24. DENZEL WASHINGTON
Philadelphia (1993)

It's easy to see this as Tom Hanks' movie. It was his character who suffered the indignities of being afflicted with AIDS, and Hanks won a well-deserved Oscar for his efforts. But Washington, as the ambulance-chasing homophobe, had the harder task. He had to coerce audiences, ever so gently, into realizing that his character represented our own ignorance, and then drag us on his path to enlightenment.