I love Nic and there’s still a good chunk of his movies that I haven’t seen.
Favorite - Wild at Heart. Best acting - Leaving las Vegas. Unique Gems - Raising Arizona, Red Rock West, Knowing, Moonstruck, Adaptation, Bringing out the dead, Mandy.
Bringing out the Dead is a goddamned underrated masterpiece. It’s Nicholas Cage in his perfect unhinged element, playing perfectly to his strengths in a movie where they can really shine.
I downloaded that they use day. Will watch soon x
Knowing is an amazing movie that has been lost to time. I was flying from Philly to Ireland and can’t sleep on planes, so I watched that, and it was so mind blowing that I had to wake my wife up to make her watch it.
I feel like knowing has the dumbest ending of any movie I’ve seen in a long time… The last 10 minutes almost killed the whole thing for me
Pig was absolutely brilliant. It totally defied my expectations and left me fucking weeping at the end.
Pig is top 3. I think Raising Arizona and Lord of War or Con Air are the other top 3.
Face Off, just for the weird idea to steal your enemy’s face
I love everything after Cage and Travolta swap faces. Watching the two of them impersonate each other is top notch. The cream on top of some high quality John Woo action cake.
They convinced me that each was the other person, while pretending to be the other person.
“What a predicament!”
Wild at Heart is the clear favorite for me. I’m a big David Lynch fan, and that movie is just deliciously bizarre.
As far as hidden gems, I don’t know. I haven’t seen a large portion of his filmography, and I’d guess that what I’ve seen is probably his better known stuff. Not much help there, sorry.
I’m so glad someone else mentioned Wild at Heart, that is without a doubt my favourite Cage movie of all time. He’s in vintage form in that film. It’s so funny too, like legitimately funny. Kind of like that one he did with Elijah Wood, The Trust. He was fucking hilarious in that movie, it felt like a return to vintage form, he got creative with it. A lot of people hated it, I guess because of the abrubt ending, but if you focus on Nic’s performance it’s a truly great movie. I’d call that a “hidden gem” for sure. More people need to give it a chance, it really is a great film
Well, I think his best performance was in 8mm. Brilliant movie, and often gets forgotten in favor of his lighter roles.
That being said, my favorite is Con Air. It’s ostensibly an action movie, and has that 80s action movie vibe, but all the scenery chewing him and Malkovitch do takes it to new heights of hilarity at times. They both over acted so hard it went beyond silly and into epic. It is absolutely the most fun movie he has ever done, including Raising Arizona, which I love too.
I reckon Con Air might be a comfort film for me - I could just bang it on repeat and let it play for days.
“On any other day that might seem strange.”
Thanks, I’ve not seen 8mm x
My favourite hidden gem is Red Rock West One of those times I first cought on TV showing at 11pm and I’ve got to get up at 5:30 am. Started watching and had to see the end
Wow never heard of that one.
Oh this looks great and I haven’t seen it yet. Thanks for the recommendation.
Lord of War is one of my favourite films and Cage is great in it.
I’m nearly at the 50 mark for Cage films seen (and would have got there if the cinemas had been braver with Dream Scenario and The Arcadian) but it can be tricky judging his films. However, I am making a list of his films from the wildest to the most mundane so I’m going with that.
My top of the pops is Mandy as it feels like it was designed just for me but it isn’t the kind of film you can just jump into, you need to build up to it.
For hidden gem I’m going with the biggest difference between my rating and IMDb’s average, so it’d definitely be Drive Angry, followed by Mom and Dad.
Biggest disappointment: Prisoners of Ghostland - Cage in a Sion Sono film, costarring Take Sakaguchi, with a weird premise has to be right in my ballpark but it just felt like it was trying too hard.
I really liked him in Community.
He was one sexy cat.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans should get some love in here. Cage is a madman in that one and was directed by Herzog so it’s got some vibes for sure.
Wow Nic did so many more movies that i thought. I’ve seen a lot of them but not all. I’m surprised no one said The unbearable weight of massive talent. I didn’t really want to watch that movie but thought it was great.
He has so money good movies but if you want to see him at his most unhinged watch vampires kiss . One of my favorite parts is when he yells the entire alphabet at his secretary.
The rock is one of the best bond films ever made. Goodspeed was an amazing character for him.
Mandy and Color out of Space because I’m a horror nut. Top tier acting -> Leaving Las Vegas and Pig
I’d say Matchstick Men and Face/Off. Con-Air was great but the villains were the stars of the show.
