Christopher Walken's five spookiest performances

Christopher Walken in At Close Range

Christopher Walken has been unfairly typecast as a "creepy" actor. This may be because the role that made him a movie star -- his Oscar winning role as a Vietnam vet who becomes a zombie-like professional Russian roulette player in The Deer Hunter -- cemented his status as a guy with a screw loose.

But aside from his unconventional looks and distinct, fun-to-imitate speaking style, he is actually a very charming and endearing character actor.

His villainous or spooky roles are some of his most iconic, but he has also been just as compelling in more sympathetic performances, like his Academy Award nominated turn in 2002's Catch Me If You Can.

The 71-year-old returned to the public's consciousness this month because of his eccentric performance as Captain Hook in NBC's live prime-time Peter Pan musical and I started thinking about his filmography again after watching his excellent performance as a particularly sadistic bad guy in the underrated 1986 drama At Close Range. Here's my top five:

As the iconic Frank White

Annie Hall (1977) - The first time most audiences saw Walken was in a brief, darkly funny cameo in Woody Allen's best picture winning masterpiece, Annie Hall. He plays Diane Keaton's morose brother Duane, who confides in Allen's character that he sometimes fantasizes about driving into oncoming traffic. His delivery of this scene, deadly serious and yet also hysterically funny, established Walken as one of the best deadpan psychos in movie history. Allen's reaction -- that he has to go because he's "due back on planet Earth," still makes me laugh as does the smash cut to his petrified face as he must ride along with Walken's character in a rainstorm.

The Deer Hunter (1978) - Most film buffs remember Walken's performance in the latter half of this epic Vietnam war film best, when his character Nick has given way to madness. But his character's arc may be this powerful film's most compelling. He starts out as a dreamer only to see his spirit crushed by the horrors of war. Walken won a best supporting actor award (appearing in back-to-back best picture winners to boot) and broke America's hearts. Spoiler alert: the scene where he dies in Robert De Niro's arms is a real heartbreaker, as is an earlier moment where he breaks down in tears while being interrogated at an army hospital.

The Dead Zone (1983) - Walken finally got to play an unabashed hero in this thrilling David Cronenberg adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Still, his role and the movie itself are chilling. He plays a man who gains the ability to visualize the likely death of any person he touches (following a near death accident of his own). Walken gives one of his best, most soulful performances in this creepy thriller, but he also has that unusual face and delivery, which keeps the entire story feeling off-kilter. An underrated masterpiece.

At Close Range (1986) - After The Deer Hunter, this acclaimed character study may be the movie most responsible for Walken's reputation for playing crazy characters. This powerful, shocking film portrays a real life hood (played by Walken) whose son (Sean Penn, in one of his best early performances) earnestly tries to join his father's gang and gets far more than he bargained for. Walken is supremely disturbing here, grinning like a cheshire cat one minute and snapping with cold, brutal, vindictive violence in the next. His scenes opposite Penn in this dark drama are an acting master class.

King of New York (1990) - Walken makes for the most unlikely icon of urban cool in this classic gangster epic which influenced a whole generation of hip-hop fans, including the late Notorious B.I.G. who famously compared himself to Walken's character Frank White in song. He is all chilly menace in this very-90s film, leading an all-black gang, including an against type Laurence Fishburne. After this role, Walken's performances largely fell into the realm of self parody, but this film was where his oddball persona reached its peak and his subsequent Saturday Night Live appearances proved that he was in on the joke.

I remember once reading that Walken literally takes every role he is offered because he considers every part to be a potential learning experience. I have no idea if that's actually true, but I love that he is the kind of actor where it could be true. Walken has appeared in countless films, most of which were beneath his talents, but every once in a while he strikes gold -- and when he does it's riveting fun.