10 Best Willem Dafoe Film Performances

This might seem an odd pick for Willem Dafoe's best on-screen performance, but quite frankly The Boondock Saints has all that you'd ever want from the actor. A cult favourite dark-comedy-action flick, the film casts Dafoe as intuitive and intimidating FBI agent Paul Smecker, who is brought to Boston to investigate a string of high-profile assassinations perpetrated by two vengeful brothers (Norman Reedus and Seann Patrick Flannery).

Smecker is a remarkable detective, but is brought closer and closer to insanity as he struggles to stop the brothers from completing their holy mission. As the film speeds to a great conclusion, Smecker's mental state deteriorates and he begins to question everything he thinks he knows.

At once hysterically tragic and endlessly hyper, Dafoe seems to be having the time of his life in a film bursting with things to love. He's funny, scary, disillusioned and eccentric, a lover of classical music who has a bizarre knack for recreating crime scenes. It's a rollercoaster of a performance, and the best Dafoe has ever blessed us with.