8 Off-the-Freaking-Wall, Little-Known Nicolas Cage Movies You Gotta See
Am I getting THROUGH TO YOU, reader?
In late 2020, I undertook a mighty journey. Many said I couldn’t. Many said I shouldn’t. Many said I would fail.
They were all correct.
I tried to watch every single Nicolas Cage movie ever made.
Here’s the thing: I love Nic Cage. I love his flailing arms, his wild eyes, his frantically fluctuating voice. I love his one-handed bakers, his neurotic writers, his exhausted ambulance drivers, and his broken-hearted pig-loving backwoods dwellers. So in the midst of pandemic woes, I decided that I wanted to possess The Full Unfiltered Cage Knowledge: 108 films over 39 years.
Little did I comprehend the magnitude of what I’d set out to do—both the grandeur and the darkness that awaited were incomprehensible to me. There are fewer things in heaven and earth, Nicolas, than are dreamt of in your filmography.
Three years later, and I haven’t made it. Out of the now 116 movies listed on Cage’s IMDB page, I’m missing nineteen. Those nineteen are almost all ones that I’ve started and stopped and abandoned at some point. They fall into the category of Straight-Up Bad Nic Cage Movie, defined as the following:
Straight-Up Bad Nic Cage Movie [noun]: A film in which the plot, dialogue and cinematography are so boring and bereft of quality that even a Nicolas Cage performance can’t make the catastrophe interesting. See: 211, Rage, Grand Isle, Left Behind.
Cage, while I love him, has quite of few of those suckers in between 2010 and today—and they do not make a watch-through easy on a fella. But while I have not succeeded, I have ventured deep into the forest of Cage’s filmography, and from within those shaded glens and haunted brooks, I have discovered much.
Returning now, I bring with me eight Cage movies you likely haven’t watched that are absolutely worth it.
While Cage’s best films are fairly well known (Moonstruck, Wild at Heart, Adaptation, Vampire’s Kiss, Pig, Bringing out the Dead, Mandy, Dream Scenario etc.), these are the ones I found deep in the weeds. Some have been almost forgotten in time, or fallen to the wayside quickly after a video-only release, and that’s a damn shame. If you’re looking for a good Cage session, give one of these a try.
Valley Girl (1983)
Filmed when he was 18, this was Cage’s first leading man role. In fact, it’s the first movie in which he’s not credited by his real name, Nicolas Coppola, and has instead assumed the heroic mantle of Nicolas Cage (taken in tribute to Marvel hero Luke Cage and avant-garde classical composer John Cage because isn’t that just perfect). As Randy, a dropout punk, he plays against the titular “valley girl,” Julie, who finds herself attracted to his bad boy ways and flippy-floppy hair. It’s classic early ’80s high school rom-com stuff, but it’s fun—and any movie with a montage set to “I Melt With You” wins me over right away. Cage’s performance is fairly restrained in this one, but you can still see the wild man we would come to know peeking out in the occasional hoot and/or holler.
Of note: Cage’s performance in this movie nearly got him the role of John Bender (the long-haired rebel) in The Breakfast Club. John Hughes wanted him for the part after he saw Valley Girl, but the gig ended up going to Judd Nelson.
Birdy (1984)
Cage has since said that he’s a bit embarrassed by this movie—he was 19 and really went all out emotionally in an unfiltered approach to acting he probably wouldn’t use now. When you watch it, you can see what he means. His portrayal of a young Vietnam vet is full of turmoil and youthful anguish. Cage’s Al Columbato is trying to help a childhood friend and fellow veteran whose been committed to a mental hospital. His friend “Birdy,” played by Matthew Modine, has suffered a full breakdown—the guy thinks that he’s literally a bird, refusing to speak, perching nude on ledges, staring out of windows, moving his head all weird. While the premise sounds goofy, it’s a deeply earnest movie about childhood friendship and the effects of trauma. Also, it’s interesting to see Cage playing the non-weirdo character in a movie.
Of note: Cage still had two baby teeth when he started filming for this movie. He decided that to better understand the character, he’d have them pulled without Novocain. And so the wild man did just that—you can see the gaps in the interview below.
