32 greatest movie cameos
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For all its somber seriousness and interrogations of the human condition that movies are capable of, they're also just a good time. Which is why, when a famous face shows up for a fun cameo, you know there's good vibes happening behind the scenes. But what celebrity cameos are actually the greatest of all time?
Loosely deriving from the term "cameo" – meaning a short sketch or portrait, usually referring to miniature carvings – cameos are now synonymous with brief appearances by other famous people in movies where they're not the main attraction. Cameos aren't limited to other actors either, with athletes, politicians, musicians, and even other filmmakers showing up in movies for cameos. The legendary Alfred Hitchcock, for example, is remembered for finding clever ways to insert himself in his own movies.
While there are no strict rules as to what constitutes a cameo, they are technically limited to walk-on appearances – an inconsequential, often nameless part. (Just as often, the cameo is the celebrity playing themselves.) To commemorate this fun part of movie culture, we've decided to rank the 32 greatest cameos in movie history.
Because even filmmakers these days play it fast and loose with what counts as a "cameo," let's set some parameters. In limiting cameos to a single appearance for a single scene, we'll rule out some frequently mentioned "cameos" like Mike Tyson in The Hangover, Bill Murray in Zombieland, Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, whose 10 minutes of screentime kind of disqualifies it as a "cameo." Nor will we include any of the major faces who show up in Deadpool & Wolverine, as their lengthy fight scenes required a lot more time and preparation to shoot than a typical cameo. And speaking of Marvel movies, we're going to exclude Stan Lee's many, many cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because you know them already.
Without further ado, here's some famous faces in famous movies you probably didn't expect to see.
32. Daniel Craig in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
You could inspect Star Wars: The Force Awakens frame by frame and not find James Bond anywhere. That's because movie star Daniel Craig appears in the movie wearing the fully-concealing helmet of a Stormtrooper. Specifically, he plays FN-1824, also known as the Stormtrooper who Rey attempts to use Jedi mind tricks on to free her from restraints. In 2022, Craig appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and confessed he did the cameo because he loves Star Wars and jumped at the chance to be in it when production of The Force Awakens took place in Pinewood Studios while Craig was shooting the 2015 Bond movie Spectre. It was a simple matter of walking over, asking a friend he knew on set, and getting fitted into a Stormtrooper suit the next day. Only a spy like James Bond could make that happen.
31. James Franco in Knocked Up (2007)
James Franco has done several cameos throughout his career, from Justin Lin's low-budget mockumentary Finishing the Game to the 2011 action-comedy The Green Hornet. But in 2007, Franco played himself in an amusing bit for the Seth Rogen/Katherine Heigl rom-com Knocked Up. Franco appears on set to give an interview about Spider-Man 3 when Heigl's character (employed as an E! News reporter) yaks in front of him due to her pregnancy. As if the scene can't get any more late 2000s, Franco quips, "If this is one of those joke shows, I'm not into it," referencing shows like Punk'd which had everyone in a chokehold at the time.
30. Jim Starlin in Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Jim Starlin may not be a known entity outside comic book fandom. But the world should know him as the artist and creator of Thanos, the ultimate bad guy ever to dominate a superhero franchise. A short year after Thanos snapped half the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe away in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos' creator Jim Starlin makes a brief appearance in Avengers: Endgame as one of the people sitting with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in the post-Blip therapy group. Starlin has one line of dialogue, "What about you?" which is directed to another cameo, played by the movie's co-director Joe Russo.
29. Stan Lee in The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement (2004)
Consider this proof that The Princess Diaries takes place somewhere in the Marvel multiverse. The Generalissimo appears as a foreign wedding guest whose only grasp of English is from The Three Stooges, which leads to a gross (and hilarious) misunderstanding when he accidentally hits on Julie Andrews' Queen Renaldi. With The Princess Diaries 2 predating the explosive popularity of the MCU and Lee's many known appearances in those movies, his appearance here is a bizarre but precious novelty.
