World’s most watched actor is a 69-year-old with no recent lead roles

Cliff Notes – World’s most watched actor is a 69-year-old with no recent lead roles

• Willem Dafoe, a 69-year-old character actor, was named the most watched actor of 2024, featuring in five films, including the successful Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Nosferatu.
• Despite not having any lead roles or films in the top 10 box office, Dafoe’s diverse performances and multiple releases contributed to his popularity, as reported by the film-fan platform Letterboxd.

World’s most watched actor is a 69-year-old with no recent lead roles

The most watched actor in the world in 2024 featured in five films, including Kinds of Kindness (Picture:Searchlight Pictures)

The most watched actor of all last year featured in no star turns and all of their films fell outside the top 10 for 2024’s box office.

While many fans might assume that the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Timothée Chalamet, Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise might end up in the number one spot, it in fact went to a 69-year-old character actor.

And while he might not have appeared in Deadpool & Wolverine (like Reynolds) or Dune: Part Two (as Chalamet did), he did act in five movies – two of which in particular created a major stir.

The actor in question, says social film-fan platform Letterboxd, is Willem Dafoe.

Dafoe, who has been nominated for four Oscars, featured in Kinds of Kindness, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Saturday Night, Nosferatu and Zero in 2024.

This combination crowned him the most watched actor of the year according to Letterboxd, which publishes an annual retrospective in many categories, including the highest rated films, most popular movies and most watched actors and actresses.

Willem Dafoe (R) was given the honour by Letterboxd, which used the data of its users logging films – including the popular Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (pictured) (Picture: Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

Dafoe also appeared in Nosferatu, a popular horror remake which came out right at the end of 2024 in several territories (Picture: Focus Features)

Among Dafoe’s releases, the long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel – where he played an undead actor-turned-investigator – proved a popular hit with audiences, grossing $451.9m (£340.6m) from a budget of around $100m (£75.3m), with talk of another film now being in the works.

Meanwhile vampire remake Nosferatu, in which Dafoe was Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (based on Van Helsing) made $181.2m (£136.5m) on a $50m (£37.6m) budget and became Focus Features’ second highest grossing film ever in the US, beating Brokeback Mountain, and third worldwide.

In Saturday Night he played real-life TV executive David Tebet and his voice was heard on the phone in action comedy Zero, directed by Jean Luc Herbulot.

Another of his roles was in SNL-based movie Saturday Night, where he played a real NBC TV executive (Picture: Sony Pictures)

In Kinds of Kindness for Yorgos Lanthimos, the star, 69, appeared opposite Margaret Qualley (pictured) as well as Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Joe Alwyn (Picture: Searchlight Pictures/Atsushi Nishijima)

For Kinds of Kindness, Dafoe took on three roles in the anthology film which told a trio of disturbing tales: he was a domineering boss controlling every aspect of his employee and lover’s life, the father of a missing biologist who returns unharmed but altered, and the leader of a sex cult.

Dafoe was joined in last year’s most-watched top 10 by the likes of Chalamet (number two), Pitt (tenth), Samuel L Jackson and Mark Ruffalo as well as Stellan Skarsgård (third), J.K. Simmons, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista and Javier Bardem.

It’s also not the first time that Dafoe – who has appeared in films like Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ, The English Patient and Spider-Man – has been named the world’s most watched actor.

His fifth film in 2024 involved a credit for a voice on a telephone in action comedy Zero (Picture: Blue Finch Film Releasing)

One of Dafoe’s last leading roles was in 2023’s Inside, where he played an art-thief trapped in a penthouse (Picture: Focus Features)

He also claimed the title in 2021 and 2022, beating Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Bradley Cooper and Robert Pattison.

The American star was also sixth in 2023, when he lost to Jason Schwartzman in the top spot, as well as Ryan Gosling, Jack Quaid, J.K. Simmons and Michael Cera above him.

Letterboxd collates data each year from users logging and discussing the films they’ve watched to determine what’s been seen most, and the lists are not limited to just films released that year.

This is why stars such as Dafoe – who began his career in 1980 with Heaven’s Gate and has over 150 credited roles in many different movie genres – can rank so highly.

Dafoe has been nominated for four Oscars over his career so far (Picture: David Fisher/Shutterstock)

He was last nominated for an Academy Award – his first as leading actor – in 2019 for At Eternity’s Gate, where he played artist Vincent Van Gogh.

Dafoe will next be seen in The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson’s latest, alongside Benicio del Toro, Cera, Tom Hanks and Mia Threapleton, which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival next month.