10 Best So-Bad-They’re-Good Nicolas Cage Movies, Ranked

As Community once explored and explained, Nicolas Cage is a complex figure within the world of cinema; an actor who’s achieved greatness in some films, and has just as often been at the center of many less-than-amazing movies, too. That’s part of what makes Cage fascinating. He’s perhaps the biggest wild card working in the world of film today, defying expectations and unabashedly always doing his thing, not to mention committing to almost every movie he stars in, regardless of quality.

This all adds up and ensures that there are numerous Nicolas Cage movies that could be called bad, for lack of a better word, with the best-case scenario being that some of these bad movies are actually kind of fun. “So bad it’s good” is a term that can come up fairly often when looking at some of these lesser (or more bizarre) movies within Cage’s body of work, with the following films being some of the best so bad they’re good movies the actor’s been featured in.

10 ‘Rage’ (2014)

Director: Paco Cabezas

Cage being in a movie literally called Rage is an admittedly enticing concept, and that’s before learning that it revolves around gangsters and is also an action/thriller movie. More specifically, its plot sees Russian mobsters kidnapping someone they really shouldn’t have, because the victim is an ex-criminal, and he gets his old gang back together to enact vengeance on these kidnappers.

Its 2014 release means it came out during a somewhat rough time for Nicolas Cage, and indeed, a rough time to be a Nicolas Cage fan, as the actor appeared in countless low-budget action/crime/thriller movies to get out of debt. Thankfully, Rage is just stupid enough to be one of the more enjoyable movies of this period, though it also should be noted that plenty of better (or worse, depending on your point of view) so bad they’re good Cage movies exist.

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9 ‘Stolen’ (2012)

Director: Simon West

Speaking of the 2010s and Nicolas Cage, Stolen was one of the more infamous and (somewhat) high-profile Cage films of this era, re-teaming Nicolas Cage and director Simon West for the first time in 15 years. Previously, the two had done 1997’s Con Air, which is a dumb film, sure, but also something of a minor action classic, feeling a bit Die Hard on a plane.

Stolen is not any kind of classic, at least not in the traditional sense, being another movie – alongside Rage – where Cage plays a criminal whose daughter has been kidnapped, leading to him becoming desperate and violent to get her back, and get back at her kidnappers. It’s potentially dopey fun for lovers of the kind of trash that Cage can almost make work, even when very little else about the movie is even coming close to working.

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8 ‘Never on Tuesday’ (1989)

Director: Adam Rifkin

The mere existence of Never on Tuesday is baffling, as the entire thing feels like a fever dream. Some things have to be seen to be believed, but even if Never on Tuesday is seen, it remains a challenge to believe it even exists. On the surface, it feels like a comedic movie about a road trip, but certain sequences and creative decisions are bizarre in a way that might even unsettle David Lynch.

Nicolas Cage’s odd cameo in the film demonstrates this particularly well, as he enters the movie with a fake nose, strange haircut, and bizarre voice, acting creepy and then disappearing as abruptly as he entered. It’s one of the actor’s strangest roles, but he doesn’t even have the weirdest cameo in Never on Tuesday, as that “honor” would probably have to go to Charlie Sheen.

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7 ‘Trespass’ (2011)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Director Joel Schumacher’s most noteworthy addition to the so bad it’s good canon would have to be 1997’s Batman & Robin, which has both detractors and fans who appreciate the campiness of it all. Trespass was also directed by Schumacher, and though it’s not quite as memorable as a classic bad movie, it is odd enough to kind of work, despite it not exactly being good in the traditional sense.

Trespass has a surprisingly great cast, though, with Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, and Ben Mendelsohn starring in this film about a home invasion targeting a wealthy family. It’s got a confined setting, some fairly ludicrous plot twists and developments, silly dialogue, and some rather big performances, feeling like a melodramatic thriller that might be a little self-aware, or might be trying to play things straight; it’s hard to tell, some of the time.

