Willem Dafoe's most gonzo movie roles, ranked (including 'Legend of Ochi')

USA Today

27-04-2025

Willem Dafoe's most gonzo movie roles, ranked (including 'Legend of Ochi')
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'The Legend of Ochi': Girl meets cute creature in fantasy adventure
Helena Zengel plays a girl taught by her dad (Willem Dafoe) to hunt and fear a mythical creature until she meets one in "The Legend of Ochi."
From the wild eyes to an often unnerving grin, Willem Dafoe has one of the most expressive faces in Hollywood, and it's led to some gloriously bizarre performances.
Dafoe, 69, is one of our greatest character actors, a man who's appeared in more than 100 movies during his 45-year career, often in supporting roles or controversial parts but always making films better by inserting his signature electricity.
He has a list of greatest hits: Oscar-nominated turns as an idealistic soldier in "Platoon," Vincent van Gogh in "At Eternity's Gate" and a big-hearted motel manager in "The Florida Project." And then there's his high-profile take on Jesus in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ."
We're here, however, to celebrate his more out-there work, the characters that have been meme'd on social media (like GIF-able "The Smile Man") or are just memorably unconventional for a guy who's impossible to pigeonhole. With Dafoe back on the big screen in the throwback family adventure "The Legend of Ochi" (in theaters now), here are the actor's 15 most gonzo movie roles, ranked:
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15. Gill, 'Finding Nemo' (2003)
This spot's a jump ball between Dafoe's cider-swilling Rat in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and the steely Moorish idol who befriends little Nemo in the Pixar classic. Gill gets the nod for scrambling his aquarium "Tank Gang" for an escape mission. (Plus, he's got gnarly scars from meeting the business end of some dentist tools.)
14. Maxim, 'The Legend of Ochi' (2025)
Wielding shoddy armor and sword, Dafoe brings a goofy but tender spirit to a blowhard dad who leads a group of local boys to hunt and fear mythic (and adorable) creatures known as the Ochi. It's not until his daughter (Helena Zengel) befriends an injured baby Ochi that he sees the damage that mindset has caused his charges.
13. J.G. Jopling, 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (2014)
Dafoe's characters in Wes Anderson's movies always lean eccentric, but this guy's pretty darn deadly, too. Jopling is a hitman with skull rings and a sadistic streak who does all sorts of dirty work, including engaging in some light decapitation and throwing a cat out the window before meeting an amusing end off a snowy cliff.
12. Albin Eberhart von Franz, 'Nosferatu' (2024)
In Robert Eggers' remake of the 1922 horror classic, von Franz is an oddball Swiss philospher and disgraced scientist called in when young Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) shows signs of possession. He's also in on the case to help kill the vampire that's come to town, ultimately setting the villain's coffin vault afire in a mad passion.
11. Klaus Daimler, 'The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou' (2004)
While he's not exactly a total weirdo in Anderson's comedy, Dafoe mines an enjoyable pettiness and jealousy in Klaus, the German first mate of the title oceanographer. Steve is out to find the jaguar shark who killed his partner, but Klaus finds his own enemy in a Zissou fan (Owen Wilson) who believes the undersea documentarian is his dad.
10. Nemo, 'Inside' (2023)
The experiential thriller winds up a one-man show for Dafoe. An art thief gets trapped on a job in a high-tech penthouse, and his mental and physical state goes south as months go by, leading the criminal to converse with pigeons, do the Macarena and turn the walls of his accidental prison into an unhinged canvas.
9. John Geiger, 'Speed 2: Cruise Control' (1997)
There's not much to love about this woeful sequel. Dafoe at least steals the film with menacing zeal as a former cruise worker who hijacks a luxury ship and programs it to crash into an oil tanker. "Speed" returnee Sandra Bullock and Jason Patric get in his way but Geiger makes sure to exit in gleefully insane fashion.
8. Paul Smecker, 'The Boondock Saints' (1999)
The cult hit contains one of Dafoe's most flamboyant efforts, complete with random river-dancing, a prostitute costume change and lyrical dancing during a gunfight. As a gay FBI agent doggedly pursuing vigilante twin brothers (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus), Dafoe doesn't leave much scenery unchewed.
7. He, 'Antichrist' (2009)
Lars von Trier's controversial horror flick is wall-to-wall bonkers, with Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple escaping to nature after the tragic death of their infant son. Dark visions and ultraviolent sexual situations ensue, including one bit with a wood block you'll never unsee. (Extra points for Dafoe also giving demonic voice to a fox.)
6. Godwin Baxter, 'Poor Things' (2023)
Yorgos Lanthimos' "Frankenstein"-esque fable casts Dafoe as a disfigured surgeon who reanimates young dead woman Bella (Emma Stone) with the mind of a fetus. The actor infuses this unusual father figure with an overprotective streak and a sense of melancholy to match a patchwork body born from parental abuse.
5. Raven Shaddock, 'Streets of Fire' (1984)
Dafoe's earliest years were kind of a biker period, with "The Loveless" but mainly with this noir-ish, 1950s-style "rock and roll fable." Dafoe rocks an aerodynamic pompadour and wicked attitude as the leader of a biker gang who kidnaps a rock singer (Diane Lane) and has a showdown with her ex (Michael Paré).
4. Bobby Peru, 'Wild at Heart' (1990)
Dafoe might be the only person who could out-Cage Nicolas Cage. Them in the same movie? That's the stuff of legend. In David Lynch's neo-noir flick, Dafoe's creeper with ghastly teeth wants to rob a feed store with an Elvis-obsessed ex-con (Cage) after sexually assaulting his girlfriend (Laura Dern) but gets quite the explosive comeuppance.
3. Thomas Wake, 'The Lighthouse' (2019)
Imagine being trapped in tight quarters with a gassy old sailor. You'd go mad, too! In Robert Eggers' period psychological thriller, Dafoe is a salty and kooky lighthouse keeper who mentors a young rookie (Robert Pattinson), and even nonstop drinking can't stop severe isolation from taking hold of the newbie.
2. Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, 'Spider-Man' (2002)
Dafoe's supervillain would be freaky enough in that suit of armor and riding around on a Goblin Glider. But the web swinger's psychotic antagonist is even creepier with the helmet off, sneering and snarling to himself in that first Spidey flick and again nearly 20 years later in Marvel's "Spider-Man: No Way Home."
1. Max Schreck, 'Shadow of the Vampire' (2000)
The nifty fictionalized conceit of this horror flick is that the German star of the 1922 silent movie "Nosferatu" was actually a vampire, and Dafoe earned his second career Oscar nod for an extremely eerie and darkly comic portrayal of Schreck. He's brilliant in the transformative role, both outrageously left field and deeply thoughtful.