The 25 Greatest Nicolas Cage Films, Ranked
Nicolas Cage has starred in just about every kind of movie at this point. The nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola began his career in supporting roles in teen movies (often directed by his uncle) and has done so much since then. He proved himself an effective dramatic actor (with an Oscar to his name), a major blockbuster star, a direct-to-video action star, a superhero multiple times over, an arthouse horror mainstay, and more. But what stands out as the best of the over 100 Nicolas Cage movies? Here, we make the case for twenty-five of them.
1. Pig (2021)
Before any objections get thrown around for naming the 2021 release Pig Cage’s best movie, give it a watch. The film centers on a former high society chef who left it all behind to becomes a truffle hunter with his beloved pig. When his pig is stolen, he chases down all of his old connections to find out who took her. While that set-up seems similar to John Wick, swapping out assassins for chefs of course, Pig is not nearly as blood-soaked or action-oriented as that beloved series. Instead, Pig offers an exploration of the things people value and how those things influence the choices they make and the lives they create. It’s a beautiful movie that also showcases Cage at his naturalistic best.
2. Vampire’s Kiss (1988)
But we don’t always come to Cage for his naturalism. In fact, we’re far more likely to seek him out for his big, arguably ridiculous acting choices, and those are nowhere better showcased than in Vampire’s Kiss. The film follows Cage’s character, an ambitious yuppie literary agent in Reagan-era New York, who believes that he’s transformed into a vampire. It’s a fantastic satire of the kinds of money-hungry young white people the late 80s produced and how their treatment of those around them is vampiric. But it’s Cage’s performance, including a scene in which he yells the entire alphabet and another in which he runs down the street repeatedly screaming “I’m a vampire!” that makes the film so iconic.
3. Mandy (2018)
Mandy, produced by Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision studio, was an instant cult classic when it made its way onto VOD in 2018. The highly stylized visual world of the film which dowses its characters in hues of red, blue, and purple, combined with Jóhann Jóhannsson’s otherworldly score, creates a singular viewing experience that’s unlike anything else. The story, a fairly classic tale of evil cults and revenge, isn’t especially unique. Nanging Mandy, in which Cage plays the revenge-seeker, isn’t about plot.Mandyis about images, feelings, and music. It’s a movie that’s less interested in making you care about its characters and more interested in creating moments that stick with you forever, and it succeeds.
4. Red Rock West (1993)
An unfairly forgotten gem of early 1990s crime cinema, Red Rock West plays out almost like a riff on the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple. Like that film, Red Rock West lays equal claim to the neo-noir and neo-western genres as it follows a young man (Cage) who, along with a hired killer, finds himself at the center of a deadly feud between a husband and wife in a small town. Things become even more complicated when our hero learns that there’s a large sum of money waiting for whoever comes out on top of the feud. Red Rock West is a small-scale genre masterpiece that deserves more attention, not only for Cage and its wily plot mechanics, but also for the great performances from Dennis Hopper as the hitman, J. T. Walsh as the husband, and Lara Flynn Boyle as the wife who may or may not be interested in a future with Cage.
5. Windtalkers (2002)
Five years after the iconic Face/Off (more on that in a moment), director John Woo and Cage reteamed for a World War II movie ostensibly about the Navajo code talkers who were instrumental in the Allied victory. “Ostensibly” because Windtalkers is far more interested in the relationships between the many white and two Navajo men in its central squad than functioning as a history lesson. And while that means it fails as a lesson, it’s an absolutely incredible war film. Woo’s talent as an action director is on full display in combat sequences that rival Spielberg’s opening for Saving Private Ryan, and unlike that film, these battle scenes are longer and scattered throughout the entire film. Nanging Windtalkers also succeeds as a melodrama, using the heightened emotions of war to tell powerful stories of courage, friendship, and honor, including that of Cage’s Sergeant Enders who grows to care for the code talker he’s protecting.
