Not being John Malkovich: Malkovich’s 25 best roles

Another Malkovich theatrical success-turned-film was Sam Shepard's "True West," which appeared on "American Playhouse" in 1984 after an off-Broadway run. The production was originally done at Steppenwolf in Chicago, starring Gary Sinise and Malkovich as the play's two brothers and directed by Sinise. The role of Lee, the con man brother, showed off Malkovich's physical comedy chops, particularly his battles with a typewriter that involve a bread knife and later a golf club. (The Times called it "an acting hole-in-one.") The Sinise-Malkovich production essentially turned the play into a modern classic. It ran for two years and 762 performances, and the two would team up again for "Of Mice and Men" 10 years later. 

Wait a minute! John Malkovich got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for "Places in the Heart" even though it was first big screen role? It's true: Malkovich's role as a blind man helping Texas widow Sally Field through the Great Depression got him his big break and a shot at a trophy, though he lost to his "Killing Fields" co-star Haing S. Ngor. Malkovich's signature scene was when he confronts the hooded Ku Klux Klan members attacking Danny Glover and identifying them all by voice. Field did win Best Actress, but Malkovich should know the Academy liked him too!

John Malkovich's second film role was in "The Killing Fields," which also got nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Malkovich plays Al Rockoff, a photojournalist documenting the U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. He's Sam Waterston's cohort and moral conscience, as in the scene where he accuses Waterston's character of caring more about his Pulitzer Prize than Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), their Cambodian source they left behind. Malkovich won Best Supporting Actor from the Boston Society of Film Critics for his performance, while Ngor won the Oscar in his first movie role, though Malkovich dismissed the idea that he was an amateur actor: "You had to be a pretty good actor to survive the Khmer Rouge."

Malkovich played Biff to Dustin Hoffman's Willy Loman in a filmed version of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," which was revived on Broadway with the same cast a year earlier. The New York Times said he gave "a performance of such spellbinding effect that he becomes the evening's anchor." The film was broadcast on CBS instead of getting a theatrical run on the advice of Warren Beatty, who advised Hoffman not to risk a box office failure after the success of "Tootsie." Of course, then the two of them then went on to make the legendary bomb "Ishtar."

Malkovich plays an American expatriate in Shanghai named Basie in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun," a shrewd operator who helps Christian Bale's rich little English boy survive World War II. Although at first he just wants to sell Bale's teeth on the black market. He's a scumbag American who is well suited to POW camp life, although he shows his craftiness and vulnerability when he risks his precious Ray-Bans to save Bale — and when he lets him eat first.

Though millenials might consider it an 18th-century reboot of "Cruel Intentions," "Dangerous Liaisons" is actually the original filmed version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses,"  the French novel and inventor of "sex bet" trope. Malkovich is seductive and evil as the playboy courtier Valmont (the Ryan Phillippe role), seducing both Uma Thurman and Michelle Pfeiffer's characters. In fact, Malkovich and Pfeiffer started dating in real life. It ticks a lot of the classic Malkovich movie boxes: European setting, slimy-yet-sexy, fancy wigs and dead in the third act. He'd return to the role of Valmont in the video for Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass."

The late Bernardo Bertolucci cast Malkovich and Debra Winger as a married couple who go to North Africa in search of new experiences in the aftermath of World War II and end up falling apart. They're both smart and jaded, and it's a gorgeous movie, if a slow one. Plus, Malkovich gets to die romantically in the desert and wear even better sunglasses than he had during the war in "Empire of the Sun." 

Malkovich reunited with his old theater cohort Gary Sinise for 1992's "Of Mice and Men." Like their collaboration in "True West," Sinise didn't just star opposite Malkovich, but he also directed the whole thing. Malkovich played simple-minded, rabbit-dreaming, puppy-murdering Lennie, the best friend of Sinise's George, who eventually has to (SPOILER ALERT) put his friend down. Malkovich later teamed up with Chris Farley for a two-Lennie version of the movie on "SNL."

