Cry Baby (The Tear) (1990)
It is not his first film but it is his first starring role. And it is clear that Johnny Depp started his career strong.
The teardrop would be the typical high school bad boy if it weren't for an almost miraculous ability to cry a single tear. Superpower that drives girls crazy, especially a rich girl played by Traci Lords. Cry Baby is the great parody of high school cinema.
Degree of insanity: Level 1. Okay, he only cries one tear, but despite everything this bad guy is the typical high school teenager who flirts with juvenile delinquency, listens to rock and roll and drives very fast. Nothing serious.
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
This film would mark his career forever. It is his first collaboration with his friend and director Tim Burton and also the first of the collection of freak characters that Johnny Depp accumulates to this day (and those that remain). Edward Scissorhands is a boy created by a lonely inventor who dies before completing his work, leaving the boy with blades for fingers.
Degree of madness: Level 2. Taking into account that he has scissors instead of hands, and that he has lived most of his time isolated in a castle, this character is pretty good in the head. However, love knocks on his door and everything falls apart, especially the emotional balance of this gothic creature.
Who Loves Gilbert Grape? (1993)
He is one of the most sober characters of his. A young employee in a store with many family responsibilities (an obese mother and a mentally disabled brother). Everything changes when Becky, a young pizpireta played by Juliette Lewis, appears in his life.
Degree of madness: Level 1. He is a completely balanced character. The only thing that can be blamed on him is his affair with a married woman.
Ed Wood (1994)
In this delicious comedy Jonny Depp plays the worst director in the history of cinema, Ed Wood. A careless guy with eccentric tastes and no talent for cinema he wants to be like Orson Welles. When he gets nervous he dresses up as a woman in velvety pink sweaters.
Degree of insanity: Level 3. Ed Wood is, above all, eccentric. Dressing as a woman is not very normal, nor is his passion for soft pink sweaters. Otherwise he is just a man incapable of seeing his own artistic limitations. Something very common.
