To celebrate the forthcoming release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan and Charlie Sheen, THN decided to take a trip down best cameo lane. Here are the top five best movie cameos according to us:

5. Stan Lee in Spider-man (2002), Spider-man 2(2004) and Spider-man 3 (2007)
Director: Sam Raimi

In case the name fails to ring a bell, Stan “The Man” Lee is one of the world’s most famous comic book writers, who co-created many fictional characters that made it to the screen, including The Hulk (what happened to him? I hope he’s alright), Iron Man (there is one that nobody on the planet would have missed) and of course, the only spider we can handle watching, Spiderman. His cameo performances are fleeting in a “blink and you’ll miss them” way but they are hugely significant and it is telling that he is mischievously inserted in all his Marvel Comic character’s movies, maybe to remind us that one man’s vivid imagination really can lead to superb entertainment and his vision and presence is timeless. In the first Spiderman, Stan appears whilst Spiderman is busy battling the Green Goblin and steals the show for a split second as he attempts to rescue a little girl from falling debris. In Spiderman 2, he once again rescues a lady (probably the same girl all-grown up) when Spiderman has bigger fish to fry and he later appears in the background. However, his most touching cameo happens in Spiderman 3, in which, perhaps to echo his own great achievements and the motive that lies behind all his hard work, he turns to Peter Parker on Times Square as they are reading from a news bulletin and says, “You know, I guess one person can make a difference” and then his catch-phrase, “nuff said.”

He is a clear choice for the list because he made all of it happen in the first place and it is satisfying for all of us to bask in all his glory as he maintains a slightly anonymous but key role in all these films.

4. Charlie Sheen in Wall Street: Money Never sleeps (2010)
Director: Oliver Stone

The sequel to Wall Street (1987), this drama takes place 23 years later in New York, in the thick of the financial crisis. By this time, a reformed and liberated Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) is no longer the villain of old and is more preoccupied with straightening out Wall street as well as his own estranged relationship with his daughter, Winnie (played by Carey Mulligan) . On the back of his own book launch, “Is Greed good?, Gekko re-establishes contact with Jake, (Shia LaBeouf), his daughter’s boyfriend and a proprietary trader for Keller Zabel Investments, whose character has been said to mimic that of Charlie Sheen’s in the earlier film. Gekko and Jake make an essential trade whereby Jake will help him win his daughter back and Jake will gain information about who destroyed his company. Amidst all this, Charlie Sheen, who played Gekko’s protégé Bud Fox in the original but who ultimately turned against him, turns up at a gala event at the time of Gekko’s release from prison for trading crimes. The two briefly meet and the awkwardness of their reunion drowns out the night’s entertainment for a moment, as the scene conveys the nostalgia of their previous relationship, one which cannot really be reconciled. In actual fact, the brevity and uncomfortable cordiality of this scene acts as a reminder that people change through their own experiences, roles reverse and nothing can alter the past. Bud Fox, once a young and ambitious trader, has been corrupted and there is no turning back, nothing else to say. A brilliant and poignant cameo from Charlie Sheen shows life moving on.

3. Dame Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Director: John Madden

As Queen of British theatre and always a guarantee of box-office success, her Oscar for Best-supporting actress in this part-fictional, part factual film would come as absolutely no surprise, were it not for the fact that her on-screen performance totals eight minutes in four scenes, which in our view is basically a cameo. Her part as Queen Elizabeth I is breathtaking as her penchant for theatrical experimentation is taken to new heights. In the early 60s, Dench was starting to build her reputation for theatre as a stage-actress and starred in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an excellent precursor to the roles she would later play (remember Lady Macbeth?) despite being told by some that she would go no further than playing a soubrette, in other words a light-hearted comedy character. Perhaps in defiance of this, her roles have been nothing but versatile and this cameo is no exception. The story begins in 1593 with Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and his writer’s block but everything changes when he finds his muse, Viola de Lessups (Gwyneth Paltrow), a noble woman who dreams of being an actress but cannot due to women being banned from stage. However, not all is plain sailing as Viola is betrothed to marry Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) Viola is called to Court and Queen Elizabeth agrees to this marriage. From this moment, she is absolutely not allowed to marry Shakespeare. However, the Queen having agreed to be a witness of a wager of £50 between Lord Wessex and Shakespeare that his play, Romeo and Juliet, cannot portray true love, arrives at the theatre on opening night. Prior to this, her informant, the Lord of Revels had learnt of a female actress playing the part of Juliet and orders the closure of the theatre on the grounds of violating morality. Shakespeare finds another theatre and is due to perform on Viola’s wedding day. She manages to sneak out after the ceremony and replaces the boy playing Juliet, whose voice has started to break, thus inspiring the whole audience. Lord Wessex and Lord of Revels arrive and invoke the Queen’s name and this is when the Queen’s voice booms from the back, “Have a care for my name or you’ll wear it out.” She is a superb actress and though she is weighted down with an elaborate and heavy Elizabethan costume and her facial expression is partly concealed by heavy white make up, in a few lines of dialogue she manages to convey the pleasure Elizabeth takes in wielding autocratic power.

2. Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder (2008)
Director: Ben Stiller

Tom Cruise plays a balding foul-mouthed film exec by the name of Les Grossman in this film within a film story about a crew in South East Asia on Vietnam memoir project. The film has gone over budget and it is behind schedule. What’s more, the director cannot control the diva attitude of his main actors, despite Speedman’s (played by Ben Stiller himself) career heading on a downward spiral. In an attempt to salvage their team effort, the main actors are placed in the middle of the jungle to learn to cope, with hidden cameras tracking their every ridiculous move but what they fail to understand is that they have actually landed in the middle of a real-life drug war. Whilst these actors go through a journey of self-discovery with Speedman kidnapped and forced to re-enact scenes from his only recognisable movie, megalomaniac Les Grossman tries to deal with failing actor, Speedman, in a 52 second profanity-filled speech. When a documentary of the actors’ time in the jungle is made into a hit reviving Speedman’s career with an award for best actor, Les Grossman performs a bumping and grinding hip-hop dance, which must have been a sweaty affair, considering his fat-suit and, though bizarrely, exits the film in style, faux , hip- hop style to be precise. A comedic cameo but one that has a little dig at Hollywood in the process.

1. Keith Richards in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
Director: Gore Verbinski

After Pirates of the Caribbean : Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Johhny Depp alluded to being inspired by Keith Richard’s real-life character, which in good humour, was taken positively by the man himself and triggered his eventual role in the film as Johnny’s dad, Captain Teague, which some would say could be a credible role in real life (both the pirate and dad part) And, in fact, what truly stands out in this cameo is his “pep talk” with his son, Captain Sparrow, a conversation they could be having on or off the screen about notoriety and the importance of staying true to oneself. Captain Teague says, “It’s not just about living forever, Jacky, the trick is living with yourself forever”, a pertinent comment which could well reflect Keith’s own famous struggles with fame and himself. Surprisingly bearing striking resemblance to Captain Sparrow, with his long black hair and prominent features, Keith’s interplay with Johnny is a success and even produces a few seconds worth of guitar, an old pirate guitar made especially for the occasion.

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS is out on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK now.