Top 10 of Depp:
Actor Johnny Depp is at his best when his characters are on the fringe.
Johnny Depp has come a long way from “21 Jump Street.” The actor, 53, went from teen idol to lasting film icon thanks to a host of daring and oddball film roles, often at the expense of obscuring his good looks.
Although he’s done his fair share of traditional leading-man work, Depp is best when he gets a little weird with characters on the fringe. Here’s a look at the actor’s greatest performances, from his early collaborations with director Tim Burton to his first turn as everyone’s favorite rum-guzzling pirate, a role he reprises in this week’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”
10. ‘Finding Neverland’ (2004)
This semi-biographical film on the life of playwright J.M. Barrie (Depp) reachesfor the heartstrings and doesn’t let go, dramatizing his platonic relationship with terminally ill Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her precocious son, the inspiration for his creation of “Peter Pan.” It’s a sweet-enough film, with an inspired touch of magical realism in the staging of Barrie’s plays. Winslet makes it particularly memorable, her grace under pressure elevating what could have been a treacly docudrama into a five-hanky flick.
9. ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ (1993)
Two Tiger Beat heartthrobs got a big boost in this sincere Midwestern drama: Depp as the titular Gilbert, playing protective older brother to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Arnie, a mentally handicapped teen (the role earned DiCaprio his first Oscar nomination). Gilbert’s leading a dead-end life in a dead-end town as he tries to reconcile his duty to his family (and his morbidly obese mother) with a desire to flee the sleepy Iowa town. It’s pure, cornfed, slice-of-life drama, but that doesn’t make it corny.
8. ‘Chocolat’ (2000)
Lasse Hallström’s film is heaven for chocoholics. A single mother and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small, cloistered French village wary of the newcomers and their sinful physical pleasures. Juliette Binoche stars as the chocolatier who challenges the puritanical community with her confections and seduces Roux (Depp) along the way. It’s “Babette’s Feast” for dummies, but that doesn’t mean it’s dumb — it’s swirled through with sensual beauty and fairytale charm that reminds pleasure need not be sin.
7. ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ (1984)
Many actors get their start dying in horror films, but not many get their start dying in really good horror films. Wes Craven’s nightmarish Freddy Krueger, who stalks and kills teenagers in their dreams, instantly entered the Horror Hall of Infamy. One of those unfortunate teens is Glen (Depp), the main character’s eager boyfriend. He can take comfort in knowing his untimely end is so gory and great it would make the cut on any bestof reel of horror-movie deaths.
6. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ (2003)
In retrospect, this is the film that may have been Depp’s creative undoing, kicking off a lucrative and time-consuming franchise of diminishing returns. His filmography ever since he donned the dreadlocks and chin braids of Captain Jack Sparrow has been populated with increasingly hammy performances in less interesting paycheck roles. But his first turn as an eccentric pirate sparkles with cartoonish verve in a film that’s far better than one based on an amusement park ride has any right to be.
5. ‘Donnie Brasco’ (1997)
Depp here plays one of his most nuanced roles, a reckless young FBI agent who assumes the alias Donnie Brasco and infiltrates the New York mafia. There, he bonds with Lefty (Al Pacino), an old hand who vouches for Donnie as he moves deeper into the organization. Slowly he comes to the uncomfortable realization that he’s not becoming like the criminals he runs with, he is one. These two pros work together in harmony, elevating the gangland drama to greater heights.
4. ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ (1998)
Director Terry Gilliam is a unique brand of crazy. Marry his powerfully offkilter aesthetic and narrative madness to Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 psychedelic classic in gonzo journalism about an epic drug binge in the American Southwest, and you can expect an experience. The inadvertent anti-drug PSA stars Depp as journalist and Hunter lookalike Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Dr. Gonzo, his lawyer sidekick, as they hallucinate their way through Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs. There is no plot, no real destination — it’s all about the trip. “We can’t stop here. This is bat country.”
3. ‘Dead Man’ (1995)
This psychedelic western, filmed in grainy black and white and with an improvised electricguitar score by Neil Young, comes from inveterate weirdo and indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. Cleveland accountant William Blake (Depp) takes a physical and spiritual journey through the West, traveling by train to the frontier town of Machine, where he murders a man. With a bullet lodged close to his heart and a Native American guide who believes Blake the reincarnation of the romantic poet of the same name, the dying man embarks on an utterly weird postmodern trip to the spirit world.
2. ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990)
Depp has long collaborated with gothic fabulist Burton, appearing in eight of the director’s films as various eccentrics and outsiders. But those two never did that special thing they do any better than they did in this gothic suburban fairy tale about an incomplete manmade man (with Burton’s idol, Vincent Price, playing Edward’s inventor in his final film role) with scissors for hands. Gentle, haunted and ultimately hurt by the world that rejects him, Depp’s lovesick outsider, scored to Danny Elfman’s most moving compositions, achieves the near-impossible feat of bringing to life an original modern fairy tale.
1. ‘Ed Wood’ (1994)
Depp and Burton both have a loving hand for eccentricity, and in this biopic they lavished admiration on the oft-derided kooky cult filmmaker Ed Wood. The film doesn’t poke fun but genuinely loves its protagonist, a cross-dressing director of low-budget camp who (at least in the film) forges a touching friendship with fading horror-film star Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau, who won an Oscar), who starred in Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” a strong contender for the best bad movie ever made. Depp delivers a sympathetic performance perfectly balanced between drama and comedy.