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Directed by Cage’s uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, this comedy has undeservedly flown under the radar for many years. There are many species of Cage movie—this one is an Average Film Elevated by Cage:
Average Film Elevated by Cage [noun]: A film with a serviceable script, decent direction and good supporting cast that is, by all definitions, OK, although perhaps somewhat forgettable. But then there’s Cage. Cage cages. Cage overwhelms. Cage takes the movie to new heights. See: The Family Man, Matchstick Men, Renfield.
Peggy Sue is a comedy that follows Kathleen Turner as the titular Peggy, an unhappy wife and mother, on the verge of divorce. She attends her 25th high school reunion, where she runs into her philandering husband, a former high school sweetheart named Charlie, played by Nicolas Cage. Overwhelmed by her regrets, she faints and when she wakes up she’s in high school again. Time-traveling hijinks ensue.
It’s a bit of a goofy oddball in the filmography of the man who directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, but trust me—you have to see this movie. Why? Because Nicolas Cage delivers a genuinely bonkers performance, and I do not say that lightly. In fact, his approach to the character of Charlie was so nuts that Kathleen Turner and essentially every single producer on the movie wanted him fired—the only reason he stayed was because his uncle refused to can him.
So what’s so nuts about it? Let’s start with how he looks—Cage demanded to style his hair in a ridiculous, poofy pompadour dyed blonde and to wear giant, shiny fake teeth. Next, the voice. In interviews, Cage has noted that he modeled Charlie’s voice on Gumby. Yes, the claymation character. Once you know that, you can’t unhear it. Cage unleashing sing-songy dialogue with all the wackiness of a Sunday morning special. What makes it even more fascinating is that Kathleen Turner is opposite him, giving a heartfelt, fully realized, earnest, naturalistic performance. She’s compelling as an older woman trapped in a young one’s body, full of regrets and uncertainty about her choices. And across from her is this goober, talking like Gumby.
But here’s the craziest thing of all. It works. Charlie, as a character, makes sense and is engaging and even a little tragic—and that’s because Cage’s performance, wildly enough, captures something about the naïve, thoughtless high school boy that makes the character pop off the screen. The experience of watching this movie, for me, was weird as hell because you know Cage’s performance is ridiculous—you can see those teeth and hear that voice—but at the same time, you’re fully feeling it. That’s why this is a fundamental Cage film, in my opinion. It fully demonstrates the man’s unearthly powers.
Of note: Peggy’s little sister is played by none other than future director extraordinaire, Sofia Coppola at 15 years old. The daughter of Francis and the cousin on Cage, she would direct The Virgin Suicides 13 years later.
It Could Happen to You (1994)
For those of you who don’t know, Nicolas Cage had a family-friendly comedy era in the early ’90s: Guarding Tess, Trapped in Paradise, Honeymoon in Vegas (not to be confused with his Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas), and this 1994 flick. Cage plays a young cop who wins 4 million dollars in the lottery and gives half the winnings to the cute waitress he jokingly agreed to split it with the day he bought the ticket. Both rom and com ensue. You might not expect it, but Cage can really nail a simple, earnest role like this—just a good guy falling in love with a lady. For anyone who thinks Cage can only play wacky characters and oscillate between whispering and yelling, watch this and you’re proved wrong instantly.
Of note: Cage’s role was originally meant for Arnold Schwarzenegger. When the big man decided to do The Last Action Hero instead, Cage signed on. That is quite the swap.
8MM (1999)
After David Fincher hit it big with Se7en, studios were looking to capitalize on the success of the dark, nihilistic crime thriller. So Columbia turned to … Joel Schumacher, of uh, Batman and Robin fame. The studio had a script penned by Se7en’s own Andrew Kevin Walker, and Schumacher was ready to turn to something a little less absurd than the now-infamous Batman movie he’d directed two years prior.
