Every Good Nicolas Cage Movie, Ranked
One of Hollywood's most prolific and versatile actors, Nicolas Cage launched his big-screen career in the early 1980s at the age of 17 and has since appeared in over 80 features in seemingly every genre, including screwball indie comedy, harrowing drama, rom-com, thriller, action, animation, and horror. In that span, Cage has moved from indies to big-budget popcorn fare and back again, along the way working with quite a few noted directors including Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, the Coen brothers, Spike Jonze, and his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola. (Cage's birth name, of course, is Nicolas Coppola.)
But for every great (or at least interesting) project in Cage's filmography, there is at least one outright dud, befitting a man who has both won an Academy Award and been nominated for more Razzies than all but five other actors in history. Cage has famously taken on numerous roles in low-profile, straight-to-video genre films in order to fund a lavish lifestyle and pay off a tax debt. But the resulting string of instantly forgettable, poorly reviewed titles appears to have dried up, and recent years have seen the actor once again selecting far more interesting projects and returning to the world of critical acclaim.
Fortunately, his latest film (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) looks like it will be another one of those late-career highlights. But where, exactly, does it place among his other work? In the gallery on this page, we rank every "good" Nicolas Cage movie in order (saving the best for last) by Metascore, which represents the consensus of top professional film critics. In this case, we are restricting the list to only those films scoring 61 or higher, which encompasses all titles receiving generally positive reviews from critics.
Additional content from Keith Kimbell.
The second film directed by the Coen brothers remains a fan favorite to this day, and a standout Cage performance is likely one of the reasons for its popularity. The oddball 1987 comedy stars Cage as ex-con "Hi" McDunnough, who wants to have children with his new wife, police officer Edwina (Holly Hunter), but cannot. So they hatch a plan to kidnap one of the newly born quintuplets belonging to furniture store magnate Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) and rase him as their own. Needless to say, things don't go to plan (at least at first), but they do result in a minor box office hit that has only grown in stature since its original release.
But the Coens' exacting style didn't necessarily mesh well with Cage's more improvisational, unhinged nature, and the actor never again worked with the brothers. (The opposite, of course, was true for Raising Arizona co-star John Goodman, who became a Coen brothers regular.) But just try imagining Cage's role played by the actor first considered for the part: Kevin Costner.
“The Coens abhor sentimentality, but behind the comic-book grotesqueries there's a disarming sweetness. Like 'Blood Simple,' this wild-card comedy knows where it's headed every inch of the way. It's a hoot and a half.” —David Ansen, Newsweek
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