Summary
Nicolas Cage has made some interesting choices when it comes to the roles he plays, and he doesn’t shy away from playing eccentric, evil, or unsettling roles. Every role Cage has taken is memorable, regardless of how the movies are received, and the debate rages on about whether or not his talent is conscious or intuitive.
A prolific actor with an impressive resumé, Nicolas Cage got his first role in a major film as an unnamed character inFast Times At Ridgemont High. It wasValley Girlin 1983 that gave him his first real breakthrough role as a supporting character, and the roller coaster of his career continues to entertain his fans, even when he’s a villain.
6Sympathy For The Devil
IMDb Rating: 5.5
Cage leans into thehilariously overblown and outspokencrazy person role inSympathy for the Devil.This is a true psychological horror film and it’s a genuinely terrifying interpretation of a character trope that Cage has made famous, or made him famous, depending on your opinion.
David Chamberlain is an innocent man on his way to the hospital where his wife is about to give birth when a stranger, a character known only as The Passenger, gets into his car. He forces David to continue driving at gunpoint, and what follows is a dangerous game that includes several references to Satan, particularly when the Passenger shoots up a diner and burns it down.
The movie has this title for a reason, however, and when the twist is finally revealed, David isn’t as innocent as he seems to be, and the Passenger isn’t exactly a stranger. The viewer might be asking who the villain really was at this story’s conclusion.
5Vampire’s Kiss
IMDb Rating: 6.1
A stellar example of Gallow’s Humor where everyone gets what’s coming to them,Vampire’s Kissis a cult classic that’s been and continues to be the topic of many heated debates. It’s a subversive take on the genre of horror-comedy, featuring an abusive, selfish, and emotionally fragile executive obsessed with the idea of being a vampire.
It might be unfair to call Peter Loew, Cage’s character in the film, a villain, but he’s a terrible person and it’s his personality that drives the plot. He’s the worst kind of 1980s stereotype, right down to the yuppie taste and oversized shoulder-pad suit jackets, and Cage plays the part to the hilt. After watching Peter abuse and humiliate almost everyone he comes in contact with, his story comes to a perfectly fitting if not bloody conclusion.
4Renfield
IMDb Rating: 6.4
Nicolas Cage reprises the role of a vampire inRenfield, and this time he’s not only the real thing,he’s Count Dracula himself. His faithful minion, the unfortunate former real estate clerk Renfield, is based on the character from the book who met the Count before Jonathan Harker did.
Part of the running joke of the horror-comedyRenfieldis the parallel between the language used to describe abusive relationships and being under the control of a real supernatural monster. The movie opens in a therapy group and the comparison is hilariously clear. Renfield is sympathetic with the attendees but there’s another, more sinister reason he attends.
This is an ideal way for Dracula’s obedient familiar to track down potential victims, but Renfieldtargets the abusers instead andbrings them as prey back to his master. He’s trying to atone for helping Dracula kill and eat thousands of innocents throughout the centuries, but only the blood of innocents will satisfy Dracula.
3Face/Off
IMDb Rating: 7.3
An ambitious movie that mixes a crime thriller with science fiction and body horror,Face/Offis one of John Woo’s more popular action films. Cage and Travolta chewing up every scene together is pretty stellar, and the friction between the two actors works well for the premise of this movie.
Cage plays organized crime boss and violent drug dealer Castor Troy, whose villainous nature is taken to the next level when his assassination attempt on his arch-rival, police investigator Sean Archer, goes wrong and ends up killing Archer’s son. There was already a vendetta between the two men, and now it’s deeply personal.
As the title implies, Cage spends about half of this movie playing the good guy after switching faces with the villain as part of an elaborate plan to steal Troy’s identity and track down the whole gang. This backfires when Troy wakes up, steals Archer’s face, and murders everyone who knows about the undercover project.
2Longlegs
One of Nicolas Cage’s most recent roles, as the serial killer known as Longlegs, is also one of the most terrifying. Themovie is a combinationof investigative crime, horror, and psychological thriller, and it’s hinted the protagonist has clairvoyant abilities. That’s a hint of what’s to come as this multigenerational tale of terror unfolds.
Maika Monroe plays the main character, and her character is FBI investigator Lee Harker, who is following the mysterious occult signs left at each crime scene to track down Longlegs. The viewer follows Harker as she determines the connections between the families of the murdered children and the occult connections start to manifest, literally.
1Lord Of War
IMDb Rating: 7.6
A study on the banality of evil, this is one of Cage’s most critically acclaimed movies, and this role could alsobe the most terrifying. He plays Yuri Orlov, a charming and non-threatening everyman who comes from a working-class immigrant family, but his rags-to-riches story has a lifetime of death behind it.
Yuri deals in guns, and his worldwide empire services everyone who can pay, from individuals on the street to the highest officials in government. His clients are some of the most powerful and influential people on the planet, which is why his arch nemesis, a good cop played by Ethan Hawk, can’t ever catch him. Even at the very end, when everything Yuri has built seems to have fallen apart, he slimes his way out of consequences yet again to continue his career, paved with bullets and blood.
