[1] Walken has appeared in supporting roles in films such as The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Roseland (1977) and Annie Hall (1977), before coming to wider attention as the troubled Vietnam War veteran Nick Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter (1978).

[2] These include The Dogs of War (1980), Brainstorm (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), At Close Range (1986), Biloxi Blues (1988), King of New York (1990), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Batman Returns (1992), True Romance (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Prophecy (1995, and its two sequels), Suicide Kings (1997), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Man on Fire (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), Hairspray (2007), Seven Psychopaths (2012), A Late Quartet (2012), Percy (2020), and Dune: Part Two (2024).

[12] Walken attended Hofstra University but dropped out after one year, having been cast in the role of Clayton Dutch Miller in an off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward alongside Liza Minnelli.

In 1970, Walken starred in the Off-Broadway production of Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky opposite Charles Durning and Bonnie Bartlett.

In 1982, he played a socially awkward but gifted theater actor in the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story Who Am I This Time?

[28] At Close Range (1986) starred Walken as Brad Whitewood, a rural Pennsylvania crime boss who tries to bring his two sons into his empire; his character was mostly based on criminal Bruce Johnston.

Merwin J. Toomey in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, which was directed by Mike Nichols, and he played the role of Federal Agent Kyril Montana in The Milagro Beanfield War.

The Comfort of Strangers, an art house film directed by Paul Schrader, features Walken as Robert, a decadent Italian aristocrat with extreme sexual tastes and murderous tendencies who lives with his wife (Helen Mirren) in Venice.

In 1995, he appeared in Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Wild Side, The Prophecy and the modern vampire flick The Addiction, which was his second collaboration with director Abel Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John.

The same year, he appeared as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci.

Also in 2001, Walken played a gangster who was in the witness protection program in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt and an eccentric film director in America's Sweethearts.

Walken also had a part in the 2003 action comedy film The Rundown, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, in which he plays a ruthless despot.

In 2006, he played Morty, a sympathetic inventor who is more than meets the eye, in the comedy/drama Click and also appeared in Man of the Year with Robin Williams and Lewis Black.

The Maiden Heist, a comedy co-starring Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy and Walken about security guards in an art museum, debuted at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2009.

In 2011, he played the role of Jewish-American loan shark Alex "Shondor" Birns in the film based on the life of gangster Danny Greene, Kill the Irishman.

Walken costarred with Al Pacino and Alan Arkin in the film Stand Up Guys, a story about aging gangsters out on the town for one last hoorah.

[36] In 2015, Walken starred in the film When I Live My Life Over Again and played the role of Clem for the second time in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

[44] The film received universal critical acclaim and SlashFilm wrote: "It's a treat to watch Walken work — he shows up, delivers his ominous lines with a whisper, and wipes the floor with anyone he's acting against.

Writer and director Quentin Tarantino declared that Walken's involvement in True Romance's "Sicilian scene" was one of the proudest moments in his career.

[56] Jeffrey Wright,[57] Mickey Rourke,[58] Sam Rockwell,[59] Colin Farrell,[60] Bradley Cooper,[61] Leonardo DiCaprio[62] and Mads Mikkelsen[63] are among actors who spoke about their admiration for Walken.

[68] Walken believes that the source of his speech stems from growing up with immigrant neighbors who came from everywhere, stating, "The neighborhood itself, you didn't hear a lot of English.

[71] One of Walken's SNL performances was a spoof of Behind the Music, featuring a recording session of Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper".

He also divulges private information about his sex life with his girlfriend, much to her horror ("She was willing to accept her lover's body in places no one had ever trespassed... specifically, the ear canal").

Zorin, who had taken on some qualities of other Bond villains (Blofeld's cat and suit, Emilio Largo's eye patch), was upset that everything was going wrong for him.

Finally, there was the "Colonel Angus" sketch,[74] laden with ribald double entendres, in which Walken played a dishonored Confederate officer.

The April 5, 2008 Saturday Night Live show was the first time an episode hosted by Walken did not have a "Continental" sketch or a monologue in which he sang and danced.

The sketch depicts a fictional Walken family reunion, where all of Christopher's relatives have his mannerisms and speech patterns and sport his trademark pompadour hairstyle.

In order of appearance, the other Walkens are Christopher's cousin Stanley (Bill Hader); Stanley's brother John (Jason Sudeikis); John's son Scott (Andy Samberg) and daughter Maxine (Amy Poehler) (who carries a doll that also has a pompadour); Nathan (Fred Armisen), a gay relative for whom "flamboyance" means dressing all in black and running his finger around the rim of a cosmo glass; Uncle Richard (Darrell Hammond) and Aunt Martha (Kristen Wiig), who think that The Deer Hunter was hilarious and who are hosts of a Nigerian foreign exchange student named Oleki (Kenan Thompson).

[77] Walken returned to the show for the first time in 15 years on October 28, 2023, in a cameo role as the "Spirit of Halloween" in which he gave advice to President Joe Biden (Mikey Day).

Walken became the subject of a hoax controversy in 2006, when a fake website started in August of that year by members of Internet forum Genmay.com announced that he was running for President of the United States.