The career trajectory of character actor extraordinaire Willem Dafoe is one of the more unusual among contemporary Hollywood stars. From his early days of being routinely cast as a heavy, Dafoe worked his way through the system thanks to the sheer force of his talent, finally being cast as leads, often portraying in detail such real-life figures as actor Max Schreck, artist Vincent Van Gogh and even Jesus Christ.
Among Dafoe’s early bad guy roles were as biker gang leaders in both Kathryn Bigelow‘s “The Loveless” and Walter Hill‘s “Streets of Fire.” But his performance as kindly Sgt. Elias in Oliver Stone‘s “Platoon” changed all that, resulting in his first Academy Award nomination. Three more Oscar nominations followed (for 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire,” 2017’s “The Florida Project” and 2018’s “At Eternity’s Gate”), and Dafoe has also earned three Golden Globe nominations and four noms from the Screen Actors Guild.
Let’s look back in our photo gallery at Dafoe’s 16 greatest films, including two stints with the “Spider-Man” franchise, ranked from worst to best.
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16. THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021)
Image Credit: Searchlight Writer/Director: Wes Anderson. Starring Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Benecio del Toro, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson.
In Wes Anderson’s vignette “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner,” Dafoe portrays Albert “The Abacus,” a jailed underworld accountant who is being used as a bargaining chip for the return of the police commissioner’s kidnapped son. It’s a small role, but, unlike most Anderson characters, Dafoe’s accountant has little dialogue. Instead, the actor uses his physicality and expressive facial features to create a character who is both powerful in his job but timid in his demeanor, seeming slightly bewildered by the frantic activity going on around him. It’s a small gem of a role to which Dafoe gives his all.
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15. MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988)
Image Credit: Orion/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Alan Parker. Writer: Chris Gerolmo. Starring Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif.
For the first time in his career, Dafoe received above-the-title billing in Alan Parker’s well-intentioned but critically divisive film that focuses on two fictional white FBI agents — Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) and Alan Ward (Dafoe) — who are sent to Mississippi to investigate the real-life murders of three civil rights workers. Dafoe keeps up with Hackman in every scene, furthering Dafoe’s credibility as a potential new star in Hollywood.
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14. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (2021)
Image Credit: Marvel Studios / Sony Director: Jon Watts. Writers: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Marisa Tomei.
The first great super-villain of the current “Spider-Man” series was Dafoe’s tortured Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in 2002’s “Spider-Man,” a notable performance that is cited elsewhere in this gallery. Dafoe returned to the character 19 years later in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in a performance to which he has added so many layers that it merits its own mention. The duality that his character displayed in the first film is present in Dafoe’s work here as well, with the Goblin seeking to bring Spider-Man over to the darkness, while Peter Parker is trying to return the Goblin back to being Norman Osborn again. It’s a thrilling confrontation, and in its own way, surprisingly moving.
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13. THE LOVELESS (1981)
Image Credit: Pioneer/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writers/Directors: Kathryn Bigelow, Monty Montgomery. Starring Willem Dafoe, Robert Gordon, Marin Kanter.
Dafoe made his first big splash in this biker thriller which was the first film by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow. In the first of three films in which Dafoe portrays the leader of a biker gang, here he plays ex-con Vance who is leading his crew through a small Southern town to get to the Daytona Speedway when he becomes involved with the locals. Dafoe’s performance is very much a variation on Marlon Brando’s in “The Wild One,” but Bigelow and co-writer/director Monty Montgomery film him more as a masculine icon than as a vulnerable human being. Still, Dafoe knocked it out of the park, and Hollywood soon came calling.
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12. STREETS OF FIRE (1984)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Walter Hill. Writers: Walter Hill, Larry Gross. Starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe.
When Hollywood did call Dafoe, they apparently still saw him as leader of a biker gang, but writer/director Walter Hill perceived a little more in him for his motorcycle musical. Yes, his Raven is a gang leader, but Dafoe plays it with a slight mixture of his Vance from “The Loveless” with a little bit thrown in of Max Schreck, whom he would play 16 years later in an Oscar-nominated performance in “Shadow of the Vampire.” I must confess that “Streets of Fire” is one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures, and I try to re-watch it at least once a year, even though [SPOILER ALERT] Dafoe doesn’t sing in it.
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11. FINDING NEMO (2003)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Andrew Stanton. Writers: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds. Voices: Albert Brooks, Alexander Gould, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe.
The third of Dafoe’s “gang leader” trilogy was this worldwide animated smash in which Dafoe is a memorable addition to the voice ensemble as Gill, the gang leader of a group of fish (called the Tank Gang) that get together to help Nemo to escape from an aquarium in a dentist’s office. It’s a nice twist on Dafoe’s usually evil gang leader persona. Dafoe returned to voice Gill in “Nemo’s” sequel, 2016’s “Finding Dory.”
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10. SPIDER-MAN (2002)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sam Raimi. Writer: David Koepp. Starring Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco.
Though his prior successes did extremely well, “Spider-Man” was Dafoe’s first world-wide smash, as he played billionaire scientist Norman Osborn who tries to enhance his strength by taking an as-yet-untested drug, which unfortunately turns him into the ultimate super-villain Green Goblin. Although the Green Goblin tries to do dastardly things to Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire), Dafoe makes sure that there’s a little bit of Norman’s humanity present in all of the Green Goblin’s actions.
