Djimon Hounsou is an actor and model born in Benin, West Africa who found fame in American. While getting his start in fashion and music videos, landing parts in videos by Madonna, Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson, he also found limited work in television making appearances on hits like Beverly Hills, 90210 and ER. His film career was slow to take off, but by the late 1990s, while few maybe knew his name, he was fast becoming a face most could recognize. A unique, square-jawed, steely-eyed gaze, an athletic build and a powerfully affecting presence (look at him above in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life), he landed some critical roles that earned him much-deserved fame and praise, making him a promising and reliable name for a number of years. While he’s recently been relegated to smaller parts in big movies, such as The Legend of Tarzan, Guardians of the Galaxy and Furious 7, he is nonetheless an impressive figure audiences continue to root for. Here are 7 film performances of Djimon Hounsou you need to see.
![]()
AMISTAD
We’ll start with the one that put him on the map, Steven Spielberg‘s 1997 fictionalized account of the events of the slave ship La Amistad. Set in in 1839, it tells of Cinqué (Hounsou), an African man captured and held as cargo who leads a mutiny that leaves all but two of his captors dead. What follows is the fight for freedom when the US Navy retakes the boat and takes them to the United States where a legal battle goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Hounsou earned a Gold Globe nomination and wide critical acclaim for his portrayal of a man who can’t speak English, fighting for the rights of him and his people, and while historical inaccuracies leave the film unfortunately lacking as an educational experience, his remarkable work is nonetheless all the reason you need to see this emotional and inspiring film.
![]()
GLADIATOR
It’s really surprising how many forget that Ridley Scott‘s 2000 epic drama Gladiator was really the story of two men, with Russell Crowe‘s Marcus the film’s lead but Hounsou’s Juba, an African taken by the Romans to fight, bound in the struggle to be free. Following the betrayal of Marcus by the murderous new Emperor (Joaquin Phoenix), the former general is left for dead and found by slavers who force strong men to fight and die as gladiators. He and Juba fight side by side, working their way to the Colosseum, where Marcus wants nothing but revenge and Juba a chance to go home. While the film is all Crowe, Hounsou is a formidable presence and is key to a number of crucial emotional moments that make his work really stand out. And he’s good with a sword.
![]()
BLOOD DIAMOND
This 2006 Edward Zwick drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, centers on the diamond trade in Africa where warlords and diamond exchange companies make huge profits to finance ongoing conflicts. The film was a hot topic on release, raising a lot of awareness, both politically and socially. Hounsou is a fisherman named Solomon Vandy who is ripped from his family by rebel factions and forced into the mines, where one day he finds a massive stone and buries it, hoping to recover it later. He eventually partners with Danny Archer (DiCaprio), a gunrunner with his own set of problems, and the two struggle to get the diamond out and return Vandy to his family. While DiCaprio is really deserving of his remarkable performance, Hounsou once again delivers an emotionally and weighty turn that gets overshadowed. Not to take away from DiCaprio, but Hounsou could have easily carried the movie on his own. This is a great performance.
![]()
ELEPHANT WHITE
Action movies are a dime a dozen and there’s no blaming any actor for jumping on the train and getting in on some the fun. Pick a famous male lead and you can be sure there’s at least one mindless shoot ’em up there somewhere. With Prachya Pinkaew‘s 2011 thriller Elephant White, Hounsou pairs up with Kevin Bacon in a solid actioner that is a bit predictable but certainly entertaining. Hounsou is Curtie Church, an American assassin getting things done in Thailand where an 18-year-old prostitute named Mae (Jirantanin Pitakporntrakul) sees him kill her captors. Protecting her, he gets into further trouble when his weapons dealer, Jimmy (Bacon) gets targeted. And that’s just the start. Hounsou finally gets a starring role, and while it’s a lot of shooting and him looking down the sights of a sniper rifle, he’s nonetheless great fun, giving the film the punch it needs. Seriously. Why isn’t this guy top billing in more action movies?
![]()
THE TEMPEST
Okay. Let’s get weird. If you know anything about Julie Taymor, then you already get where this going. She doesn’t do conventional, and her adaptations of Shakespeare are, to say the least, original. On par with her 1999 wildly visual Titus, she makes The Tempest a bizarre and wholly over-the-top experience. Hounsou plays Caliban, a slave to Prospera (Helen Mirren) a treacherous sorcerer (and a male in the original play), against whom he and others will plot to destroy. With an ensemble cast, including Felicity Jones, David Strathairn, Alfred Molina and Russell Brand, Hounsou finds ways to stand out, once again playing a slave but doing so with great bravado, delivering the Shakespearean prose with plenty of power and passion. It’s a highly unusual film that met with all kinds of derision, but if you’re a fan of the Bard and Taymor’s eccentric flare, then it’s a must. And come on, Hounsou and Shakespeare? Please.
![]()
AIR
There’s something very appealing about claustrophobic characters in isolation movies that I find endlessly fascinating. With Christian Cantamessa‘s sci-fi thriller Air, it’s just that, a story set in the near future where a chemical weapons disaster has killed most of humankind, rendering the air unbreathable. In the chaos, the US manages to build some underground bunkers where a few special scientists are kept in cryogenic sleep until the air is no longer toxic. Hounsou plays Cartwright, a maintenance worker who, along with Bauer (Norman Reedus) are woken up every six months to perform two hour checkups on the systems. When a fire breaks out though, things go to hell and now the men need to make some fateful choices. A terrific thinking action film, this is clever and well made with Hounsou really good as a desperate man trying to literally save the human race. Put this on your list.[/nextpage][nextpage title=”PREVIOUS” ]
![]()
IN AMERICA
Here’s a movie you mostly likely never heard of, and that’s too bad because Jim Sheridan‘s 2002 semi-autobiographical drama is a great film with a slew of great performances. Set in 1982, it follows Johnny (Paddy Considine) and Sarah Sullivan (Samantha Morton), a young couple with two daughters who travel from Ireland and end up in rundown apartment in New York City, dealing with the death of their young son. Living in the apartment is Mateo Kuamey (Hounsou) a quiet and introverted Nigerian artist/photographer who soon befriends the family but carries with him a terrible burden, one that will have profound effect on them all. Hounsou, while once again cast in support, is tragically good, his deeply emotional and personal performance one of his best, partly because it’s so far removed from so much of his more commonly cast roles. It’s truly good work and a film well worth seeking out.