6. Birdy (1984)
Birdy is the closest we’ll get to another war movie on this list. But it’s less about the experiences of combat, and more about the lasting psychological consequences of war. Based on the novel of the same name by William Wharton, the film adaptation moves the action from the 1940s and World War II to the 1960s and Vietnam to tell the story of two friends’ relationship before and after their time in war. Alan Parker beautifully directs the film and Peter Gabriel’s score is phenomenal. But the real stars are, well, the stars Cage and Matthew Modine. Modine’s “Birdy” has always been obsessed with birds, leading the two youths into several silly and downright dangerous situations when they were growing up. But after the war, he has seemingly become convinced that he is a bird, a mental state that Cage’s Al has to try to break him out of.Birdy is a strange movie full of adolescent rage and sadness, and all the better for it.
7. Color Out of Space (2019)
Based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft, Color Out of Space centers on a family who move to a rural New England farmhouse to escape the hustle and bustle of big city life, only to come face to face with an alien horror. That horror arrives in the form of a meteorite with a mystical color emanating from it that soon begins to spread and transform everything it comes into contact with. Color Out of Space is a sci-fi horror movie that’s just short of being a comedy because its humor, most of which comes from Cage’s patriarch, never undercuts the horror of what’s happening. Like Mandy, it’s another film from SpectreVision that’s wonderfully unique.
8. The Weather Man (2005)
Between the epic adventures of Pirates of the Caribbean movies, director Gore Verbinski made this small scale dramedy about a sad sack. The Weather Man follows local Chicago weatherman Dave Spritz (Cage) as he attempts to balance spending time with his children, saving his marriage, and moving his career forward to become a national weatherman. The comedy in the film is pitch black and irreverent, and it’s never clear whether the film wants us to like Dave or hate him. That uncertainty about its central character creates a fascinating tension that’s impossible to look away from. It also helps that Cage is absolutely perfect in the role.
9. Mom and Dad (2017)
Brian Taylor, half of the directing team that gave us theCrank movies, directedMom and Dad and he brings the same level of pulse-pounding intensity to this horror comedy about parents driven to kill their kids. Selma Blair and Cage play the eponymous mom and dad of a pair of siblings who must attempt to survive their parents’ filicidal rage.Mom and Dad is never especially scary, but it’s a blast of fun the entire time and offers one of Cage’s most iconic recent scenes in which he destroys a billiards table with a sledgehammer while yell-singing “The Hokey Pokey.”
10. Wild at Heart (1990)
David Lynch kicked off the trend of 1990s criminal lovers on the road movies with this bizarre, Wizard of Oz-obsessed take on exploitation films. Based on the novel of the same name by Barry Gifford, Wild at Heart tells the story of young lovers Sailor (Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern) who run away from home to escape Lula’s mother Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real life mom). But Marietta’s not just your run of the mill controlling parent, she also wants Sailor dead because he saw her and a boyfriend kill Lula’s father. And she’s willing to do whatever it takes to make Sailor dead, so she sends hitmen after him and her daughter, including Willem Dafoe in one of his most disturbing performances. Wild at Heart is a gorgeously shot and edited film with incredible performances from Cage and Dern that draw you into their intense relationship and make you want the best for the crazy kids, while never letting you forget they’re in danger.
11. Con Air (1997)
Like many Nicolas Cage movies, Con Air is a silly movie. But it’s so incredibly earnest about everything it does that you can’t help falling for it. The film centers on a group of prisoners who hijack a transport plane and attempt to make an international escape. Cage’s Cameron Poe, who is finishing a sentence for killing a man in self-defense and just wants to see his daughter for the first time, finds himself caught in the middle of the chaos.Con Air is a big movie with big action scenes and even bigger characters played by some of the best actors in 1990s Hollywood, including John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, and Ving Rhames.
12. Face/Off (1997)
Cage and John Woo’s first collaboration is an action classic that’s also a masterclass in bold acting choices, from both Cage and his co-star John Travolta. The movie follows terrorist Castor Troy (Cage) and FBI agent Sean Archer (Travolta), who literally switch faces in attempts to go undercover in each others’ lives. That premise leads to the actors doing impressions of one another that need to be seen to be believed. But it’s not just the performances that make Face/Off a delight, the action sequences, especially a climactic boat chase, are some of the most thrilling and literally explosive of the 1990s.
13. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)
It’s difficult to rank the (sadly only) two National Treasure movies. They’re both basically perfect Indiana Jones–inspired action adventure films. What pulls the second film, Book of Secrets, slightly ahead, is its cast and international quest. The movie once again follows treasure hunter Benjamin Gates (Cage), his father Patrick (John Voight), archivist Abigail (Diane Kruger), and tech guy Riley (Justin Bartha) as they hunt down a mythical American treasure. But this time they’re joined by Gates’s mother Emily (Helen Mirren) and chased by Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris). And instead of being locked down on continental US soil, this adventure takes them to Paris and London, where they must break into Buckingham Palace.
14. National Treasure (2004)
WhileBook of Secrets pulls off the sequel’s goal of being better than the original, it’s really just because it has more movie stars and better locations. The firstNational Treasure film is still an impeccable family-friendly action adventure movie. The movie also gave us Nicolas Cage saying that he needs to steal the Declaration of Independence, which counts for a lot. While Ed Harris may be a bigger name, Sean Bean’s villain in the first film is much more menacing and lends the action sequences a greater sense of danger. Banget, there’s no way you can go wrong with either of theNational Treasure movies.
15. Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
The first of a few films on this list in which Cage plays a supporting role, Peggy Sue Got Married is one of Cage’s uncleFrancis Ford Coppola’s most interesting and emotionally potent films. The eponymous Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) is somehow transported back to twenty-five years earlier at her 25th high school reunion. There (then?), she gets to relive several days as her teenage self, with all the knowledge of her life. It’s a hilarious and, like Pig, beautiful movie about the choices we make and how they shape our lives. Cage plays Peggy Sue’s husband, Charlie with a nasally high-pitched voice that may be distracting at first, but the feelings he portrays and the feelings he elicits in Peggy Sue are all so real that his performance becomes a natural part of the film’s world soon enough.
16. Drive Angry (2011)
If Wild at Heart is David Lynch’s version of an exploitation movie, Drive Angry is a far less auteur-driven and far more meme-driven exploration of grindhouse film. The movie’s plot, a man escapes from the afterlife to avenge his daughter’s death and stop a Satan-worshiping cult from sacrificing his grandchild, is already enough to make you laugh and either run to watch it or avoid it at all costs. But it’s the absolutely ridiculous 3D action sequences, over-the-top gore, and performances from Cage and William Fichtner as “The Accountant” sent from perdition to retrieve Cage’s John Milton (you can’t have a movie about the devil without a character named John Milton) that make Drive Angry such a delight for fans of wild genre films.
17. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
Speaking of wild genre films, Werner Herzog’sBad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is one of the strangest cop movies ever made, and all the better for it. The movie follows Cage’s titular bad lieutenant Terence McDonagh as he attempts to solve a drug-related multiple homicide case, continue to scam the cocaine he and his girlfriend need from evidence lock-up without getting caught, get out of debt with his bookie, and more. In theory, it’s a fairly straightforward crime drama with the procedural plot of the murder at the center. But Herzog places the audience so firmly in McDonagh’s point of view, so much so that viewers can’t be sure whether some things on screen are real or his hallucinations, that the film becomes more of a whacked out character study. Whatever you want to call it, it’s another movie in Cage’s filmography that’s unlike anything else.
18. Dog Eat Dog (2016)
Dog Eat Dog is the second collaboration between Cage and legendary writer/director Paul Schrader and sees Cage reunite with Willem Dafoe more than two and a half decades after Wild at Heart. It’s no wonder that a movie with that kind of talent behind and in front of the camera delivers. Nanging Dog Eat Dog isn’t just a good movie, it’s a movie that feels genuinely dangerous. The story centers on three ex-convicts, Cage’s cool and collected Troy, Dafoe’s unpredictable Mad Dog, and muscle man Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook) taking on different crime jobs. The film draws the audience into these men’s world from the start with a highly stylized multiple murder sequence before giving way to an ever so slightly more realistic world. It’s a movie that, like several others in Cage’s filmography, is so good largely because of the performances from Cage and his co-stars, particularly Dafoe.
19. Adaptation (2002)
Adaptation is one of the weirdest movies in a filmography full of weird movies. The film centers on screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played in the film Cage) who struggles to adapt the non-fiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (played by Meryl Streep). It’s a movie that’s an adaptation of the book and a movie about the adaptation of the book, or rather the impossibility of adapting the book. It’s a beguiling film that plays with our sense of reality through metafiction without losing the book’s themes of obsession and disappointment. It’s also brilliantly acted by all three leads (Chris Cooper plays the orchid thief of the book’s title), who were each nominated for Oscars, and garnered Cooper a win. And there’s a literal double dose of Cage for fans, as he plays both Charlie and his fictional identical twin Donald, who in a piece of metafictional fun is credited as co-author ofAdaptation’s screenplay.
