Is he Dafoe, or is he Dafriend? Whatever role he plays in the films he is cast in, Willem Dafoe is perhaps one of the best actors Hollywood has to offer, per his IMDb and Golden Globe pages.
With his 67th birthday fast approaching (or already here in some time zones), here are some of the movies he appeared in that you may want to watch on his special day.
Spider-Man (2002)
The movie that many a memer would know. Spider-Man was the first time we see Dafoe as Norman Osborne, who was "something of a scientist" himself. Unfortunately, due to tragic events, he turned himself into The Green Goblin, the first Spider-Man villain in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.
Whether you are a fan of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films or not, this movie is a must-watch for any Marvel Cinematic Universe fan.
Interestingly, the Sam Raimi films were also the first and only time that Peter Parker creates his spiderwebs organically, meaning he didn't need any web-slinger to create and shoot spiderwebs for him to swing around the streets of New York.
"Spider-Man: No Way Home"
Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne now goes multidimensional (or multiversal!) in this recent Spider-Man movie that puts Peter Parker against some of the villains of his counterparts in other dimensions.
However, this time, Norman Osborne isn't the villain we knew in the first Sam Raimi film, despite his (SPOILER ALERT!) death in that movie.
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With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% fresh and an IMDb rating of 8.3/10, the fact that Netflix has this movie in its list of streamable films instead of Disney+, according to Business Insider, is nothing short of a miracle (Thanks, Sony!). It allows the movie to be watched by more people on various streaming platforms.
John Wick
The movie that made us fear the hero more than the villain, "John Wick," follows the story of the titular character on his quest to avenge the murder of his only family at the hands of the son of the man he used to do "wet work" for.
Dafoe plays the role of John Wick's mentor, Marcus, who was hired to kill his student to protect antagonist Viggo Tarasov and his son.
The movie was critically acclaimed to be great enough to spawn two sequels, with Rotten Tomatoes giving an 86% fresh score. However, Metacritic gave the film a 68 based on 40 reviews, with 31 of them being positive, while five were mixed, and four were negative.
"Mr. Bean's Holiday"
This entry may have surprised you. Yes, Dafoe appeared in at least one Mr. Bean movie alongside the man himself, Rowan Atkinson.
The movie's plot focuses on Bean's misadventures in France after winning a free trip to the country in his church raffle. During his time in France, he meets Dafoe, who plays a pretentious actor, according to The Independent Critic.
Although critics blasted the film as average, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 51% rotten score, there are still some hilarious scenes in the movie that could give its audience more than a snicker and a giggle.
"Inside Man"
Spike Lee's "Inside Man" is about a detective, a bank robber, and a high-power broker going up against each other during a hostage crisis, with only one of them getting out alive.
The movie, according to Dramatica, is a "sharp, unexpected, and satisfying film with a solid story structure at its center," making it rise above a traditional bank robbery "gone wrong" movie into a smart crime thriller.
Although Dafoe gets a backseat in this movie, it is worth noting that he enjoyed his time working on the film as he thought highly of Lee's work and that he wanted to work in his hometown, per Universal Studios.
The movie was critically acclaimed by both critics and the movie's audience, which shows just how great the film is, per Rotten Tomatoes and Vudu.
