Nicolas Cage is a world-famous actor, whose number of fans exceeds the overall number of people betting online via 20Bet and other similar platforms. But there are so many movies with him. Don’t know where to start? Then this list will help you.
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Pig, 2021
In a remote part of the forest, a cabin stands. An unkempt, overgrown man and his faithful pig live there. By day they go out to look for truffles, and in the evenings, the recluse tells his pet stories by the fireplace. One day, burglars break into the house and steal the pig, after which the hero sets out to find his comrade in the neighboring town.
“Pig” is a wonderfully tender and sad movie about a man who has been trampled by the big world. In Cage’s eyes isn’t animal rage, as usual, but existential crisis and sadness. Instead of shouting and screaming, the actor only wanders silently through the noisy streets, and in the finale he performs perhaps the most powerful part of his career. Not surprisingly, Cage calls this work his favorite, along with Leaving Las Vegas and Raising the Dead.
Adaptation, 2002
Nicolas Cage plays insecure screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who takes on a new job after the premiere of Being John Malkovich. He chooses to adapt a journalist’s book, The Orchid Kidnapper, as the story. The material turns out to be so complex that the author begins to doubt the reality around him and decides to write a screenplay about how he tries to write a screenplay.
The character in “Adaptation” is the complete antipode of Nicolas Cage, whom we are used to seeing on screens. Here he looks more like a nervous and insecure urban intellectual a la Woody Allen: constantly criticizing himself for mediocrity, ashamed of his bald head and afraid to talk to girls. For this unusual role, where Cage plays the alter ego of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the actor received a well-deserved Oscar nomination.
Raising Arizona, 1987
Thief Hi seduces a policewoman and marries her. After a while, the couple thinks about a baby and decides to kidnap a child from a large family. Thus an absurd parental odyssey that will completely change the lives of the characters begins.
The first big role in the artist’s career defined his role for many years to come. Hi is a typical trickster. He achieves his goals through cunning and deviousness, and confuses women with a brilliant smile and a Hollywood squint. Sloppy, disorganized, but infinitely sincere in all his impulses, Cage’s character becomes another charming little man in the Coen Brothers’ filmography.
Willy’s Wonderland, 2021
A man with no name or past gets into an accident near a backwater town. Since his wallet is empty, he agrees to work off the cost of repairs. All the hero has to do is spend the night at Willy’s Wonderland, a children’s mall. However, there is a nuance: after sunset, the rusty animatronics turn into bloodthirsty monsters.
In this movie, Cage doesn’t say a word. He silently rips the heads off the frenzied puppets, and during the breaks he drinks soda and plays pinball. The role is a perfect example of the so-called expressionistic acting method, to which the star has remained faithful for many years. According to him, you shouldn’t play realistically, but like in an old silent movie.
Leaving Las Vegas, 1995
Hollywood screenwriter Ben Sanderson loses his job and goes on a rampage to Las Vegas. There he meets the charming Sera. After spending the night with the woman, the hero falls in love, but is afraid to get close because of his inner demons.
The most important role in the actor’s career, for which he received the cherished “Oscar”. In the first thirty minutes of the film, Cage doesn’t come out of his standard image of an eccentric, rampaging in bars and drinking at the wheel. Gradually, however, the defiantly dirty aesthetic of Leaving Las Vegas gives way to the usual melodrama. Ben Sanderson, for all his sinister aura, turns out to be a simple broken man. Such heroes in the artist’s filmography, unfortunately or fortunately, are rare.
Vampire’s Kiss, 1988
The manager Peter, obsessed with beautiful girls, suddenly becomes a vampire: one of his mistresses bites the man and makes him his slave. Gradually, he himself begins to feel a thirst for blood. However, it’s unclear whether it’s motivated by real vampirism or an attempt to brighten up the bleak office routine.
If Vampire’s Kiss hadn’t come out twelve years earlier than American Psycho, it could easily have been called a parody of the Christian Bale classic. There are indeed a lot of intersections: careerism that drives you crazy, stuffy office settings and a meme actor in the title role.
It was from this film that Cage’s recognizable style of acting was born – the actor’s expressionism, bulging eyes and spontaneous shouting. Nicholas does everything to get the viewer out of his comfort zone. Of course, the star doesn’t hide his pride in the role and considers it one of the best in his career.
Bringing Out the Dead, 1999
Paramedic Frank Pierce is about to lose his mind. He takes the deaths of his patients hard and does everything he can to get fired from his job. The hero’s last chance for salvation is a girl, Mary, whose father is slowly dying in the hospital.
In one of his darkest works, Martin Scorsese unhurriedly plunges the hero into the filth of the New York streets. Frank Pierce is a sad witness to the destruction of American society. The exhausted Nicolas Cage, who sees the ghosts of unsaved patients, becomes almost a biblical character for the director. The road to salvation, as always, lies through the suffering and horror of life.
