In Training Day (2001), Denzel Washington played Alonzo Harris, a veteran Los Angeles narcotics detective who spends one long day showing a rookie, played by Ethan Hawke, how the streets really work — or rather, how Alonzo works them. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film is a descent into corruption, and Washington is its charismatic devil.
Alonzo is funny, terrifying and utterly persuasive, and Washington plays him with a swagger that makes the audience understand exactly why the rookie follows him as long as he does. The performance won Washington the Academy Award for Best Actor, his second Oscar, and it remains a masterclass in screen villainy: a good man gone bad, played by an actor famous for playing good men, with not a flicker of apology.