You never see John Malkovich in the trailer for "In the Line of Fire," but his voice contains enough menace that the suspense is tremendous. Malkovich does plenty of menacing things in the film, from building a composite gun to mowing down duck hunters, but the heart of the film is his telephonic duels with Clint Eastwood. While the movie got Malkovich another Oscar nomination, would he win? That's not gonna happen!

"Dangerous Liaisons"  stars Glenn Close and John Malkovich teamed up again with director Stephen Frears for "Mary Reilly," but the reception of the two films was as different as, well, Jekyll and Hyde. Malkovich played the dual roles of the good Dr. Jekyll and the murderous-but-intriguing Mr. Hyde, but the truly terrible, horrific thing in this movie was Julia Roberts' Irish accent. 

Jane Campion's "Portrait of a Lady," Malkovich teams up with Barbara Hershey to scam heiress Nicole Kidman while she's in Europe. The role of a scoundrel American artist living abroad on the Continent parallels Malkovich's own expatriate life in Europe, though unlike the character Gilbert Osmond, Malkovich actually has talent. He also reunites with Christian Bale and again torments him, this time by not letting Bale marry his daughter.

When the famously thorough actor Ving Rhames was cast in "Con Air," he arranged trips to asylums and meetings with hardened criminals to prepare for his part. He called Malkovich to ask about his prep for playing criminal genius Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, the man who "killed more guys than cancer." He said, "Nothing. It's 'Con Air'." Prepared or not, Malkovich didn't have any trouble chewing scenery, killing good guys and holding a gun to a stuffed bunny's head. It's always impressive when an actor gives the most over-the-top performance in a film, even when one of his co-stars in Nicolas Cage. 

Malkovich and his crazy Russian accent play gambler Teddy KGB, Matt Damon's Oreo-loving poker adversary in "Rounders." He's a great villain with his track jackets, cookies, and taunts of "I stick it in you!" While he's a cold-blooded mobster, Teddy KGB does eventually lose in sportsmanlike fashion, declaring "Pay that man his money!" The movie was only a modest hit originally, but you could argue that Damon and Malkovich helped jump-start the poker boom that arrived two years after the movie came out. Malkovich would go on to play an even more vicious Teddy — Teddy Deserve — three years later in "Knockaround Guys."

Malkovich plays the French King Charles VII in "The Messenger," Luc Besson's film about Joan of Arc. He plays the Dauphin as essentially reluctant and disinterested in everything to do with the crown, which might be why he's totally cool with letting a teenage girl lead his army into battle. In fact, the film could have done with more Malkovich and less muddy medieval battle scenes, especially when we know how the story ends. It's not the only time Malkovich has played a king and not even the only time he played a King Charles — he was England's Charles II in "The Libertine."

"Shadow of the Vampire" tells a fictionalized account of the filming of "Nosferatu," with one high-concept idea: What if Max Schreck, the actor playing Nosferatu, really were a blood-drinking vampire? In a departure, Malkovich doesn't play the actual monster — just an unscrupulous director who cuts a deal with a vampire to make the most realistic film possible even if it means his star eats the rest of the cast and crew. It's a rare combination of bloody horror and behind-the-scenes satire — and really, aren't Hollywood people the biggest bloodsuckers of all?

In his debut as a film director — he'd directed plenty of plays — Malkovich adapted the novel "The Dancer Upstairs" and made an uncredited appearance as the head of the Shining Path-esque guerrilla group terrorizing the unnamed Latin American country in the recent past. The film features a bravura performance from Javier Bardem, and Malkovich claims his only regret is making the movie in English instead of Spanish.

As if in revenge for losing the final hand to him in "Rounders," Malkovich plays a new version of Matt Damon's "talented" Tom Ripley in "Ripley's Game." He's an older, slicker version of the psychopathic Ripley, and Roger Ebert called it "one of his most brilliant and insidious performances; a study in evil that teases the delicate line between heartlessness and the faintest glimmers of feeling." He very well could have gotten Oscar recognition again, but incredibly, New Line Cinema didn't give the film a theatrical release. Imagine what Ripley would have done to those executives who insulted him like that.

