Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor, playwright, producer, screenwriter, and filmmaker. He has been critically hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative characters in his films. He is best known for playing Morpheus in The Wachowskis‘ Matrix trilogy (1999, 2003), with Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano; Jason “Furious” Styles in John Singleton‘s Boyz n the Hood (1991), with Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Regina King, and Angela Bassett; Tyrone “Mr. Clean” Miller in Francis Ford Coppola‘s war film Apocalypse Now (1979), with Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper; and “The Bowery King” in the John Wick film series (2017–), with Reeves, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick.

He made his film debut in the coming-of-age drama Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975), with Moses Gunn, Rosalind Cash, Bernie Casey, Keith Wilkes, and Madge Sinclair. Other early roles include Paul Mazursky’s Willie & Phil (1980), with Michael Ontkean, Margot Kidder, and Ray Sharkey; Death Wish II (1982), with Charles Bronson and Vincent Gardenia; Rumble Fish (1983), with Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Vincent Spano, Diane Lane, Diana Scarwid, Nicolas Cage, and Hopper; The Cotton Club (1984), with Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Cage, Allen Garfield, Gwen Verdon, Fred Gwynne, Tom Waits, and Woody Strode; and Steven Spielberg‘s The Color Purple (1985), with Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Desreta Jackson, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Rae Dawn Chong, Willard Pugh, and Adolph Caesar.

Films in the mid to late 1980s include Quicksilver (1996), with Kevin Bacon, Jami Gertz, Paul Rodriguez, Louie Anderson, and Rudy Ramos; Band of the Hand (1986), with Stephen Lang, Leon Robinson, Remar, and Lauren Holly; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), with Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, and Robert Englund; Gardens of Stone (1987), with James Caan, Anjelica Huston, James Earl Jones, D.B. Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, and Mary Stuart Masterson; Cherry 2000 (1987), with Melanie Griffith and David Andrews; Spike Lee‘s School Daze (1988), with Giancarlo Esposito and Tisha Campbell; and Walter Hill’s Red Heat (1988), with Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi.

Roles in the early 1990s include Abel Ferrara’s King of New York (1990), with Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, and Esposito; Cadence (1990), with Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen (who also directed), Michael Apted’s Class Action (1991), with Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; Deep Cover (1992), with Jeff Goldblum and Charles Martin Smith; Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), with Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, and Ben Kingsley; Higher Learning (1995), with Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Omar Epps, Michael Rapaport, and Kristy Swanson; Bad Company (1995), with Ellen Barkin, Frank Langella, Michael Beach, and David Ogden Stiers; and Just Cause (1995), with Sean Connery, Kate Capshaw, Blair Underwood, Ruby Dee, and Ed Harris.

For his portrayal of Ike Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), with Bassett (as Tina Turner); Fishburne was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Two Trains Running (1992), and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in TriBeCa (1993). He became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker’s 1995 film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, co-starring Irène Jacob and Kenneth Branagh.

Films in the mid to late 1990s include Fled (1996), with Stephen Baldwin, Will Patton, Robert John Burke, and Salma Hayek; Event Horizon (1997), with Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan and Joely Richardson; and Hoodlum (1997), with Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Andy García, Cicely Tyson, Chi McBride, Richard Bradford, and Clarence Williams III.

Films in the early 2000s include Once in the Life (2000), with Titus Welliver, Eamonn Walker, Paul Calderón, and Annabella Sciorra; Osmosis Jomes (2001), with Bill Murray, and the voices of Chris Rock, David Hyde Pierce, and William Shatner; Clint Eastwood‘s Mystic River (2003), with Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney; Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), with Ethan Hawke, John Leguizamo, Maria Bello, Ja Rule, Drea de Matteo, Brian Dennehy, Aisha Hinds and Gabriel Byrne; and a voice cameo in Shane Black‘s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), with Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, and Corbin Bernsen.

Films in the mid to late 2000s include Akeelah and the Bee (2006), with Keke Palmer, Angela Bassett, and Curtis Armstrong; Mission: Impossible III (2006), with Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, and Maggie Q, and Simon Pegg; Bobby (2006), with Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Spencer Garrett, Helen Hunt, Anthony Hopkins, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Freddy Rodriguez, Heather Graham, Elijah Wood, and Emilio Estevez; and 21 (2008) with Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, Aaron Yoo, and Kieu Chinh.

