The 20 best roles of Christopher Walken’s career

After only a handful of feature film roles, a 35-year-old Christopher Walken was cast in Michael Cimino’s epic war drama “The Deer Hunter” in 1978. Although Walken starred alongside already established names like Robert De Niro and John Cazale (and some newcomer named Meryl Streep), he was the only actor to win an Academy Award for the film. Of course, his performance as Nick was nothing short of perfection, especially when you consider the fact that the final scene between him and De Niro was completely improvised in one take. 

The 1980 Western film “Heaven’s Gate” featured an ensemble cast that included Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, and Walken, in addition to a few others. It also included a lot of controversy. Its production was marred by accusations of animal cruelty, the negative publicity and excessive spending tanked director Michael Cimino’s career, and the poor box office performance single-handedly put United Artists out of business. Walken, however, was viewed in a more positive light for his role as Nathan D. Champion, and critics eventually came around on the film as a whole.

Once he broke into film as a dramatic actor, Christopher Walken probably never thought he’d use the dancing lessons he took as a child. However, shortly after “The Deer Hunter,” Walken was cast in the musical romantic drama “Pennies from Heaven” alongside Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. Although Peters won a Golden Globe and screenwriter Dennis Potter was nominated for an Oscar, the film was a commercial failure – but at least we got to see Walken perform in an epic tap dance and striptease scene.

“The Dead Zone” isn’t just regarded as one of the best films of iconic director David Cronenberg’s career, but also one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time. Its star, Christopher Walken, deserves a lot of credit for this praise, as he was hailed as simultaneously strange, compelling, and captivating as high school teacher Johnny Smith – a performance that helped turn just another horror flick into a certified thriller.

Based on the real life rural Pennsylvania crime family helmed by Bruce Johnston Sr., “At Close Range” received rave reviews from critics for the film as a whole, as well as its stars (Sean Penn and Christopher Walken), even though it performed poorly at the box office. Odds are you haven’t seen the 1986 crime drama – which also features Mary Stuart Masterson, Chris Penn, Crispin Glover, and Kiefer Sutherland – so be sure to add this gripping tale to your queue.

Chock full of violence, drugs, and Italian-American stereotypes, Abel Ferrara's “King of New York” was dismissed by many critics, yet it still managed to earn a 71 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, mostly thanks to its all-star cast of both established and rising stars, including Walken, Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, and Giancarlo Esposito. Although much of the film is forgettable, Walken’s role is likely the best part of the film, and his “piece of the action” speech is still frequently referenced and quoted today.

Tim Burton’s Batman reboots were dark, gritty, and sometimes disturbing, and Walken’s portrayal of the corrupt and sinister businessman Max Shreck fit into the equation perfectly. Critics were universally fond of Walken’s performance, and he, Danny Devito, and Michelle Pfeiffer are generally credited for making “Batman Returns” even better than its predecessor.

In a small but crucial role, Christopher Walken played Don Vincenzo Coccotti in the so-called “Sicilian scene” of 1993’s “True Romance,” a romantic black comedy written by Quentin Tarantino. Although it lasted just 10 minutes, Walken and Dennis Hopper’s one-on-one ended up being one of the more memorable scenes of the film, and to this day, Tarantino still says it’s one of his proudest achievements.

After Wayne and Garth spent the entirety of 1992’s “Wayne’s World” trying to make it big and stop some dude from stealing the beautiful and talented Cassandra, they returned for a 1993 sequel in which they... continued trying to make it big and stop some other dude from stealing Cassandra. The difference? In the second film, the aforementioned dude was played by Christopher Walken. In probably his best scene in the film, Walken tries to get backstage to stop Wayne from rekindling his relationship, while pleading to a security guard (Chris Farley) that “my girlfriend is in there.” In a callback to a joke earlier in the film, Farley deadpans “Hey, a lot of people’s girlfriends are in there.”

Walken’s appearance as Captain Koons in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” lasted less than five minutes, but he was perfectly cast in a scene where the audience goes from having their heartstrings pulled to nervously laughing at the absurdity of the situation. After all, Koons is delivering a gold watch to the son of P.O.W. that was imprisoned alongside him in Vietnam and didn’t make it home alive, but he’s also explaining – numerous times, in a bit too much detail – about how he and the boy’s father both had to conceal the family heirloom in a very uncomfortable place for a total of seven years.