When Charlie Kaufman wrote "Being John Malkovich," a movie about a secret portal into Malkovich's head,  he had no idea or expectation that Malkovich would want to be in it, or even read the script. Nevertheless, he chose Malkovich because he thought there was "an enigmatic quality about him that works" and not just because of how good "Malkovich" sounds when repeated. It's a brave performance from Malkovich, playing "John Malkovich," where he's dressed unflatteringly, acts awkward out in the world, leaves acting to become a puppeteer and most damning of all, is best friends with Charlie Sheen. Truly, no one else could have played this part.

John Malkovich never worked with Stanley Kubrick, but he did play a Kubrick impersonator in "Colour Me Kubrick." It's the story of Alan Conway, a man who pretended to be the reclusive director for years to get free drinks, food and even sex, with promises of studio reimbursements or roles in his next films. Conway did this without knowing anything about Kubrick or his films, so he (and thus, Malkovich) adopted a variety of random personas throughout the film, which also contains plenty of homages to Kubrick's movies. The film was written by the Kubrick assistant who tracked down the impostor, who greatly amused the director, and this Malkovich one-man show would have amused him as well.

The Coen brothers teamed up with Malkovich for the first time in "Burn After Reading." Malkovich plays an alcoholic CIA analyst who angrily quits his job after a demotion, which is at least the third time he's played an ex-CIA agent. His plans to write his memoirs lead to blackmail and confusion involving dim-witted gym employees, elaborate marital aids and George Clooney murdering Brad Pitt, like it was "Oceans 11" fan fiction. Everyone is confused, Malkovich is constantly drunk and exploding with rage, and in the end no one learns anything.

In a film that also features Colin Hanks and producer Tom Hanks as father and son, Malkovich plays a washed-up mentalist in "The Great Buck Howard." Despite being relegated to small venues, Howard remains an impressive performer, although also prone to casually demeaning subordinates like when he tells Hanks to "remember to toss my salad" in front of his dad. The performance captures both the magic and the ignominy of show business — one of Howard's biggest career moments gets overshadowed by a car accident involving Jerry Springer and his comeback TV gig is bumped by Tom Arnold. But none of the setbacks makes him quit for good, and Malkovich takes Howard full circle by the end.

Malkovich clearly has a great deal of fun playing Marvin Boggs, a former CIA agent convinced everyone is trying to kill him in "Red," a medium-quality movie with a high-quality cast. Malkovich's paranoid behavior and constant gun pulling are entertaining and perhaps represent the essence of late-career Malkovich: comedy and a lot of killing people. Oh, and he rides in a wheelbarrow wearing a dress. Paranoid or not, "Red 2" begins with Marvin Boggs' funeral, though you'll be shocked to learn he's not really dead.

W.C. Fields said to never work with animals or children, but John Malkovich ignored this advice to play the trainer in "Secretariat." Honestly, he acts that horse off the screen in his scenes as Lucien Laurin, especially in the scene where he denounces Secretariat's laziness and bulk. The movie was a mild hit, but honestly, Malkovich might have taken the part just so he could wear all the hats and colorful jackets.

John Malkovich understandably doesn't do a lot of children's films, which is why it's surprising that he ended up in the cast of "Penguins of Madagascar," which is part of the extended Madagascar Cinematic Universe. Malkovich plays a villainous octopus named Dave, who hates the titular penguins and wears a human costume to become famous geneticist "Dr. Octavius Brine." Dave dislikes the penguins because he resents that mere cuteness made them wildly popular, which is a sentiment Malkovich might share, though he claims he simply thought having his voice come out of a cartoon octopus would be funny.  

This Christmas, Malkovich will be taking on the role of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in the new version of "The ABC Murders" on Amazon. He's eschewing the Belgian accent and Poirot's signature elaborately waxed mustaches in favor of a goatee, and Malkovich has already said that die-hard Agatha Christie fans "may just hate all this." Apparently the producers were inspired by a photo shoot where Malkovich had a shaved head and a beard; in other words, his normal look. Still, we are looking forward to his team-up with Rupert "Ron Weasley" Grint as well as the sound of a culturally assimilated Hercule Poirot.