Fences · reception & legacy

2016 · Denzel Washington

How Fences has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Landed in 2016 as an acclaimed awards heavyweight, though critics sparred over whether it was cinema or a filmed play; now it's remembered less for that quibble and more as the launchpad of Denzel Washington's project to bring all ten of August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle plays to the screen (Ma Rainey, The Piano Lesson followed).

What's debated

The forever-debate: is 'it's just a filmed play' a damning flaw or completely beside the point when the acting is this titanic — with a side-argument over Viola Davis running in Supporting when half the internet insists she's the co-lead.

Its footprint

Viola Davis's tear-and-snot-streaked breakdown became the internet's shorthand for going-all-the-way screen acting, endlessly clipped and memed, and Denzel's icy 'What law is there say I got to like you?' exchange is one of the most quoted monologue scenes of the 2010s.

Where it stands

A canonical actors'-showcase movie — the one people cite when arguing performances alone can carry a film, and a fixture of 'greatest acting scenes' lists.

★ Did you know? August Wilson refused for decades to let Hollywood film Fences unless a Black director was hired — a stand he took publicly back when an Eddie Murphy version was floated at Paramount in the late '80s — which is a big part of why the film took nearly 30 years to arrive; Wilson, who died in 2005, received a posthumous Oscar nomination for the screenplay.