Beyond ‘Poor Things,’ Willem Dafoe Has Another Great 2023 Performance

It's taken decades, but we're all finally in agreement: Willem Dafoe is one of Hollywood's greatest actors. Between the iconic voice, the piercing eyes, and the diabolical smile, Dafoe has always been an instantly recognizable face on the silver screen, even as early as his breakout roles in Platoon and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Despite this, it wasn't until the 2000s that Dafoe would become the icon he is now by playing one of cinema's most beloved villains: The Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. But, as always with Dafoe, he gave so many underrated performances in the years before Spider-Man that are only recognized for their brilliance years after their releases: The terrifying Bobby Peru in David Lynch's Wild At Heart; the hilarious and haunting homage to Nosferatu in Shadow of the Vampire; and the creepy, robotic police investigator Donald Kimball in American Psycho, among many others. Dafoe is always underrated, and this year is no different. With the Oscars upon us, have we already forgotten about his, frankly, mind-blowing performance in 2023's survival drama Inside?