Viola Davis’s 11 Best Roles, From ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ to ‘Doubt’

Viola Davis is accustomed to making history. The 59-year-old South Carolina native and Juilliard graduate got her start on the stage, winning a Tony Award in 2001 for her part in August Wilson’s King Hedley II. Small but memorable turns in film and TV followed, before her breakout as a fearful mother in Doubt (2008), for which she received an Oscar nod. Since then, she’s become the first Black person to achieve the triple crown of acting—she won a second Tony in 2010 for the Broadway revival of Fences, was the first Black woman to take home the Emmy for lead actress in a drama series for How to Get Away with Murder (2014 to 2020), and then secured the Oscar for best supporting actress with her work in Denzel Washington’s big-screen adaptation of Fences (2016).

Now, as she collects the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment, we honor the trailblazer by looking back at her best roles so far.

Antwone Fisher (2002)Antwone Fisher (2002)

Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

Denzel Washington’s cathartic dramatization of the real-life story of a sailor (Derek Luke) who was born in prison, sent to an abusive foster home, and joined the US Navy to find purpose ends with a painful reunion with the mother (Davis) who abandoned him. Davis’s subtle turn will make you weep.

Doubt (2008)

With just eight minutes of screen time, Davis conveys the shock, frustration, grief, and desperation of a mother whose son may be being preyed on by a priest in John Patrick Shanley’s tense drama. She even overshadows her scene partner, the venerable Meryl Streep, playing a suspicious nun.

The Help (2011)

Davis has said she regrets taking on the role of a devoted maid in Tate Taylor’s overly simplistic depiction of race relations in 1960s Mississippi because “it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard.” However, the film is worth watching for her measured and detailed performance. You can feel her heartache behind every sigh and placid smile.

Prisoners (2013)

Before Denis Villeneuve came to prominence with Sicario (2015) and Arrival (2016), he directed this taut thriller, which tracks the disappearance of two young girls. As one of their parents, Davis is numbed by regret but then becomes resolute about recovering them by any means necessary.

Get on Up (2014)

In charting the rise of soul icon James Brown (Chadwick Boseman), Tate Taylor’s electrifying biopic zips between his traumatic past and later success. Fleetingly present in both halves of his life is Davis’s layered portrayal of his mother, who leaves and, apprehensively, returns years later.

How to Get Away With Murder (2014 to 2020)How to Get Away with Murder (2014-2020)

Photo: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy

Across six gripping seasons of Peter Nowalk’s legal drama, Davis stuns in the part of Annalise Keating, a no-nonsense criminal defense attorney and professor whose students get entangled in her cases. She’s confident, joyful, and sexy as well as being ruthless, manipulative, and intrinsically flawed.

Suicide Squad (2016)

Who else but Davis could keep a motley crew of villains in line? In David Ayer’s divisive blockbuster, cast as the devious government official Amanda Waller, she radiates authority with her dead-eyed stare and unparalleled killer instinct, proving that she doesn’t need superpowers to get her way.

Fences (2016)

Poetry in motion is the only way to describe Davis in Denzel Washington’s reverential staging of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece. The compassionate wife of a reckless dreamer who betrays her, she unravels in spectacular fashion and unloads 18 years’ worth of grievances.

Widows (2018)

When a high-stakes heist goes wrong, the partners of the men killed in the incident are forced to plan a robbery of their own to pay back a mobster in Steve McQueen’s blistering caper. Davis is their reluctant ringleader, a woman still reeling from loss and driven by an urgent need to survive.

From the moment Davis appears on screen in George C. Wolfe’s rousing melodrama, bedecked with jewelry, brandishing feathers, and grinning with her gold teeth, she oozes charisma. Her take on the titular blues legend, as presented in August Wilson’s play of the same name, makes it a must-see.

The Woman King (2022)

Regal and steely while bearing battle scars and brandishing a machete, Davis transforms into a formidable, punch-throwing action star in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical epic, taking the part of a deadly 19th-century West African general. She left it with yet more nominations—from the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, SAGs, and Critics’ Choice Awards—and the industry’s enduring respect.