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- Renfield will be released in theaters on April 14, 2023, and follows the titular character, played by Nicholas Hoult, Dracula's (Nicholas Cage) henchman and a longtime patient of the mental health facility. The movie will mark Cage's return to the big screen since his early 2023 release The Old Way in January. The Renfield trailer seems intriguing, leaving viewers to ponder if this performance should be categorized as Cage's best or one of his over-the-top ones.
Nicolas Cage is not a guitar; he’s a banjo. Not everyone can play him, but in the right director’s hands, he can be capable of creating beautiful music… other times, the results can be anything from outrageously hilarious to downright puzzling. He’s won an Oscar, held the action movie star championship belt, and in recent years has even found respect in independent arthouse films like Mandy, Pig, and his latest which has cemented his celebrity legacy, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. His filmography, which spans 100 credits (most of them starring roles) and 40 years, is incredibly diverse. He's seemingly prepared to tackle any genre, performance, and motif in films with budgets astronomically high or unashamedly VOD.
The emergence of Cage on your screen usually means some things are certain: big emotions, loud dialogue, and outrageous situations. He’s an enigma, a live wire which has become the subject of fascination among moviegoers, rarely phoning it in and seldomly taking a breather. It’s a testament to his talent with broad performances that half of his films are well-reviewed, with many of them downright classics.
Updated on April 7, 2023, by Jessie Nguyen:
Renfield will be released in theaters on April 14, 2023, and follows the titular character, played by Nicholas Hoult, Dracula's (Nicholas Cage) henchman and a longtime patient of the mental health facility. The movie will mark Cage's return to the big screen since his early 2023 release The Old Way in January. The Renfield trailer seems intriguing, leaving viewers to ponder if this performance should be categorized as Cage's best or one of his over-the-top ones.
10 'Adaptation' (2002)
When one Nicolas Cage playing Charlie Kaufman isn’t enough for you, the meta genius screenwriter provides us with the ultimate solution – two Nicolas Cages. In this Spike Jonze masterpiece, Adaptation, Cage plays two sides of the same coin, the autobiographical socially and romantically struggling Charlie, who carries the conundrum of adapting the unadaptable Orchard Thief, and his fictional, more confident (though dimmer) twin brother Donald Kaufman.
In a seemingly unadaptable movie, through split-screen techniques, Cage gets to play off one of the few actors who can handle his upstaging, yelling, and extreme subtlety... himself. He also gets to the bottom of both a mid-life crisis and the problem with Hollywood. Cage plays anxiety like a finely tuned piano, especially when he is inserted into his own third act and must face the characters he has been tasked with writing.
9 'Leaving Las Vegas' (1995)
In a reflective examination of alcoholism, desolation, and solitude that earned Cage a deserved Oscar, he does some of his best work as the deeply realized Ben Sanderson, a screenwriter who loses his family and job and plans to die by suicide via drinking in Leaving Las Vegas. It’s classic Nic Cage, albeit with more tasteful surroundings, providing a towering, grandiose – and yes, over the top – performance.
Ask Nicolas Cage to play an alcoholic, and he goes the whole nine yards for the film's entirety. He's swollen-eyed, slurring his words, dancing in liquor stores, and chugging bottles as he drives down the Strip: even in such an extreme performance, Cage can find both sympathy and radical empathy in Ben.
8 'Captain Corelli’s Mandolin' (2001)
A heartbreaking romantic tragedy set on the island of Cephalonia, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin follows Antonio Corelli (Cage), an Italian army captain, against Penelope Cruz as Pelagia. With big emotions set abound a gorgeous Mediterranean landscape, the film actually calls for over-the-top performances.
Cage seems like a perfect fit, but his accent comes off as something akin to Jared Leto’s Nintendo-esque diction in House of Gucci and his romantic propositions in full army gear during an army march of “Bella Bambina 2 o’clock!” and “I thought I could watch you forever” are no less ridiculous. Even more excessive comes Cage’s passionate scrunch face as he wins the town over with a solo mandolin performance, complete with glances to the townspeople.
7 ‘Face/Off’ (1997)
Face/Off follows an FBI agent, played by John Travolta, who has a facial transplant to assume the identity of the criminal genius (Cage) who killed his only son in order to thwart a terrorist plot, but the criminal awakens early and seeks retribution.
With two gold-plated pistols holstered behind him as he steps out of a Cadillac and onto the runway in what is probably the pinnacle of Hollywood high-concept cinema, Cage takes the stage in this film. Cage has experience playing a variety of parts in one film, and he expertly differentiates each of them in this. Moreover, John Woo can make anyone appear cool with the use of wind machines and a bit of well-timed slo-mo, and Cage certainly didn't hold back any bit of it.