Not everyone is a fan of fantasy horror-thrillers, so not everyone will enjoy the "Prophecy" franchise. Especially since each sequel was worse than the previous installment, according to critics. Still, the series of films (starting with the original in 1995) amassed a cult following and a strong appreciation for the star of the first three, Christopher Walken. 

As a seven-time host of “Saturday Night Live,” Christopher Walken has portrayed some classic characters, like Confederate officer Colonel Angus and “The Continental,” but his most famous sketch, without a doubt, is when he played record producer Bruce Dickinson in a spoof of VH1’s “Behind the Music.” In it, the classic rock band Blue Öyster Cult is recording their 1976 hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” with the fictitious Gene Frenkle (Will Ferrell) on cowbell. Although his playing annoys his bandmates, Walken’s characters keeps insisting that the song needs more cowbell. The sketch unexpectedly was an enormous success, and “more cowbell” or “I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell” have became pop culture catchphrases.

Christopher Walken might seem like an odd fit for a music video – especially when the featured song is by British electronic artist Fatboy Slim – but the actor jumped at the chance to appear in “Weapon of Choice” when he heard Spike Jonze would be the director. And we use the word “jump” quite literally, as Walken channeled his musical theater days to dance, leap, and fly around the interior of a Los Angeles hotel for the entirety of the video. “Weapon of Choice” won six awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, with Walken himself even taking home a Moonman for Best Choreography.

Christopher Walken’s role in “Joe Dirt” may be minor, but boy, is it ever funny. Walken plays Clem Doore, a school janitor that helps Joe find work (and his parents), while doing a poor job of covering up his identity as a former New York City mobster now in the Witness Protection Program. Despite the brevity of his role, Walken still ended up with a handful of memorable lines, like practicing a hypothetical confrontation: “Does your mother sew? Pow! Tell her to sew that!”

2002’s “Poolhall Junkies” is not a very good film, a fact that critics and audiences generally agree upon. However, that is of little importance in this list, as Walken still deserves credit for at least two parts of this dramatic thriller: the iconic, so-called “Lion Speech,” and the famous trick pool shot he makes. Walken made the difficult shot on the first take, which was actually supposed to be a trial run, but the actor asked that the cameras roll just in case he made it... and, of course, he did.

In Steven Spielberg’s based-on-a-true-story cat-and-mouse film “Catch Me If You Can,” Tom Hanks plays an FBI agent chasing a young con artist named Frank Abagnale Jr., portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Walken plays Abagnale’s father, which actually worked out quite well because Abagnale looked up to his father, and DiCaprio looked up to Walken—and it showed in the film. Plus, although Abagnale Sr. was generally an honest and wholesome man, he also engaged in some shady practices that eventually caught the attention of the IRS, and Walken was the perfect actor to straddle this line of morality.

In his largest role in a pure comedy to date, Walken played U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary in David Dobkin’s 2005 hit film “Wedding Crashers.” Walken’s part as the father of the two women being wooed by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn didn’t come with a lot of comedic lines, but he perfectly walked the line between being friendly and intimidating, which is exactly what the character called for.

Christopher Walken was just one member of an all-star cast in the 2008 musical comedy “Hairspray,” which also included John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah, Zac Efron, and Allison Janney. And in case you haven’t seen the film and are wondering: yes, Walken has a song in the film. Interestingly, the idea to cast Walken as Wilbur Turnblad, the protagonist’s father, actually came at the suggestion of Travolta. Billy Crystal was also considered for the role of Mr. Turnblad, but Walken ultimately won out.

When the Universal Studios Florida dark ride “Earthquake: The Big One” was retired in 2007 after 17 years, it was replaced with a similar attraction called “Disaster!” In it, the riders played the role of film extras for a scene where an enormous earthquake occurred in a subway station. Throughout, the riders took instructions from fictional studio exec Frank Kinkade (Christopher Walken), who cracks some jokes along the way and helps make the experience even more memorable. Using fast-editing techniques, the “extras” could then see them themselves in the “film’s” big final scene at the ride’s conclusion. As fun as it was, Disaster! closed in 2015 to make way for a “Fast & Furious” ride, which is set to open this spring.

Not only was 2012’s “A Late Quartet” vastly underrated and criminally underviewed, but Christopher Walken of course had the most major and moving role in the film, even though he starred alongside heavyweights like Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Peter Travers loved it, Roger Ebert praised it, and the New York Post said, “You won't see a better piece of acting this year than [Walken’s] final speech.” Give it a watch.