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Willem Dafoe is himself a piece of art, and Sarajevo Film Festival is honoring him with its prestigious Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award in its 31st edition beginning August 15, 2025. Regarding him, Sarajevo Film Festival director Jovan Marjanović said:
"Willem Dafoe returns to the Sarajevo Film Festival after 25 years, and it is a great honor and pleasure for us to present him with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo. His body of work is something to which every actor aspires. Every time he steps in front of the camera, he demonstrates that he is a true master of his craft. Whether starring in a Hollywood blockbuster or a low-budget independent film, his characters are always complex, emotional, and unforgettable."
This is indeed true, as he has brought many characters to life during his prolific career. The Lighthouse (2019) actor is among those names who is yet to receive an Academy Award despite being nominated multiple times: Three times for the Best Supporting Actor for Platoon (1987), Shadow of the Vampire (2001), and The Florida Project (2018), and one time for the Best Actor for At Eternity's Gate (2019).
He will be joining the hard man Ray Winstone and the versatile Stellan Skarsgard, who will also be receiving the accolade.
What are some of the best works of Willem Dafoe?
Even if there are people who haven't watched much of Willem Dafoe, they still know him as the supervillain Green Goblin, aka Norman Osborn, from Sam Raimi's 2002 movie Spider-Man, where Tobey Maguire played the titular superhero.
However, his breakthrough had come way before that with Platoon. For his role, he had to go through a boot camp training. The following year, after the film's release, he played Jesus in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. There was a bit of controversy about this film, but Dafoe's character was widely praised in it. The same case was with Mississippi Burning (1988). Interestingly, he was also considered for the role of Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) due to the actor's striking physical similarities with the DC supervillain. However, Jack Nicholson was finalized for that role.
In the 2000 cult classic American Psycho, Dafoe was a supporting character dubbed Donald Kimball and then appeared in Steve Buscemi's (also a winner of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award) Animal Factory in the same year. For the latter one, The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell said:
"Dafoe steals the picture with his comic timing."
More recently, Willem Dafoe played a creepy lighthouse supervisor in The Lighthouse alongside Robert Pattinson, who plays a wickie named Ephraim Winslow. Some critics have called it a horror film, and some call it a psychological thriller, but its genre remains a part of debates. Before this, he also played a motel manager in The Florida Project, and The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday deemed it "his finest performance in recent memory" in her review.
Another one of Willem Dafoe's finest roles came in Wes Anderson's 2014 film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, where he played the ruthless but fun-to-watch assassin J. G. Jopling.
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