Denzel Washington & Netflix Are Teaming Up To Take Over Streamer With 132-Minute Action Thriller's Release

Published Sep 25, 2026, 10:13 PM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Denzel Washington is coming to dominate Netflix with one of his best action thrillers. Netflix's movie roster packs quite the punch with its many action thrillers. This ranges from films on Netflix's all-time movies chart, such as the 2026 sci-fi action thriller led by Reacher's Alan Ritchson, War Machine, to releases like the Ben Affleck star-studded action movie Triple Frontier, and many more. Netflix's library of TV shows is also filled with successful action-packed series, such as the spy thriller The Night Agent, which has been renewed for a fourth and final season. In summary, the genre does well on Netflix.

Cut to Washington's long list of movies, many of which are action projects the legendary actor has starred in. Netflix knows that well, as the streaming service had success in 2026 with the Man on Fire series led by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, which adapted the same book that Washington's 2004 movie of the same name had done decades earlier. Some other noteworthy Washington action movies also include projects like Training Day, for which Washington simply won the Best Actor Oscar for, and The Equalizer, the franchise starter that will soon be coming to Netflix, likely to rule the streaming service.

Denzel Washington's The Equalizer Is Coming Back To Netflix

2014's The Equalizer is one of the movies that will arrive on Netflix on October 1. Alongside Washington's action thriller that started a popular franchise, there will be other new Netflix arrivals at the start of the next month, which include movies like Brad Pitt's heady sci-fi Ad Astra, Matt Damon's entire Jason Bourne spy thriller franchise, the Daniel Craig sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens, Mike Flanagan’s nerve-wracking Hush, Liam Neeson's Christmas classic Love Actually, Ben Affleck's Pearl Harbor, Anya Taylor-Joy's The Menu, Robert Pattinson's entire Twilight saga, and many other exciting movies.

The Equalizer ended up grossing $192.3 million worldwide on a reported budget of $55 million, starting a successful franchise for the actor. Washington has since appeared in two other The Equalizer movies. Given the success of the franchise and action thrillers in general, The Equalizer is likely to become a major streaming hit for Netflix when it arrives on October 1. Also teasing that outcome is the fact that the actor recently experienced a successful run on the streamer. Washington's R-rated thriller The Little Things became a Netflix global hit in September, reportedly being the streamer's most-watched movie in 13 countries.

The Franchise Has Many Stokes In The Fire

The latest entry in Washington's action thriller franchise was The Equalizer 3, which was released in theaters on September 1, 2023, and grossed $191 million worldwide. After the success of the franchise, there is a lot still on the way. Talking to Esquire in November 2024, Washington revealed that he would be coming back for two The Equalizer movies.

According to the actor, The Equalizer 4 and 5 are on the way because that is what the fans want, as they ask him to catch the bad guys that they can't, and to that, he says,"I’ll be right back!" The Equalizer's Netflix arrival, and possible streaming success, could help speed up that process.