Denzel Washington once said of his profession: "Acting is just a way of making a living -- the family is life." That said, he has never been anything other than professional about his acting and career in the 23 years I have known and interviewed him.

Now 52, Washington is arguably in his prime. He already has five Academy Awards nominations and two Oscars: best supporting actor for Glory (1989) and best actor for Training Day (2001).

Both tough and tender and certainly versatile, Washington has carved out a niche in Hollywood as a stalwart leading man. He is capable of playing the hero but just as adept at plumbing the murkiest depths of the human soul, as in Training Day.

Whether playing good or bad or layering in dissonant notes to undercut the melody, his performances are consistently excellent, the secret to his longevity as a marquee name. So it is worth paying attention. That brings us to the new Denzel Washington: Spotlight Collection, part of Universal's Franchise Collection series. It debuts Tuesday.

This four-disc box set contains Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues (1990), with Washington as a trumpet player seeking perfection; Phillip Noyce's uneven thriller The Bone Collector (1999), with our hero confined to a wheelchair as an ace homicide detective injured on the job; Norman Jewison's The Hurricane (1999), an underrated drama with Washington portraying wronged real-life boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter; and Lee's fascinating Inside Man (2006), a complex crime drama with Washington once again a detective. The collection contains no extras; the movies are all in widescreen.

In addition, also on Tuesday, there is a new widescreen DVD of Edward Zwick's The Siege (1998), with Washington as an FBI agent caught in a terrorist threat eerily foreshadowing 9/11. The Siege: Martial Law Edition expands the movie with fresh bonuses -- three featurettes and Zwick's commentary with executive producer Peter Schindler.

Intriguingly, in three of these five films, Washington plays a man in a position of authority -- a position no one but an ignorant racist would question (read some of my e-mails after Washington won his second Oscar). But the methods of his heroic characters are sometimes suspect. Washington likes heroes with flaws. And he doesn't need to be loved.

In contrast, in The Hurricane, Washington questions authority playing a man wrongly convicted of murder; in Mo' Better Blues, he is on a personal journey.

One thing about this box set: It does not contain some of his greatest work, such as A Soldier's Story, Cry Freedom, Glory and Malcolm X (for which he should have won the best actor Oscar long before Training Day).

But that's how these sets work: We cannot just choose our own favourites. What is offered is worthwhile because almost everything Denzel Washington does has gravitas, grace and some reason to be.