used to underrate his filmography. But the more I look on it, I think it's kind of amazing. It's endlessly watchable, and works on several different thematic levels. Denzel really is his own auteur.

I compare him to George Clooney (a lesser actor, but almost as charasmatic a movie star) who built up a filmography that was oversaturated with it's own sense of importance (to it's detriment. I feel like Clooney is the more prolific edition of Warren Beatty, and his relevance will fade with the passage of time). And even when he's doing "fun" stuff, it often feels condescending (like the Oceans Movies, where Clooney is clearly thinking, "I'm doing this nonsense for the rubes in Idaho, so I can make The Good German). Denzel never, ever condescended to his audience or acted like the "fun" stuff was beneath him. Which is why something like Inside Man to me, is far superior to any of the Oceans films, despite ostensibly being the same "type" of picture.

Well, I don't think that any poll is going to be a wholly reliable metric for anything other than what a certain subset of people who have access to it have to say. They can be fun to take part in, I agree, but they really don't matter much because it is entirely subjective.

I would argue that Washington is very much one of the "most popular" actors out there. Hanks and DiCaprio probably have the edge on him overall, because unlike Washington, they actually have strong filmographies filled with classics and box-office successes. Washington does strong business on his own name (and I'd argue in terms of consistency, he's second only to DiCaprio in that regard, and those guys are a dying breed), but they generally target a certain demographic of moviegoer. Someone who might see Bridge of Spies or The Revenant may not be as keen to see The Equalizer, let's say. Washington rarely makes "awards bait"; if he gets nominated, it's largely because he gave a performance in a film that might otherwise not have gotten recognized at all because they liked him. No way Training Day gets in with its original castings of Gary Sinise (who would've been great to see), Tom Sizemore and Samuel L. Jackson. But because Washington is an extremely popular actor with beaucoup respect in and out of the industry, it became a contender.

I don't hold the same regard for his overall filmography that you do. I think in terms of the way he's been able to maintain profile over the years and consistently crank out a variety of genres and not really have any flops is extraordinary; even Hanks hasn't been able to do that. But I don't see a whole lot of his movies becoming pop-culture mainstays once he's gone, especially when compared to his sheer output and longevity in the business. Malcolm X will endure, I'm sure. Training Day, probably, as it was one of the first "crooked-cop" stories to capitalize on the societal reaction to things like Rodney King and Rampart. Glory will probably be a high-school history class staple. Fences will be seen as one of the rare plays to successfully transition to film. But beyond that, what else? I know you swear by Man on Fire, but I don't see it rising to become a modern classic. I think that when people evaluate Washington himself, those works will obviously be there, and people will be able to discover them, but I don't see a whole lot of Denzel Washington movies making the grade when, say, AFI does their updated Top 100. But with that said, that doesn't make his filmography a bad one; he makes the movies he wants and people obviously like them enough to keep returning to the theaters to see them.

Clooney's interesting. I think that he bought into his own hype and kind of squandered it of late. He's turned in some magnificent performances; I can't believe that the same guy who was in O Brother, Where Art Thou? was in The American; those two performances alone should put him in the conversation for one of the working greats (to say nothing of other strong works he's turned in over the years). The Beatty comparison's a good one, although I never liked Warren. I agree there is a sense of pompous self-importance with Clooney that kind of radiates from him (it even reached memetic levels when South Park skewered him for his Oscar speech), whereas Washington doesn't have that. People go to see Denzel because they relate to him, he doesn't feel like he's part of the Hollywood elite, and he doesn't make "message movies" the way that Clooney does. With that said, Clooney's catalogue hits much higher heights than Washington's, but I don't really hold that against Denzel. It's just the one thing about his career that sets him back: the lack of equal opportunity in receiving parts.

Affleck gives the top 5 performance of the decade so definitely him