For me, watching this man on screen is almost as awesome as listening to his music. He is so fucking cool.

List of films he has appeared in:
Paradise Alley (1978)
Wolfen (1981)
One From The Heart (1982)
The Outsiders (1983)
Rumble Fish (1983)
The Cotton Club (1984)
Down By Law (1986)
Ironweed (1987)
Candy Mountain (1988)
Bearskin: An Urban Fairy Tale (1989)
Cold Feet (1989)
Mystery Train (1989)
The Two Jakes (1990)
Queens Logic (1991)
The Fisher King (1991)
At Play In The Fields of the Lords (1991)
Dracula (1992)
Short Cuts (1993)
Mystery Men (1999)
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Domino (2005)
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

He also appeared in the short-lived TV series "Fishing With John".

Unfortuneatly, I have not yet been able to see very many of these, but I will watch them all eventually, as I will watch anything he's been in. From what I have seen, I very, very much recommend Down By Law and Short Cuts, which are amazing.

Waits and Iggy Pop in "Coffee and Cigarettes" make that entire film worthwhile (the rest is well worth it, though). Just hilarious.

Completely agreed.

Tom Waits absolutely nailed the role of Renfield in Dracula. When he was begging the doctor for a kitten I felt cold shivers down my spine for 10 minutes.

I actually saw that before I got into Tom. I thought it was a terrible movie, but now I wanna watch it again just to see Tom.

Good thread. I need to see some more of these movies. Tom Waits is one cool cat.

Fishing with John! i remember that show.. and it was so fuckin hilarious when tom waits was tehre!

down by law is so great, the 'criterion collection' dvd is out there somewhere

Criterion has actually put out Down By Law, Short Cuts, and Fishing With John. I guess they're fans too.

criterion collections are so overpriced its ridiculous/unfair

mystery men introduced me to tom's acting abilities. he's the man

It's for good reason, trust me.

i've bought a criterion collection dvd before, and while there were a lot of extras it in no way justified the $35 i had to pay and i will never buy a criterion collection dvd again.

I think they are high-priced, but for the most part the features they offer are amazing. And I think that a lot of the reason for the high price is they focus mostly on older and/or rare movies, and usually offer an up-to-date sound and picture transfer which has to cost some $. I bought the Do the Right Thing Criterion DVD set a few years back and I don't remember it being that expensive.

the reason they're so expensive is that Criterion is an indipendant company, and pay all the costs themselves. Gertting the rights to the film, restoring it, and production of extras costs a ton of money. Since the movies they choose are rarely blockbusters that will move a ton of copies, they have to sell at a higher price to stay in business.

Yep. And furthermore, Criterion has the most painstakingly restored transfers out there. It takes A LOT of time and effort. I think they're worth every penny.

Watching Tom in a movie is confusing because it's like watching a character play a character in a play about a movie, or some such. I'm not sure where reality ends and fiction begins with the man ANYway, so a movie part just becomes a PART of "Tom Waits."

Case in point: Tom Waits points a gun at a shady vetrinarian south of the border, who is helping him smuggle, and spits out "Say the pledge of allegience!" as he murders him.

I'm pretty sure that's how his home movies look, too.

His Renfield was perfect. An amazing acting job.

What movie is that from?

Cold Feet. A really unfortunate movie, all in all, but Tom's character alone makes the whole thing worth seeing.