You don't need to be ?? ?? ??the main character to leave your mark on a movie.
Sometimes it's the walk-in roles — the characters that crop up in a single scene, only to disappear and never be seen again — that can make the biggest impact. Or those whose screen time is limited across the film, but leaves a lasting mark.
On Thursday, writer/director Nina Lee took to Twitter to pose an important question: In the history of brief movie appearances, which character has made the biggest impact?
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16,000-plus retweets later, and the suggestions were coming in thick and fast, following Lee's own pitch of Salma Hayek's short, impactful role in Quentin Tarantino's 1996 filmFrom Dusk Till Dawn.
SEE ALSO: 10 of the best space movies on Netflix that'll whisk you off to the starsFirst, there were some classics like Darth Vader (David Prowse), who had a notoriously small amount of screen time in the first Star Warsmovie. But oh, thepresence!
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Then, there were the award-winning cameos, like Beatrice Straight's five-minute role as Louise Schumacher in the 1976 movie Network, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Straight still holds the record for the shortest performance to win an Academy Award for acting.
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There's also Viola Davis' famously short Oscar-nominated performance in this scene from 2008's Doubtalongside Meryl Streep.
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There are a surprisingly large number of stars who've received nominations and wins for very brief stints on screen — Anne Hathaway picked up her own Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Les Misérables, after appearing as Fantine for around 15 minutes, while Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for his role as Hannibal Lecter (just over 15 minutes) in The Silence of the Lambs. Hermione Baddely, meanwhile, received a nomination for her appearance in Room at the Top, which amounted to little more than a couple of minutes screen time in total.
Then there were the many cult roles in iconic films, like Christopher Walken's swift appearance in Pulp Fiction, Jada Pinkett and Mekhi Phifer's roles opening Scream 2, Alec Baldwin's "Always Be Closing" scene in Glengarry Glen Ross, and Robert Duvall's character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, who delivers the famous line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," in his short time on screen.
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There's Brad Pitt's famously fleeting and beloved role as J.D. in 1991's Thelma & Louise, in which the actor's big break saw just seven minutes of screen time.
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And Margaret Hamilton's terrifying appearance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, which reportedly saw many of her scenes cut or edited because she was too fearsome.
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Not to mention the polite little hairy worm from Labyrinth, voiced by Timothy Bateson, who offers guidance to Jennifer Connolly's character, Sarah, in a brief but memorable moment.
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You can browse through the entire thread here, but be warned — there are a few spoilers lurking about in there too. Maybe you have a pitch?