28. Tobey Maguire in Tropic Thunder (2008)
While Tom Cruise's unannounced appearance in Tropic Thunder is what most people tend to name as the movie's best cameo, it's technically not a cameo at all. With a whopping 10 minutes of screentime and a pivotal part in the story, Cruise's Les Grossman is really a supporting role. Which is why the movie's best cameo is actually Tobey Maguire. The Spider-Man star appears as himself in a fake movie trailer for Satan's Alley, where he gives bedroom eyes to award-winning "actor" Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., in the role that earned him his first nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Oscars).
27. Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, and Selena Gomez in The Big Short (2015)
Writer/director Adam McKay knows that explaining the finer details regarding the 2007-2008 financial crisis is not what you'd call "movie worthy." Which is why it's a stroke of genius how he trots out celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez to plainly summarize complex ideas like "synthetic CDOs" while cooking salmon or playing poker. The movie also has a cameo from Margot Robbie just two years after her breakout performance in The Wolf of Wall Street. The soon-to-be Barbie star helpfully walks audiences through the mind-numbing, sleep-inducing concept of subprime mortgages in a bubble bath, because, well, how else can you make that lecture sound exciting?
26. Brad Pitt in Deadpool 2 (2018)
It's a cameo so good you don't see it coming - literally. While the Deadpool sequel has an array of guest appearances, including Alan Tudyk, Matt Damon, and pretty much everyone from the X-Men film franchise, the greatest cameo among them is without a doubt Brad Pitt. The famous actor appears in a literal blink-and-you'll-miss-him capacity, playing the role of the invisible (and mute) superhero The Vanisher. It's not until the hilarious death scene of the entire X-Force when The Vanisher's face is revealed to be played by Pitt.
25. Jason David Frank and Amy Jo Johnson in Saban's Power Rangers (2017)
When the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers got their big screen reboot in 2017, two stars from the original series showed up for a nostalgic applause. After the dust settles from the movie's climactic Megazord battle against Goldar, Jason David Frank and Amy Jo Johnson - who played Tommy and Kimberly, the original Green and Pink Rangers respectively - appear as one of many Angel Grove citizens who stand in awe at their new superhero guardians. Frank and Johnson also filmed a different cameo, appearing as patrons at a Krispy Kreme in a deleted scene.
24. Lucy Lawless in Spider-Man (2002)
A guy with eight hands? "Sounds hot." That's what Lucy Lawless says in an abrupt three-second cameo in Sam Raimi's 2002 blockbuster Spider-Man. Lawless, who knew Raimi from her time starring in the hit TV action-drama Xena: Warrior Princess (produced by Raimi), makes an all-too-brief appearance in Spider-Man as one of many, many eccentric New Yorkers who are waking up to a new superhero in the neighborhood. In the comments of a YouTube upload of the scene, Lawless' scene partner Margaret Baker praised her, saying: "She was incredibly generous telling Sam to have me say, 'A man with eight arms…' which was changed. But that experience is what it means to support your fellow actor. I had just joined SAG and Lucy gave me my first crack at residuals."
23. Quentin Tarantino in Desperado (1995)
Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez make up one of Hollywood's most visible, strongest friendships. The two have not only collaborated before - like with their 2007 project Grindhouse - but have worked on each other's sets, sometimes for as little as a single dollar. Rewinding the clock back to 1995, Rodriguez was still making his way into Hollywood when he got the chance to helm a big budget sequel to his '93 indie sensation El Mariachi. Tarantino, who blew up the Cannes Film Festival a year earlier with his seminal picture Pulp Fiction, shows up in the cameo role of a "Pick-Up Guy" who spends a long time telling a convoluted dirty joke to a bartender (Cheech Marin, another big cameo in the movie).
22. Lou Ferrigno in The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Two Hulks is too much for one movie to contain. But in 2008, The Incredible Hulk - the first Hulk movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - staged a very fun meeting between Edward Norton, who stars in the movie as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, and Lou Ferrigno, the champion bodybuilder who famously played the Hulk (no CGI needed) in the classic television series. Ferrigno appears in a cameo role as a college campus security guard who is unwittingly bribed by Norton's Bruce Banner with pizza. Even Hulks can't say no to free pizza.
