I love Nicolas Cage movies. Well, most of them. Here is a list of all the ones I’ve seen so far in rough order of favorite to least favorite.
I’m not including movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. These may have Nicolas Cage in them, but they aren’t Nicolas Cage movies.
Last updated Oct 27, 2024.
Face/Off (1997)
Most movies start at a 5 out of 10, and maybe get to a 7 on intensity, passion, disgust, whatever scale you want to define. Face/Off starts at 8 and ends at 11. I rented out a small theatre and made 40 people watch this one with me for my birthday. If I died today, that might be the thing I’m remembered for most just because of how insane and memorable this movie is.
Adaptation (2002)
Adaptation is a film about (the real person and writer of this movie) Charlie Kaufman failing to write a screen play. Cage plays Kaufman in the movie as well as his fictitious twin brother - 2 for 1 Cage. The whole cast kills it here.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Everyone would enjoy this movie. Tom Gormican wrote the whole script, in which Nicolas Cage plays himself, and THEN asked Cage to do it. After turning him down a few times, he agreed to do it after Gormican wrote him a detailed personal letter laying out the vision. Now, the world gets to have a Pedro Pascal/Nic Cage acid trip scene.
Raising Arizona (1987)
God, Cage’s character is so good in this. Cradle robbing lowfalutin fun.
Con Air (1997)
Cage on a plane.
The Rock (1996)
It’sh me, the only shtud who’sh eschcaped Alcatraz, and now Nicolash and I are going back in to shave Shan Franshishco from rocketsh filled with poishon gash. Shuck it, Trebek.
Pig (2021)
Liam Neeson’s Taken, except with a truffle pig instead of a daughter. They could have done without the fight club scene. Otherwise, pretty excellent.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
To blatantly plagiarize the recommendation given to me for this movie because it is accurate and glorious: “It is somehow both entirely a Nic Cage film and entirely a Werner Herzog film. There’s breakdancing ghosts, Iguana hallucinations, illegal substances, paranoia, everything you’d expect from a movie made by those two certified insane, beautiful artists.”
Wild at Heart (1990)
David Lynch made a Nicolas Cage movie. And it’s very David Lynch, and great. My partner and I now regularly say “Oh, Sail!”. Bobby Peru, now he’s just not a very likeable guy.
Longlegs (2024)
Spooky scary, I loved it. Yes, the plot doesn’t make sense, but you don’t watch horror for the airtight logic.
National Treasure (2004)
The one everyone has seen! It’s good!
Kick-Ass (2010)
I don’t really remember this movie much except that I liked it. Verging on not a Nic Cage movie?
Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
A very bad movie. The only one on here below a 7/10 rating for me, and it might be something like a 4. A dreadlocked Angelina Jolie and Nic Cage awkwardly making out cuz the only thing better than sex or stealing cars is sex AND stealing cars. Plenty of other ways to see cool cars.
Next Up:
- Matchstick Men (2003)
- Moonstruck (1987)
- Vampire’s Kiss (1989)
- Mandy (2018)
- Dream Scenario (2023)
- The Wicker Man (2006)
- Lord of War (2005)
- Leaving Las Vegas (1995) (started this on a plane but had to turn it off cuz too many boobies)
- Ghost Rider (2007) (this would be a last resort)
Missing one? Let me know!
BONUS: Nicolas Cage Facts
From Wikipedia (most of these are from Wikipedia):
At age 15, he tried to convince his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, to give him a screen test, telling him “I’ll show you acting.” His outburst was met with “silence in the car.” By this stage of his career, Coppola had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Robert De Niro.
Nicolas Cage is very bad with money. Things he has defaulted on or otherwise had to sell:
- $2.5M german medieval castle
- A stolen dinosaur skull of a Tarbosaurus, returned to Mongolia
- A 24,000-square-foot country manor in Rhode Island
- A $7M island in the Bahamas
- $6.2M in federal income tax, for which he later sued his allegedly incompetent business manager for $20M. Levin counter-sued him, so who knows the story here
- 22 cars in 1 year
- The $5.5M “Most Haunted House in America”
- An ~$18M Bel Air home, which he sold for $10.5M
- Action Comics #1, in which Superman first appears, for $2.16M
You might notice that a lot of the films on my list are pre-2000 or post-2020 - for a long time, Cage was “taking roles left and right” to pay off his debts. What the world might have missed out on if Cage could have kept it in his wallet.
He named one of his sons Kal-El, which is Superman’s birth name. Cage loves superman (see Action Comics #1 above), and almost got to play him in a canceled 90s movie Superman Lives, which was to be directed by Tim Burton.
Nicolas Cage filed for divorce in his fourth marriage after only 4 days, claiming he was “too intoxicated to understand his own actions and that Koike failed to disclose ’the full nature and extent of her relationship with another person.’”. Damn.