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9. AT ETERNITY’S GATE (2018)
Image Credit: CBS Films Director: Julian Schnabel. Writers: Jean-Claude Carrière, Julian Schnabel, Louise Kugelberg. Starring Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac.
Dafoe received some of his best reviews in years as Vincent van Gogh in Oscar-nominated artist Julian Schnabel’s film of the last days of the legendary artist. Dafoe, who looks eerily like what our perception of van Gogh has become, digs deep into the artist’s character. It was widely known that van Gogh was greatly troubled, and what Dafoe and Schnabel have done is to create a world where the bright colors that van Gogh sees (that are not always there) become the representation of the world to his audience.
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8. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)
Image Credit: Universal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Martin Scorsese. Writer: Paul Schrader. Starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie.
By far the most controversial film in which Dafoe starred was Martin Scorsese’s take on the famed Nikos Kazantzakis novel about the temptations, including sexual, that Jesus Christ (Dafoe) faced during his 33 years on earth. The film engendered enormous hostility upon its release among right-wing Christian groups — I know, since I had fists shaken at me when I went to the first show opening day in Los Angeles — but Dafoe remained stoic throughout the brouhaha, and time has been kind to his nuanced portrayal of Jesus.
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7. THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Anthony Minghella. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth.
Dafoe played a key role in Anthony Minghella’s wartime romance and Best Picture winner as David Caravaggio, a Canadian Intelligence Corps operator and fellow patient to whom Count László de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) reveals his remarkable story of of his experiences during World War II and what led him to be shot down during the height of the Italian Campaign. As part of the film’s ensemble, Dafoe was nominated for his first Screen Actors Guild Award.
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6. NIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021)
Image Credit: Kerry Hayes. © 2021 20th Century Studios Director: Guillermo del Toro. Writers: Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan. Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, David Strathairn.
Dafoe delivers one of his best performances in recent years in Guillermo del Toro’s neo-noir thriller, which earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. In the film’s carnival-set first half, Dafoe plays Clem Hoakley, a carny in charge of obtaining (and then stringing out) the traveling show’s geeks, who entertain the crowds every day by biting the heads off live chickens. Dafoe approaches Clem as a 1940s-style tough guy, aware of the disreputable nature of his work but stopping at nothing to get it done. Even as the film’s second half veers away from the carnival, it’s tough to shake off Dafoe’s Clem. This is character acting par excellence.
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5. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Wes Anderson. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody.
Dafoe puts a comical twist on his bad guy persona as a part of the huge ensemble of writer/director Wes Anderson’s period comedy. Here Dafoe plays deadly assassin J.G. Jopling, who has been hired by Dmitri Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Adrien Brody) to kill hotel concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) who inherited a painting that Dmitri wants badly. Very badly. And Dafoe’s Jopling will do anything to make that happen. As part of the film’s ensemble, Dafoe was nominated for his third Screen Actors Guild Award.
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4. THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019)
Image Credit: A24 Director: Robert Eggers. Written by Robert Eggers & Max Eggers. Starring Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson.
Dafoe delivers one of his brawniest performances in this psychological thriller directed by rising horror master Robert Eggers. He portrays veteran lighthouse keeper Thomas Wake, who welcomes newcomer Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), with whom he will share duties on this small isolated island off the New England coast. But as their time together stretches from days to weeks to months, the two men begin to lose their sanity, and Dafoe’s Wake seems capable of violence at any moment. Pattinson delivers strong support in this terrifying two-hander, but it is Dafoe’s lion-of-the-lighthouse that you’ll remember in this, offering one of the actor’s best film performances.
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3. SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: E. Elias Merhige. Writer: Steven Katz. Starring John Malkovich, Willen Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard.
One of Dafoe’s most unusual screen credits turned out to be one of his most successful. This indie film directed by E. Elias Merhige goes behind the scenes of one of the world’s first horror films, 1922’s “Nosferatu,” a vampire thriller directed by F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) and starring German actor Max Schreck (Dafoe). As the filming progresses, however, cast and crew begin to suspect that Schreck might actually be a real vampire. For his performance as Max Schreck, Dafoe earned his second Oscar nomination, his first Golden Globe nod and his second Screen Actors Guild nomination.
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2. PLATOON (1986)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Oliver Stone. Starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David, Forest Whitaker.
Dafoe earned his first Academy Award nomination in Oliver Stone’s Best Picture winner as Sergeant Elias, an idealistic officer in an Army unit in 1967 South Vietnam. The role of Elias proved to be an image changer for Dafoe, whose career up until then involved playing mostly heavies. Audiences responded to Elias taking Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), the newbie in the platoon, under his wing, and for the first time on film, Dafoe was able to reveal the many facets of his character’s essence.
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1. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017)
Image Credit: Courtesy A24 Director: Sean Baker. Writers: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch. Starring Brooklyn Prince, Willem Dafoe, Bria Vinaite.
Arguably, Dafoe’s greatest on-screen performance was one of his least showy. In Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” Dafoe played a regular guy, Bobby Hicks, a bit of a schlub who happens to manage the Magic Castle, a motel very much in the shadow of Walt Disney World. Most of Bobby’s tenants are families who are just one step away from homelessness. It’s a naturalistic and empathetic performance, one in which Dafoe received his third Academy Award nomination, his second Golden Globe nod and his fourth Screen Actors Guild nomination.