Films in the early 2010s include Predators (2010), with Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Mahershala Ali, and Danny Trejo; Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion (2011), with Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, and Sanaa Lathan; The Colony (2013), with Kevin Zegers and Bill Paxton; Man of Steel (2013), with Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Lane, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, and Russell Crowe; The Signal (2014), with Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, and Lin Shaye; and Rudderless (2014), with Crudup, Anton Yelchin, Felicity Huffman, and Selena Gomez.

Films in the mid to late 2010s include Batman v Superman (2016), with Ben Affleck, Cavill, Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Lane, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, and Gal Gadot; Passengers (2016), with Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, and Michael Sheen; Richard Linklater‘s Last Flag Flying (2017), with Steve Carell and Cranston; the Marvel Cinematic Universe entry Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas; The Mule (2018), with Eastwood (who also directed), Bradley Cooper, Peña, Diane Wiest, and García; Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019), with Cate Blanchett, Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Greer; and Running with the Devil (2019), with Cage, Leslie Bibb, and Barry Pepper.

Films in the 2020s include Under the Stadium Lights (2021), with Milo Gibson; The Ice Road (2021), with Liam Neeson, Benjamin Walker, Amber Midthunder, Marcus Thomas, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt McCoy, and Matt Salinger; All the Old Knives (2022), with Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Jonathan Pryce, and David Dawson; Paul Feig’s The School for Good and Evil (2022), with Sophia Anne Caruso,
Sofia Wylie, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Flatters, Kit Young, Peter Serafinowicz, Rob Delaney, Mark Heap, Patti LuPone, Rachel Bloom, Blanchett, Kerry Washington, and Charlize Theron.

On television, one of his earliest recurring roles was as Cowboy Curtis on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (1986 – 1990). Years later he starred as Dr. Raymond Langston on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008–2011), as Special Agent Jack Crawford in the NBC thriller series Hannibal (2013–2015) and as Earl “Pops” Johnson in the ABC sitcom Black-ish (2014–present). TV movie roles include The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), with Gooding Jr., John Lithgow, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner; Miss Evers’ Boys (1997), with Alfre Woodard, Craig Sheffer, Joe Morton, and Ossie Davis; and Have a Little Faith (2011), with Bradley Whitford and Martin Landau.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

