Nicolas ‘Nic’ Cage took home the Best Actor Oscar for his turn as a disillusioned screenwriter, slowly drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. He also has a host of Razzie noms for worst performance in films, from superhero flop Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance to the infamous “No, not the bees,” scene in the terribly misjudged re-do of The Wicker Man. Mind you, the same mean-spirited organisation also credited him with a Redeemer Award for his nuanced role in Pig.
In other words, Cage’s prolific career is gloriously all over the place. We genuinely love his wild swings, hits and misses, so much so that there’s no such thing as a bad Nic Cage movie. Even the goofy turkeys are made magnificent by dint of his sublimely unhinged delivery. It’s why we lapped it up when he satirised his ridiculousness in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent alongside a game Pedro Pascal.
In honour of an SBS World Movies season bowing down to Cage every Sunday at 8:30PM in October, here are eight free-range crackers you should definitely check out.
Mandy
tapped into Cage’s penchant for revenge flicks but cannily brought an ‘80s neon-infused noirish rigour to the bat shittery that spins out of a blood cult crashing the hippy dip love thang going on between Cage’s Red and Andrea Riseborough’s title character. Falling halfway between John Carpenter and Stanley Kubrick, this acid trip gone wrong – thanks to Linus Roache’s big bad – is a sweaty, sketchy delirium that kick-started a new era of uncaged Cage, from Sundance to being crowned Best Actor at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
Nic Cage goes the full Nic Cage in 'Mandy'. Credit: Movie still
Peggy Sue Got Married
Cage’s real surname is Coppola, and he’s the nephew of esteemed auteur Francis Ford. It’s easy to imagine unchained Cage in Apocalypse Now, The Godfather trilogy or even the blood-drenched melodrama of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Renfield got him close-ish). Instead, Unc tapped him as the philandering leading man in this smart rom-com centred on Oscar-nommed Kathleen Turner as his estranged wife. Collapsing at her school reunion, she finds herself thrust back in time and into her teenage body. Can they get it back together as kids in this unexpected re-do?
Peggy Sue Got Married is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Joe
Before he rebooted the Halloween franchise, director David Gordon Green cast Cage as an ex-con with a heart of gold in this brooding two-hander that scored co-star Tye Sheridan the Marcello Mastroianni Best Young Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival. Cage gets to lean into both his softer and his trapped animalistic side as the eponymous Joe, a lumberjack who takes Sheridan’s teenaged Gary under his wing only to rattle the cage of the lad’s seriously vicious father (Gary Poulter).
Joe airs on SBS World Movies Sunday 22 October at 8:30PM and will be available to stream at SBS On Demand 20 October.
The Trust
There’s a touch of the outré Cage in Elijah Wood’s post-hobbit movie choices, so perhaps it was inevitable they would be drawn into one another’s wildly oscillating orbits, as they are in this snappy heist flick from sibling directorial duo Alex and Benjamin Brewer. Playing a pair of Vegas cops with their fingers dipped in a cashed-up con’s secret vault stash. This one’s worth it on the price of Cage’s out-there line readings alone, even if he doesn’t go full throttle.
The Trust airs on SBS World Movies Sunday 8 October at 8:30PM and is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
The Frozen Ground
Continuing a trend of solid pairings in Cage movies, he re-joins his Con Air co-star John Cusack in this true-crime drama from Kiwi director Scott Walker. Except this time, Cusack brings the menace as creeping serial killer Robert Hansen, who’s play-acting upstanding citizen despite Spring Breakers star Vanessa Hudgens’ survivor Cindy’s attempt to expose his villainy. Cage plays the Alaskan state trooper on his tail, with Australian actor Radha Mitchell popping up as his wife in this ice-cold procedural.
The Frozen Ground
The Frozen Ground airs on SBS World Movies Sunday 1 October at 8:30PM and will be available to stream at SBS On Demand for 30 days after broadcast.
Dog Eat Dog
If you’re after a hit of that pure Cage crack, you can count on Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ scribe and American Gigolo director Paul Schrader to bring it. And he does, casting Willem Dafoe as a feral baddie who kicks off this schlocker by murdering both his girlfriend and her daughter over a secret stash of porn. Yes, it’s a rare maniacal turn that overshadows Cage, but Nic’s also in full dementor alongside future Renfield co-star Christopher Matthew Cook as this thoroughly unsavoury trio tears through Cleveland on a riotously stylish crime spree that won’t end well.
Cage and Dafoe in Dog Eat Dog
Jiu Jitsu
As we fast approach the overcooked Thanksgiving turkey end of the Cage continuum, we cannot overlook the contribution of Greek-American filmmaker Dimitri Logothetis. Having reanimated ‘80s action heroes Jean Claude-Van Damme and Christopher Lambert in the comparably grounded Kickboxer series, this one takes that series’ lead, real-life kickboxer and stuntman Alain Moussi, and pairs him with a scene-stealing Cage alongside martial arts stalwarts JuJu Chan, Tony Jaa and Marrese Crump in this Mortal Kombat-style throwdown with aliens who punctually attempt to invade earth every six years. There’s not a lick of sense to be had.
Jiu Jitsu is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Trespass
Sound the Nicole Kidman klaxon!!! The Oscar-winner inexplicably returns to the side of Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher, who probably should have retired after how badly he bombed follow-up Batman & Robin. She plays a diamond dealing Cage’s wife in this shonky home invasion thriller in which – Sound the Mendo klaxon!!! – they are attacked by armed gang leader Ben Mendelssohn, who goes toe-to-toe with Cage in unchained mentally mode. The matter-meets-antimatter, universe-destroying potential of this astoundingly bad dialogue and delivery three-way should have spawned more memes. You’re welcome.
Nicolas Cage in Trespass (2011).
Focus On: Nicolas Cage SBS World Movies Lineup
| Title | Airing on SBS World Movies | Stream on SBS On Demand |
| The Frozen Ground | Sunday 1st October 8:30PM | Available to stream for 30 days after broadcast |
| The Trust | Sunday 8th October 8:30PM | Now streaming |
| Dog Eat Dog | Sunday 15th October 8:30PM | Available to stream for 30 days after broadcast |
| Joe | Sunday 22nd October 8:30PM | Available to stream from 20th October |
| Windtalkers | Sunday 29th October 8:30PM | Will not be available on SBS On Demand |
Seeking Justice will also be coming to SBS On Demand from 20 October.
READ MORE
Top new series in October 2023
