5. David Bowie Makes Labyrinth Even More Brilliantly Surreal Than It Already Is
By the time David Bowie came around to his role in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, he had already established himself as a capable actor of sorts in movies like Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Man Who Fell To Earth, but Henson didn't really want to use Bowie as an actor as much as he wanted to use him as a strange and totally insane songwriting mechanism who appears occasionally to flirt with a teenage Jennifer Connelly. It's save to say that the bizarre mix of Bowie-penned '80s tunes and Henson muppets marked this one for cult status. Bowie stars as Goblin King Jareth, who steals Connelly's baby brother, Toby, in a role that was originally intended for Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson stealing children? Thank God that idea was discarded. Bowie's prescene in this movie should actually ruin it completely, because what's David Bowie doing in this movie? And yet he actually works as a kind of bizarrely-employed lynchpin that helps to blend this surreal blend of puppetry and music into one fluid whole. It is totally bonkers that is Bowie here, yes, but it seriously makes the movie.