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.
After winning an Oscar for his most dramatic role to date in 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, Cage starred in a series of bigger-budget action films. The first two of those, The Rock and Con Air, were box office hits but didn't impress critics. The third, however, received very strong reviews despite boasting one of the wackier premises in recent film history.
Legendary Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo's third Hollywood film and first for which he had creative control, 1997's Face/Off found Cage starring as a terrorist opposite an FBI agent played by John Travolta, who was in the middle of a career revival brought about by Pulp Fiction. Their action-packed cat-and-mouse game features a wildly implausible (but fun!) twist: Each one undergoes surgery to transform themselves into the exact appearance of the other, giving each actor the chance to perform a dual role (and impersonate the other).
Though the film was a hit at the box office, it never received a sequel ... until, maybe, now. Director Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs. Kong, The Guest) is currently developing a new Face/Off film that was once rumored to be a remake but was recently confirmed to be a direct sequel, though casting and plot details have not been announced. Cage recently revealed that he would be up for appearing in the sequel if asked.
“Face/Off works like a charm right on down the line thanks to brilliant, exhilarating performances from Cage and Travolta, and the many tremendously enjoyable action set-pieces that are Woo's hallmark.” —Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
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