21. Pamela Anderson in Borat (2006)
While Pamela Anderson plays a key role in the narrative of Sacha Baron Cohen's hit shockumentary Borat, she doesn't appear until much later in the movie. But what an unforgettable cameo it is. After Borat travels through all of America in search of the Baywatch star to claim as his bride, Kazakhstan's self-proclaimed best journalist finally locates her at a bookstore signing and makes his grand attempt to steal her away. While the movie has an abundance of unscripted hilarity, Anderson's cameo was one of the only few moments in the movie that was completely staged with Anderson a willing participant in its hijinks.
20. John Hurt in Spaceballs (1987)
When Mel Brooks roasted the booming science fiction genre with his 1987 classic Spaceballs, nothing was too sacred - not even Ridley Scott's seminal feature Alien. At the end of Spaceballs, Bill Pullman and John Candy's characters Lone Star and Barf pull up to a planetside diner when none other than Alien actor John Hurt shows up. In a recreation of his iconic death scene from the movie, another baby Xenomorph pops out of his belly, to which he responds: "Not again!"
19. Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver (1976)
Alfred Hitchcock made it vogue for directors to show up in their own movies. But Martin Scorsese's cameo in his crime classic Taxi Driver is downright chilling. (And necessary: The actor originally meant to play the role fell ill, which forced Scorsese to step in.) Partway through the movie, Scorsese gets in the backseat of the cab driven by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), where he reveals to Travis his wife is cheating on him after they pull up to the apartment of her lover. In a small speech, Scorsese's scorched husband confesses he's going to kill his wife. The look on Travis' face says it all, and it's quite something when someone can make Travis look calm and well-adjusted.
18. Jimmy Buffett in Jurassic World (2015)
Talk about trouble in paradise. In the 2015 summer tentpole Jurassic World, tropical rock star Jimmy Buffett appears in the movie as one of many park visitors who try to outrun bloodthirsty pterodactyls after they're set loose. True to his popular image of island escapism, the late Buffett is briefly seen dodging dinosaurs while protecting two ice-cold margaritas, one in each hand. (Because that's how Bubba rolls, baby.) While it's unknown if Buffett's character survives the prehistoric massacre, we can rest easy knowing that wherever he is, it's probably 5 o'clock there too.
17. Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, and Sam Neill in Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
With the third Thor movie, writer/director Taika Waititi knew that not everyone might have seen Thor: The Dark World, which opened a whole four years earlier in 2013. To remedy that and get everyone up to speed, Waititi wrote in a gut-busting hysterical scene set at an Asgardian "stage production" of the previous movie's climax. In place of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, however, Asgard's "actors" are Luke Hemsworth (playing his real-life brother's role of Thor), Matt Damon (as Loki), and Sam Neill as Odin (usually played by Anthony Hopkins).
16. Dan Aykroyd in Casper (1995)
Who you gonna call? Someone else. In the 1995 comedy Casper (you know, the friendly ghost?), Dan Aykroyd returns as his Ghostbusters character Ray Stantz, who is called in by the movie's antagonists to rid a valuable old mansion of its mischievous ghost residents. But despite saving New York from Gozer and Vigo the Carpathian, the ghosts haunting Casper prove too powerful for him alone. (Why did he go alone, anyway?) Hilariously, Aykroyd wasn't the only movie's cameo. Before him, Don Novello appears as his SNL character Father Guido Sarducci who also tries, and fails, to get the ghosts out.
15. Huey Lewis in Back to the Future (1985)
Huey Lewis and the News memorably contributed the song "The Power of Love" to Robert Zemeckis' iconic adventure hit Back to the Future. But that's not the only time audiences hear Huey Lewis in the movie. In the audition scene for the Battle of the Bands, Huey Lewis appears as one of the judges. Marty McFly's aggressive shredding over a cover of "The Power of Love" doesn't amuse Huey Lewis, however, and his band The Pinheads get rejected from entry.