8MM stars Cage as a private investigator who stumbles into the world of snuff films. Tasked with finding a young girl who got involved in pornography, he dives into the darkest recesses of that world. As you would probably expect from the guy who’d just written Se7en, the movie takes some nasty turns from there. The supporting players really make this thriller work, specifically a young Joaquin Phoenix and James Gandolfini. There are certainly problems with this one—the movie’s second half doesn’t live up to its first, and Schumacher is pretty clearly doing a Fincher impression throughout—but it’s still a good movie, and notably one of the darkest that Cage has ever done. His performance is restrained, as required by the unpleasant material he's dealing with, and he delivers a rounded, compelling look at a man being dragged deeper and deeper into hell.
Of note: Andrew Kevin Walker hates this movie. The studio and Schumacher re-wrote parts of it to lighten the tone, most notably the ending, and Walker understandably wasn’t happy with that. He says he still hasn’t seen it.
The Trust (2016)
Cage stars alongside Elijah Wood (who is a vocal Cage fan and was actually a producer on Mandy) in this air-tight, funny, pulse-pounding little thriller. The plot is simple—Cage and Wood are cops who find out about a stash house for some criminals, so they plan to rob it. With a healthy dose of dark comedy, the movie keeps you on your toes. Cage’s detective comes off as a Grade A Goofball in the beginning—the mustache, the voice—but his character takes quite the dramatic turn. Unlike most of the other straight-to-video films of this Cage era, this one actually makes abundant use of his talent.
Of note: this movie has one of my favorite examples of a concise, visually-driven character moment. Wood’s character is either separated or divorced—we see him unhappily unpacking his things at his new apartment, including some of his former wife’s clothes. The state of his failed (or failing) marriage isn’t brought up again until quite a bit later in the movie, as he’s standing across the street from the stash house, casing the place. With the camera focused on Wood’s nervous expression, we hear a faint, rapid tapping. It’s source is unclear. The camera pans down to see that Wood is still wearing his wedding ring, and hitting it intently against the side of his coffee cup.
That’s such a masterful little touch—giving the character some weight and backstory in just a few seconds without wasting time on it or subjecting us to a heavy-handed monologue.
Mom and Dad (2017)
I mentioned earlier that there are certain species of Cage movie. This one’s a Self-Aware Nic Cage Nic Cage Movie.
Self-Aware Nic Cage Nic Cage Movie [noun]: A later-career Cage film made by a director who has definitely seen those “Nic Cage Losing His Shit” compilations on Youtube, and thinks they’re hilarious. Fully leans into Cage’s online persona. See: Willy’s Wonderland, Army of One.
This horror/comedy is one of the best of those. The premise is actually quite terrifying—at the same time, every parent in the world is suddenly consumed with the overwhelming desire to brutally murder their children. Insanity ensues. Cage plays the father of two children, who rages against his lost youth and vigor as he chases them around the house. In one of the best scenes, he delivers a Cagetastic monologue as he dismantles a pool table, which includes this immortal line: “I remember the kid I used to be like it was four fucking minutes ago! My feet barely touched the ground back then! My kill ratio was 9/10, it was 100% sex!” This is Cage at his most unhinged, with a director (Brian Taylor) who knows exactly how to harness that energy to create both comedy and horror gold.
Of note: Brian Taylor was half of the directing team behind Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. That’s how he and Cage first met … and it’s also a movie you will notice is not on this list.
Color Out of Space (2019)
Nicolas Cage and H.P. Lovecraft—a pairing that makes my rotten little heart sing. Cage stars as the patriarch of a New England family that quickly begins to fall to pieces when a piece of infected alien debris lands in their yard. The strange alien powers turn the family nuts, and Cage performs that turn by oscillating between a boring family man and a complete nutjob. For the latter, he brings back the Transatlantic accent that he used to such amazing effect in Vampire’s Kiss (an accent that he’s said is based on how his father spoke). Unlike many movies in this period of Cage’s career, this one has a lot more going for it than just his presence—director Richard Stanley brings visual flair, the special effects are frankly alarming, and Lovecraft’s masterful source material provides the backbone of a compelling horror tale.
Of note: Stanley explicitly asked Cage to use the same performance style he did in Vampire’s Kiss, which explain the triumphant return of the accent.