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 third Cage movie to open in 1984 serves as an excellent bookend to the first. While Racing With the Moon found the actor playing a young man about to head off to war with his hometown friend, the Alan Parker-directed Birdy finds Cage and Matthew Modine playing two teenagers returning from action—in this case, the Vietnam War—and heavily traumatized from their experiences. Adapted from William Wharton's novel, the film takes place in 1960s Philadelphia (and earlier, through numerous flashbacks) and made almost no money at the box office. But critics offered praise, and Birdy went on to win a special jury prize at Cannes when (in a move that would be rather unusual today) it was brought to the festival a year after its release.
How dedicated was Cage to his role as Al Columbato? According to director Parker, Cage wore bandages over his face on and off set during all four weeks of shooting and opted to have two of his teeth pulled to simulate shrapnel damage.
“Mr. Modine's performance is exceptionally sweet and graceful; Mr. Cage very sympathetically captures Al's urgency and frustration. Together, these actors work miracles with what might have been unplayable.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times
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