Dafoe hasn’t had the best of luck playing villains in blockbuster movies, with Speed 2 and XXX2: The Next Level prime examples. But Spider-Man changed that trend, with the Green Goblin a menacing character Dafoe could go over the top with under the guise of director Sam Raimi. The end result is a perfectly hammy and E-vil performance in one of the best comic book movies.

William Friedkin’s underrated crime thriller To Live and Die in L.A. featured Dafoe at his menacing best as yuppie counterfeiter Eric Masters, who is trying to stay one step ahead of a dogged secret service agent (William Peterson). Cocky, cool and dangerous, Masters is a villain hard to catch and as played by Dafoe one to remember.

It has been years since Dafoe has given a lead acting role as thoughtful and commanding as the one in The Hunter. Dafoe played Martin David, a mercenary hired to track and kill the last Tasmanian Tiger in existence. Set amongst the hypnotic backdrop of the Tasmanian wilderness, Dafoe gives a rounded performance which lifts an otherwise patchy movie.

The life of former Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane (here portrayed by Greg Kinnear) was one filled with scandal and tragedy, and made for a fascinating watch in Auto Focus. Dafoe starred as John Carpenter (not the Halloween filmmaker) who untapped Crane’s inner sex freak which began his downward spiral. Dafoe does a great job evoking the jealousy and desperateness which filled Carpenter’s life.

Willem Dafoe would be the last person you would expect would lend his voice to an animated family film, yet Dafoe did just that in Finding Nemo in his portrayal of Gill, an ambitious Moorish Idol fish who hatches an escape a plan to escape from his aquarium prison. Even in animated form, Dafoe manages to play intimidating very well.

Dafoe has long been a favourite of writer/director Paul Schrader, and his best Schrader related work is in the slow burn crime drama Light Sleeper. Dafoe stars as John LeTour, a high class New York City drug dealer who finds himself questioning his life choices. Dafoe effectively sells the loneliness and sadness his character inhabits, while also selling the need for redemption in a world filled with death and regret.

Villains are something of a specialty for Dafoe, with his turn as the homicidal and dentally challenged Bobby Peru a highlight. Appearing in the tail end of David Lynch’s crime-thriller-meets-Wizard-of-Oz trip of a movie Wild at Heart, the fugly Peru throws a kink in the plans of runaway lovebirds Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lulu (Laura Dern), brining violence and dread with him at every moment.  

In the gallery of iconic cinematic imagery, none strike a chord like the shot of a bloody Willem Dafoe on his knees, arms raised to the sky in the powerful Vietnam War movie Platoon. Dafoe played the role of Sgt Elias, the representation of good to Tom Berenger’s personification of evil in Oliver Stone’s exploration of the duality in man. Usually cast in villainous roles, Platoon proved Dafoe’s versatility by playing a good guy in an increasingly bad situation.   

So convincing was German actor Max Schreck’s performance in the iconic horror movie Nosferatu, that many believed he was an actual vampire! Thus is the premise of Shadow of the Vampire, a satirical yet terrifying look into the faux-making of the classic silent movie which starred Dafoe as a vampire, playing an actor, playing a vampire. With the help of incredible make up work, Dafoe plays the role to astonishing, creepy results.   

Martin Scorsese’s controversial take on the Jesus story needed an actor of immense power, vulnerability and grace to portray Christ. Dafoe fit the criteria and then some.

Based on the novel by Nicholas Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ looked into the idea of Jesus as both God and man, with particularly attention to the vulnerabilities and doubts of struggling with the notion that through his death, salvation will be delivered upon the world.

In his portrayal of an angry, confused, regretful and ultimately accepting Jesus Christ, Dafoe delivers a performance which is both convincing and full of passion, sure to remind both believers and un-believers that in this Son of God was a man who sacrificed himself for our sins. Amen.