6 'Deadfall' (1993)
Cage plays the role of Eddie King in Deadfall, a film about con artists in a criminal underworld, the lover of the film’s femme fatale who eventually becomes the film’s primary antagonist. In what should have been a nothing role, the character is so outrageous that he becomes the most memorable aspect of a widely maligned picture directed by his brother Christopher Coppola. The film holds a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and made a remarkable $18,000 off its $10 million budget.
The sweaty and erratic King is foul-mouthed, fond of strip clubs, wears a wig, is addicted to cocaine, and is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Cage is no stranger to the power of a good line reading, but in this film, he sounds like a cross between a rat pack impersonator and a barking dog who is dubbing himself in real-time. In one five-minute span, he cuts an attacker's throat, has a meltdown in front of his girlfriend, manically laughs while covered in blood, sniffs a cigar, and weeps before proceeding to hump his bed. Cage would reprise the role of Eddie King in the follow-up film Arsenal in 2017.
5 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' (2009)
There isn’t much that’s redeemable about New Orleans Police Lieutenant Terence McDonagh, and yet he is played with such conviction that it’s difficult to take your eyes off the screen. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is set in the aftermath of Katrina, it depicts the worst person who could be in a position of power. Cage, who seems like he’s having the time of his life, was practically born to play the role.
It’s about as over the top as it gets: stealing drugs from the evidence room, smoking crack, and pointing guns at old ladies. In what could have gone the wrong direction, the film works and Cage’s high stress, the sleep-deprived character was well received by critics, including Roger Ebert, who called it "hypnotic."
4 'The Wicker Man' (2006)
A remake of the classic British folk horror film, The Wicker Man follows a police officer (Cage) who must investigate a Neo-Pagan island where his missing daughter was last seen. Despite boasting an incredible cast of actors (Ellen Burstyn, Frances Conroy, Molly Parker), the film was widely panned and labeled as an unintentional comedy.
If anything, the film is worth watching only for Nicolas Cage's performance, which is so over the top it practically consumes the entire movie and barely gives his co-stars room for dialogue. When they get the chance, Cage enters and attacks them wearing a bear suit. Cage, fully committed to absurdity, plays it totally straight even as he is ultimately tortured with a mask containing live bees. Somehow it is less ridiculous on paper.
3 ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ (2022)
In The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicholas Cage portrays a not-actually-himself actor named Nicolas Cage who, in order to please his biggest fan, agrees to make a personal visit to a private island.
Cage doesn't take himself too seriously; in the movie, he even makes out with his younger self, drinks vodka at the bottom of the pool, jumps off a cliff, and yells “I love you” with a stern face to a friend while still pointing guns at each other. It doesn't feel like Cage is acting in a movie; rather, it feels more like a comic action movie that documents Cage's life. Nonetheless, audiences can still tell that he is playing during scenes with exaggerated emotions and forced tears, which makes this movie a particularly memorable one.
2 'Mandy' (2018)
In this new stage of Cage's career, Mandy dropped on his lap like a gift from God. A stylish arthouse movie that is weird as it is electrifying and gives him the ultimate stage to convey two of his strongest emotions: feral rage and agony. Set in 1983, Cage plays Red Miller, a recluse who works as a lumberman and whose girlfriend, the titular Mandy, is kidnapped by the Children of the New Dawn (a religious cult) and the Black Skulls (a cannibalistic LSD-tripping biker gang).
A very game Cage clearly understood the director’s vision delivering a wide range of emotions. Cage goes from tied and gagged and forced to watch his lover burned alive in desperation to acquiring a crossbow and ax, consuming an entire bottle of vodka, a mound of cocaine, and tainted LSD tabs before receiving his revenge ultimately in a chainsaw duel. It takes an actor of serious commitment to making material this severe convincing.
1 'Vampire’s Kiss' (1988)
Written by Martin Scorsese collaborator Joseph Minion, Vampire’s Kiss is a black comedy horror that has since become a cult hit despite not making half of its budget back at the box office. Cage plays a cocaine-fueled, suicidal, sex-addicted, and greedy literary agent named Peter Loew, who is so unsettling he scares even his own therapist. He eventually falls in love with a vampire played by Jennifer Beals.
Cage does not simply weep when expected to convey sadness and desperation; Cage does not simply weep; he puts his hands to his face and yelps an incoherent ba-hoo at a high pitch. Look no further than Cage clapping his hands and flailing his arms around while screaming the alphabet at increasing volumes to find something truly over the top. The film’s endearing strength comes from its awareness of how absurd its character is as he descends into madness, and knowing what an off-the-rails performer Cage can be, the film just lets him cook, or rather eat... live cockroaches.