Denzel Washington vs. Wesley Snipes: Who had the better '90s filmography? Strictly 90s, between them two who was the bigger star? Explain why 🤔.

[patscorpio]

giving it to wesley by a narrow margin...wesley was that dude in the 90s...with being said..i hate to wong foo with a passion and i wish he never did that movie

 

[Big Boss]

@Ziggiy

 

[Ziggiy]

@Ziggiy

The bigger star was Denzel but it was MUCH closer in the 90’s than people may remember because Wesley had a damn good run that included not only starring in, but also producing Blade. Denzel didn’t start producing until the 2000’s starting with Antwon Fischer.

Both were/are very strong actors but Wesley leaned more into his commercial bag with a lot of mainstream successful but critically middling action flicks while Denzel seemed to always find the right balance between commercial fare and films that allowed him to showcase his talents as a thespian. In every single Denzel Washington performance there’s at least 1-2 scenes where he reminds you just how goddamn good he is whereas you can’t say that about every Wesley film.

One thing I can say about Wesley is, if you put him in alot of the roles Denzel took in the 90’s Wesley would smoke those roles whereas Denzel may not have the same success vice versa. Denzel might not fit with something like Money Train or even White Men Can’t Jump but Wesley would kill it in Philadelphia, The Preacher’s Wife, and He Got Game. Denzel also doesn’t have the physicality of Wesley due to Wesley’s background in both ballet and Martial Arts so if Denzel did Blade they’d have to use more stuntmen and it wouldn’t come as authentic as Wesley made it.


Both pretty much ran the 90’s as THE black masculine leads until Will Smith broke through with Bad Boys and caught fire. I think Wesley as a pure actor goes really underrated but Wesley can match Denzel in a few factors, Denzel just did a better job showing his greatness with better projects. Denzel also did a better job ingratiating himself in the black community than Wesley did during the 90’s, which made a BIG difference in how they were viewed and championed amongst “US”. Denzel publicly refused to do love scenes with white women and had arguments with Spike Lee about it while they were filming He Got Game. Wesley made what could be viewed as “disparaging” comments about black women, had no qualms having white women love interests in his films, and married a Korean woman. Today this would be a non-factor but in the 90’s when Jet, Ebony, Essence and BET had a much larger footprint amongst the black community Denzel was looked at as a beacon of black masculinity while some looked at and framed Wesley as a bit of a sellout.

 

[2 Up 2 Down]

Wesley got a lot of fun movies that I think still holds up but that could be due to my nostalgia.

Denzel has a stronger critical list of movies in the 90s