14. Bruce Willis in Split (2017)
It's the cameo that spawned a thousand explainer articles on the internet and led to the 2019 sequel film Glass. In 2017, M. Night Shyamalan stunned the world when his buzzy psychological horror movie Split, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and James McAvoy (playing the villain who suffers from multiple personality disorder), ends with a surprise cameo from Bruce Willis. But Willis isn't just showing up for no reason. Willis returns in his role of David Dunn from Shyamalan's cerebral thriller Unbreakable, released way back in 2000. The cameo scene reveals that Split takes place in the same shared universe as Unbreakable, with both movie's characters coming to blows in the finale Glass. But because an entire generation of moviegoers hadn't seen Unbreakable, the cameo created a lot of confusion as it did excitement from die-hard Unbreakable stans.
13. Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise in 21 Jump Street (2012)
The biggest surprise of the 2012 action-comedy 21 Jump Street was that it wasn't a reboot. It was actually a continuation. (Kind of.) The Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill film connects back to the series through its hilarious cameos by Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise, who briefly reprise their roles from the show when their characters unmask themselves as undercover cops (and fellow Jump Street veterans) to end a months-long investigation. At Depp's personal request, his character dies in abrupt fashion with a bullet in the neck.
12. Eminem in Funny People (2009)
While Eminem is primarily known around the world as a rap artist, he is an underrated actor, having proven some of his chops in the movie 8 Mile. In 2008, Eminem demonstrated his funny bone when he played himself in a deliriously funny cameo for Judd Apatow's Funny People. While the movie itself is actually an emotional drama about comedians, Eminem steals the show from even Adam Sandler when he unleashes a cuss-laden tirade against actor Ray Romano (also playing himself) and Seth Rogen. A few years later, Eminem played himself again in a different Seth Rogen film when he revealed his true orientation in The Interview.
11. Matt Damon in EuroTrip (2004)
Don't tell Scotty! The beginning of the R-rated teen comedy EuroTrip starts off with a real banger of a song, "Scotty Doesn't Know" (written and recorded by Lustra) which details how main character Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) has been totally clueless to his girlfriend Fiona sleeping around. Throwing salt on the wound: The "singer" is played by a buzz-cut, tatted up Matt Damon, who aggressively taunts Scotty over how much he's had Fiona on her knees. In a 2018 oral history feature published by Uproxx, it was revealed by the filmmakers that Matt Damon (who knew them via Harvard connections) got involved because few actors were willing to fly to Prague amid the SARS outbreak. As fate would have it, Damon was already in the country shooting The Brothers Grimm, which made the cameo possible.
10. Patrick Stewart in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
It's good to be the king. As Star Trek: The Next Generation approached its final season, series star Patrick Stewart dressed out of his Starfleet uniform and into the regal armor of King Richard for Mel Brooks' outrageous medieval satire Robin Hood; Men in Tights. Appearing at the end of the movie, King Richard takes back his sacred authority from his selfish brother John (Richard Lewis). In restoring dignity and glory to all of England, King Richard declares that all toilets will now be known as "johns." All hail the king.
9. Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Steven Spielberg in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Tom Cruise as Austin Powers? Oh, behave! In the opening to the third Austin Powers movie, Mike Myers' shagadelic spy gets to see the making of a new movie - comically titled "Austinpussy" - that's inspired by his impossible life. Sitting at the helm of this movie is Steven Spielberg, who is all too proud to take notes from the man himself. Meanwhile, suited up as Austin is none other than Tom Cruise, with Gwyneth Paltrow also starring as love interest "Dixie Normous." (Get it? Yeah, of course you get it.) More awkwardly is Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil, but Danny DeVito is also there as a gun-toting Mini-Me.
8. Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Rundown (2003)
During his governorship of California, action superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger took time out of his busy schedule to make a quick cameo in The Rundown, the 2003 action-comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and Seann William Scott. With The Rundown cementing Johnson as the next new action hero for the 21st century, Schwarzenegger's blink-and-you-miss-it appearance, in which he side-eyes Johnson and tells him to "Have fun," feels like a symbolic passing of the torch from an icon to his successor. Now, what will it take for them to appear in the same movie?
7. Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore (1996)
Imagine disappointing Bob Barker. Well, you don't have to picture it, because that's exactly what Adam Sandler did in the classic '90s sports comedy Happy Gilmore. Halfway through the movie, Sandler's hockey player-turned-golf wunderkind Happy Gilmore participates in a celebrity golf tournament, where he's paired up with legendary The Price Is Right host Bob Barker. An unruly heckler (Joe Flaherty) throws Happy off his game, which disappoints Barker to the point they throw hands. And as it turns out, Barker's got mitts.
6. Neil Patrick Harris and Ryan Reynolds in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Fresh from National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Ryan Reynolds was an up-and-comer Hollywood player when he made a surprise cameo in the raunchy 2004 movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. The cult comedy primarily stars John Cho and Kal Penn as two buds who traverse all of New Jersey to satisfy the late-night munchies. Reynolds briefly appears as a panicked nurse who whisks Harold and Kumar into an emergency room to save a patient with a gun-wound. (Luckily for everyone, Kumar is a med school whiz kid.) Reynolds wasn't the only guest on the menu, however. Late in the movie, television star Neil Patrick Harris appears as himself, a hitchhiker with his own lethal cravings. After Harris renewed his profile via the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Harris returned for the 2011 holiday sequel A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.
5. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher in Jay and Silent Bob: Strike Back (2001)
Leave it to New Jersey nerd extraordinaire Kevin Smith to make space for two galactic icons. In Smith's 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the title heroes finally star in their own movie, which is all about stopping a Hollywood studio from launching a film franchise based on their comic book alter egos. The movie is jam-packed with celebrity cameos, from George Carlin to Matt Damon. But the MVPs are undoubtedly Star Wars vets Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Hamill appears as himself, being cast as the would-be movie's villain "Cock Knocker," while Fisher is a naive nun who picks up Jay and Bob for a brief ride. Amusingly, neither Hamill nor Fisher knew they were in the movie together until they saw each other at the premiere.
4. Everyone in the "News Fight" Melees in Anchorman (2004) and Anchorman 2 (2013)
Well, this one escalates quickly. The two Anchorman films, which star Will Ferrell as a blowhard news anchor who coasts on his fame, are wall-to-wall with celebrity cameos who all appear in both movies' memorable "News Fight" sequences. While the first movie features Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins, and Luke Wilson, it's the 2013 sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues that cranks up the dial by including the likes of Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, Marion Cotillard, Will Smith, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kanye West, Liam Neeson, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Vince Vaughn (who returns from the first movie). All these famous faces take up arms against each other, and it never stops being funny who shows up.
3. Keanu Reeves in Always Be My Maybe (2019)
During production of the Netflix rom-com Always Be My Maybe, director Nahnatchka Khan and writer/star Ali Wong wanted Keanu Reeves but believed him to be too much of a pipe dream to get on board. As they prepared a list of alternatives, they made the ask to Reeves anyway, and to their delight, The Matrix and John Wick star was enthusiastically on board. Reeves shows up in the movie as Wong's new love interest, playing an exaggerated version of himself for a disastrous double date. Reeves was so involved, he even pitched his own ideas to make his character over-the-top, and contributed suggestions to Randall Park's song "I Punched Keanu Reeves."
2. Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, and Buster Keaton in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
In Billy Wilder's towering drama that interrogates the fleeting yet intoxicating allure of fame, the tragic Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) plays host to a game of bridge with other silent film icons. Sitting at the table are Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, and Buster Keaton, who were all unstoppable titans once upon a time before "talkies" rendered them obsolete. While these silver screen darlings poetically get the chance to finally say something in a movie, it's Buster Keaton's disappointed utterances of "Pass" that feel the most weighted. Keaton explicitly expresses knowing his career has passed by, but he's still in the game. He awaits his chance to try again.
1. Harrison Ford in Brüno (2009)
It's quick, it's profane, it's so Harrison Ford - and that's why it's so good. While few people on Earth would call Sacha Baron Cohen's 2009 mockumentary Brüno an all-time great movie, the movie enjoys one killer moment when Cohen's obnoxious fashion journalist touts a one-on-one exclusive interview with Harrison Ford for most of the movie. The punchline: It's just Ford telling him off. Like Pamela Anderson in Cohen's previous movie Borat, Ford was fully in on the joke and his cameo was scripted.