If You Give a Dance, You Gotta Pay the Band (1972) – directed by Fred Coe – TV movie
Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975) – by Joseph Manduke
Fast Break (1979) – directed by Jack Smight
Apocalypse Now (1979) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Willie & Phil (1980) – directed by Paul Mazursky
A Rumor of War (1980) – directed by Richard T. Heffron – miniseries
Death Wish II (1982) – directed by Michael Winner
I Take These Men (1983) – directed by Larry Peerce – TV movie
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story (1983) – directed by Michael Schultz – TV movie
Rumble Fish (1983) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Grandmaster Melle Mel: White Lines (Don’t Do It) (1983) – directed by Spike Lee – short
The Cotton Club (1984) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The Color Purple (1985) – directed by Steven Spielberg
Quicksilver (1986) – directed by Thomas Michael Donnelly
Band of the Hand (1986) – directed by Paul Michael Glaser
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) – directed by Chuck Russell
Gardens of Stone (1987) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Cherry 2000 (1987) – directed by Steve De Jarnatt
School Daze (1988) – directed by Spike Lee
Red Heat (1988) – directed by Walter Hill
Christmas at Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (1988) – directed by Wayne Orr & Paul Reubens – TV movie
King of New York (1990) – directed Abel Ferrara
Cadence (1990) – directed by Martin Sheen
The Civil War (1990) – directed by Ken Burns – miniseries
Decoration Day (1990) – directed by Robert Markowitz – TV movie
Class Action (1991) – directed by Michael Apted
Boyz n the Hood (1991)** – directed by John Singleton
Deep Cover (1992) – directed by Bill Duke
What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993) – directed by Brian Gibson
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) – directed by Steven Zaillian
Higher Learning (1995) – directed by John Singleton
Bad Company (1995) – directed by Damian Harris
Just Cause (1995) – directed by Arne Glimcher
The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) – directed by Robert Markowitz – TV movie
Othello (1995) – directed by Oliver Parker
Fled (1996) – directed by Kevin Hooks
Miss Evers’ Boys (1996) – directed by Joseph Sargent – TV movie
Event Horizon (1997) – directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Hoodlum (1997) – directed by Bill Duke – also executive producer
Always Outnumbered (1998) – directed by Michael Apted – TV movie
Welcome to Hollywood (1998) – directed by Adam Rifkin – cameo as himself
The Matrix (1999)** – directed by The Wachowskis
Once in a Life (2000) – also director, writer
Osmosis Jones (2001)* – directed by the Bobby & Peter Farrelly (live action) and Piet Kroon & Tom Sito (animation)
Biker Boyz (2003) – directed by Reggie Rock Bythewood
The Matrix Reloaded (2003) – directed by The Wachowskis
Mystic River (2003) – directed by Clint Eastwood
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)* – directed by The Wachowskis
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) – directed by Jean-François Richet
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) – directed by Shane Black – uncredited voice cameo
Akeelah and the Bee (2006) – directed by Doug Atchison – also producer
Mission: Impossible III (2006) – directed by J.J. Abrams
Five Fingers (2006) – directed by Laurence Malkin
Bobby (2006) – directed by Emilio Estevez
TMNT (2007)* – directed by Kevin Munroe
The Death and Life of Bobby Z (2007) – directed by John Herzfeld
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)* – directed by Tim Story
21 (2008) – directed by Robert Luketic
Tortured (2008) – directed by Nolan Lebovitz
Days of Wrath (2008) – directed by Celia Fox
Armored (2009) – directed by Nimród Antal
Black Water Transit (2009) – directed by Tony Kaye – unreleased
Predators (2010)* – directed by Nimród Antal
Thurgood (2011) – directed by Michael Stevens – TV movie
Contagion (2011) – directed by Steven Soderbergh
Have a Little Faith (2011) – directed by Jon Avnet – TV movie
The Colony (2013) – directed by Jeff Renfroe
Man of Steel (2013) – directed by Zack Snyder
Khumba (2013) – directed by Anthony Silverston
Ride Along (2014) – directed by Tim Story
The Signal (2014) – directed by William Eubank
Rudderless (2014) – directed by William H. Macy
Standoff (2016) – directed by Adam Alleca
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) – directed by Zack Snyder
The Snowy Day (2016) – directed by Jamie Badminton & Rufus Blacklock – TV short
Passengers (2016) – directed by Morten Tyldum
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)* – directed by Chad Stahelski
Madiba (2017) – directed by Kevin Hooks – miniseries
Last Flag Flying (2017) – directed by Richard Linklater
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)* – directed by Peyton Reed
Imprisoned (2018) – directed by Paul Kampf
The Mule (2018) – directed by Clint Eastwood
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)* – directed by Chad Stahelski
Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019) – directed by Richard Linklater
Running with the Devil (2019) – directed by Jason Cabell
Death to 2020 (2020) – directed by Al Campbell & Alice Mathias – TV special
Under the Stadium Lights (2021) directed by Todd Randall
The Ice Road (2021) – directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
All the Old Knives (2022) – Janus Metz Pedersen
The School for Good and Evil (2022) – directed by Paul Feig
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)* – directed by Chad Stahelski
Megalopolis (2024) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Transformers One (2024) – directed by Josh Cooley
Slingshot (202-) – directed by Mikael Håfström
Sneaks (202-) – directed by Rob Edwards
The Amateur (202-) directed by James Hawes
The Astronaut (202-) – directed by Jess Varley
Frank & Louis (202-) – directed by Petra Biondina Volpe
Randlesham (202-) – directed by Joe Ahearne – TV movie
Cellar Door (202-) – directed by Vaughn Stein
The Little Bedroom (202-) – directed by Stéphanie Chuat & Véronique Reymond

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