20. Rumble Fish (1983)
Francis Ford Coppola recently said that his favorite film he’s directed is Rumble Fish. While we don’t have the same favorite from his filmography, there’s no denying the visual and emotional power of the film. Adapted from the novel of the same name with original author S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish tells the story of Rusty James (Matt Dillon) who wants to cultivate a reputation to rival his feared and revered old brother’s. But his older brother, Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke), doesn’t want his reputation as a tough gang-leader, and seeks to create a calmer and more peaceful life for himself and those around him. Shot in beautiful black and white with few bursts of color and some moments of magic, Rumble Fish is one of the most formally exciting films in Coppola’s filmography. Cage plays Rusty James’s friend Smokey, who has eyes for Rusty James’s girlfriend Patty (Diane Lane) and makes moves to break them up. But instead of playing him like a backstabbing jerk, there’s a real tenderness and sadness to Smokey, who usually has to play second-fiddle to Rusty James.
21. Lord of War (2005)
Lord of War is not a subtle movie. It begins in a veritable sea of bullets with Cage, as arms dealer Yuri Orlov, directly addressing the camera to inform viewers of how many guns there are in the world, the population to firearm ratio, and asking how to narrow that ratio. It’s a movie about the evils of arms dealing and the myriad ways the major governments of the world not only allow the business to exist, but help it flourish by regularly supplying and buying from illegal arms dealers. What’s remarkable is that Lord of War is also often funny and irreverent about the horrors it seeks to indict, and that sense of humor makes it a much more compelling and enjoyable movie that draws audiences in with jokes only to reiterate the seriousness of its subject matter.
22. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
That’s right, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is not just one of the best Nicolas Cage movies, but also significantly better than its predecessor. Much of that can be attributed to directors Brian Taylor (director of Mom and Dad) and Mark Neveldine, the entire team behind the Crank films. While Spirit of Vengeance is limited by the need for broad appeal, the filmmakers make the most of Ghost Rider’s power set by creating set pieces that focus on speed and fire. The film’s plot, which sees the hero saving a boy from a villainous cult, is solid enough, but it’s the action that makes it the best superhero movie in Cage’s filmography.
23. Snake Eyes (1998)
Cage partnered with iconic director Brian De Palma for this Atlantic City set murder mystery that soon evolves into a conspiracy thriller. Cage plays the corrupt cop who finds himself at the center of a case when he witnesses an assassination at a boxing match. But things become more interesting when the murderer is immediately killed and instead of answering questions, their identity raises more. Snake Eyes isn’t one of De Palma’s greatest films, but it’s a twist and turn filled thriller that keeps you glued to the screen, helped by Cage’s magnetic performance and fantastic camera work, including a twelve-minute single-take opening sequence.
24. 8MM (1999)
The problem with8MM, a movie about a private detective (Cage) investigating a snuff film, is that it’s just not gross enough. A movie about snuff and the kinds of people who create and consume something so horrific needs a sense of real grime and danger. Instead, 8MM is a pretty slick Hollywood thriller from the director of the two most reviledBatman movies ever made. But while8MM fails to entirely deliver on its potential, it’s still a fun neo-noir PI-centered movie with an all-star cast including Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, and Catherine Keener.
25. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
The least (and latest) of the collaborations between Paul Scrader as a writer and Martin Scorsese as a director is still a fascinating film. Bringing Out the Dead stars Cage as a depressed, overworked paramedic who hasn’t saved a patient in months. The film tracks Cage’s Frank as he works several nights with different partners and the emergencies they attempt to address, allowing for a series of religious-tinted scenes that further Frank’s journey between hope and despair. Bringing Out the Dead is an intelligent movie with many interesting ideas, but it’s a bit too didactic to gain a sense of momentum. It’s one of the best of Cage’s films because it’s one of the most thought-provoking, while failing to live up to the greatness of Schrader and Scorsese’s other collaborations.
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