It’s hard for an actor not to become synonymous with a handful of films, even an actor as famous for making a vast amount of them as Nicolas Cage is. By the end of 2022, Cage will have appeared in over 100 movies (give or take, depending on whether or not you count a couple of cameos and voiceover appearances). But his name instantly brings to mind a few titles: his breakthrough appearances in Raising Arizona and Moonstruck, his Best Actor-winning turn in Leaving Las Vegas, a trilogy of ’90s action films that made him a huge star (The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off), his double role in Adaptation. Maybe add the “not the bees” moment from The Wicker Man, a film whose excesses have become infamous thanks largely to YouTube and meme culture, which have combined to help keep Cage a household name while often reducing his performances to a few big, bold moments removed from context.
Then there are the many less famous but still excellent other highlights, from his starring debut in the first-rate teen comedy Valley Girl, through his work with David Lynch in Wild at Heart, and great turns in everything from Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead to, more recently, the art-horror revenge tale of Mandy and his sensitive, career-reviving performance in Pig.
Dig even deeper, though–and with Cage there’s more to dig through than most actors–and you’ll find still more remarkable work. Many of his films, particularly those released over the last decade, when Cage made one movie that debuted on VOD or at Redbox cubicles after another, never reached a wide audience. But there’s a lot more that’s worth a look than you might suspect, even in this era.
In writing my new book Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career, I watched every performance Cage has committed to film, from his appearance in The Best of Times, a strange TV pilot about ‘80s teen life co-starring Crispin Glover, to Jiu Jitsu, a low-budget science fiction/martial arts action movie shot in Cyprus in which Cage dresses in a costume identical to the one Dennis Hopper wears in Apocalypse Now. . Below you’ll find a handful of quality Cage films that might not be on your radar. Some went largely unseen, some were hits that have fallen off the cultural radar for one reason or another, some don’t fit the definition of what we think about when we think about Nicolas Cage movies — but maybe should.
Birdy (1984)
You’re casting a movie starring Matthew Moline and Nicolas Cage in which one plays a bird-obsessed eccentric and the other plays an ordinary kid from a tough Philadelphia neighborhood. Who plays who? A few years later, Cage would be the obvious choice to play the odder character but, early in his career, he’d yet to develop a reputation for specializing in weirdos. That allowed him to deliver one of his best, and most naturalistic, performances in this Alan Parker film, in which he plays an easygoing, but sensitive early 1960s galoot who’s shattered by his experiences in Vietnam and desperately tries to rescue his friend from a mental hospital.
Vampire’s Kiss (1989)
Cage talks about this horror comedy as his “laboratory,” a job that allowed him to experiment with whatever acting ideas he wanted to try and one he drew on for future work. Cage plays a New York yuppie in the fast-paced world of ’80s publishing who’s convinced he’s turning into a vampire. But is it all in his head? Drawing heavily on German Expressionist horror films like Nosferatu, Cage lets no wild instinct go untried (including a scene in which he eats a bug). It’s a favorite of fans of Cage at his most unhinged that also works as a pretty damning condemnation of toxic masculinity decades before that term was coined.
Red Rock West (1993)
Cage plays a nice guy in a nasty world in this neo-noir directed by John Dahl that almost slipped through the cracks at the box office, thanks to being too mainstream for arthouses and too artsy for the multiplexes. It eventually enjoyed a successful arthouse run but now has become something of an obscurity because of its absence from streaming and VOD services. It’s worth the effort to seek it out, however. Cage’s subtle performance finds him bouncing up against bolder, colorful turns from Dennis Hopper and J.T. Walsh and Dahl’s direction provides a reminder of how gripping a small-scale thriller can be in the right hands
It Could Happen to You (1994)
Beyond Red Rock West, Cage spent much of the early ’90s playing nice, ordinary guys stuck in extraordinary situations. He’s downright Jimmy Stewart-like in this sweet romantic comedy directed by Andrew Bergman. Cage plays a cop who, short of cash, promises a waitress (Bridget Fonda) half of his lotto winnings should his numbers hit. When they do, romance, unexpected stardom, and trouble follow.
Windtalkers (2002)
Cage is first twisted and florid then driven and tortured in his dual role in Face/Off, his first team-up with Hong Kong action master John Woo. Anyone expecting more of the same from their second pairing left it perplexed. Here Cage plays a Marine fighting in World War II who’s assigned to protect (or, failing that, kill) Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), a Navajo soldier whose language serves as an unbreakable code. Instead of action thrills, the film attempts to capture the full, bloody hellishness of warfare both through brutal violence and the exhaustion on Cage’s face. It’s a punishing film and one that’s far less fun than Woo and Cage’s last pairing. But, like Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, it’s hauntingly effective in depicting the awfulness and moral compromises requirred by war, even one for a righteous cause.
Matchstick Men (2004)
Cage plays a con man doing battle with some combination of OCD and Tourette Syndrome in this twist-filled Ridley Scott film. Cage skillfully plays his character’s tics and uncontrollable instincts, but it’s the humanity beneath that behavior that makes the performance so effective.
The Weather Man (2005)
Like Matchstick Men, this Gore Verbinski-directed dark comedy struggled at the box office, arriving at a moment when Cage often had trouble breaking away from expectations set by his years as a big action star. Here he plays a struggling Chicago weatherman who becomes a well-paid local celebrity while watching his ambitions and personal happiness float away. It’s a dialed-back performance that captures the melancholy beneath the surface of many Cage roles.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
Preceded by a trailer featuring a string of over-the-top moments, Werner Herzog’s in-name-only follow-up to the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant played to puzzled audiences who might have expected nothing but two-hours of Cage madness. It has plenty of that, but they’re all in service of a morality tale in which Cage’s corrupt cop makes a long, hard climb toward redemption.
Joe (2013)
As in Birdy and Pig, Cage proves here that he can be just as memorable when he stays restrained. In this David Gordon Green film he plays a gruff Texas man trying to put his wild days behind him, a task that proves difficult after he takes in a kid (Tye Sheridan) threatened by an abusive father (Gary Poulter).
Mom and Dad (2017)
Brian Taylor, half of the team behind the Crank films and Cage’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, writes and directs this wild horror comedy in which parents become overwhelmed by the urge to kill their children. The film doesn’t shy away from violence and mayhem, but Cage and co-star Selma Blair’s performances keep it grounded in the real, difficult emotions that come with midlife crises and ambiguous feelings about parenthood. There’s a mid-film flashback in which Cage’s character reminisces about his days as a hotshot surrounded by fast cars and eager women that’s one of the most effective moments in Cage’s career.