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6 ‘Sonny’ (2002)

Director: Nicolas Cage

It’s not widely known that Nicolas Cage is also a director on top of being an actor, but that could be a result of him having only directed a single movie: 2002’s Sonny. It’s one he’s also featured in as an actor, playing a pimp known as Acid Yellow, which is just one of many bizarre things about the movie, the main plot of which is centered on a young man trying to make ends meet after being discharged from the army.

The entirety of Sonny feels a little fever dream-ish, and kind of in a way that proves oddly intoxicating, if a little exhausting, eventually. Cage’s small role in his own movie is probably the most intensely strange and absorbing part of the film, but the energy throughout the entire thing is just off, and it’s honestly kind of captivating. Confusing and unsettling, sure, but still somehow captivating.

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5 ‘The Humanity Bureau’ (2017)

Director: Rob W. King

Time will tell whether The Humanity Bureau has the capacity to one day become a cult classic science fiction movie, but for now, it does at least feel like a ridiculously stupid and oddly engaging one. Narratively, things take place in a particularly bleak-looking 2030, with environmental and financial problems necessitating the creation of an agency that enforces people to be efficient, and punishes those deemed inefficient.

As a warning of sorts about where the world could be headed, it’s too preposterous and ham-fisted to take seriously, with the film’s message and thematic content also being undone by a poor screenplay, less-than-great acting, and general technical incompetence. It’s a bit of a cinematic trainwreck, but hey, The Humanity Bureau is hard to look away from, and is “underrated,” as far as bad Nicolas Cage movies go.

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4 ‘Inconceivable’ (2017)

Director: Jonathan Baker

If you can read the title of this 2017 movie without thinking about Wallace Shawn, then you probably haven’t seen The Princess Bride. You should get on that; it’s very good. Anyway, speaking of very good, Inconceivable is… wait, Inconceivable isn’t very good. It’s the opposite of that. It melts the brain; it’s wild – it’s… words fail. Inconceivable’s inconceivable.

It feels like a fair few episodes of a particularly silly soap opera crammed into one 105-minute-long movie, centering on two mothers who engage in a psychological – and eventually physical – battle, with Nicolas Cage’s character caught in the middle. It’s incredibly overwrought and remarkably stupid, but as is the case when Cage’s energy is combined with less-than-great filmmaking, the resulting movie that is Inconceivable is kind of fun to watch.

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3 ‘Zandalee’ (1991)

Director: Sam Pillsbury

An erotic thriller of the trashiest variety, Zandalee honestly scratches the same itch as The Room, owing to both its overall quality and its basic plot. Said plot revolves around a woman, the titular Zandalee, becoming bored with her marriage and striking up an affair with someone a little more out-there and exciting; a man played by Nicolas Cage. In this sense, at least the casting got things kind of right, because Cage does generally seem weirder than Judge Reinhold, who plays the guy getting cheated on.

Naturally, things get complex and ultimately tragic, with Zandalee hitting the beats you’d expect a film about an affair gone wrong to hit. What’s unexpected about Zandalee is how wild some of the details are, beyond the basic story being told, and just how over-the-top it gets stylistically. Its most famous scene, understandably, involves Nicolas Cage beating up some works of art and then covering himself in paint. It’s movie magic.

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2 ‘The Wicker Man’ (2006)

Director: Neil LaBute

1973’s The Wicker Man is an example of folk horror at its absolute best. The 2006 remake can’t even be called folk horror, really; it was either going for a slightly different feel, or wanted to be a more modern take on the horror sub-genre and failed spectacularly. In any event, the movie was a notorious critical disaster, and perhaps one of the worst horror remakes of all time.

Thankfully, even though the story of a sheriff looking into the mysterious disappearance of a young girl is boring, the Nicolas Cage performance at the center of the film – plus much of the dialogue throughout – is enthralling. The Wicker Man (2006) spawned plenty of memes, and it’s easy to see why, with it being, in many ways, the most famous and (ironically) popular of Cage’s less-than-stellar movies released so far.

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1 ‘Deadfall’ (1993)

Director: Christopher Coppola

Deadfall brought together a few members of the Coppola acting family, including Nicolas Cage (obviously), Talia Shire (sister of Francis Ford Coppola), and Christopher Coppola, who directed and co-wrote the film. It might well have the most entertaining Nicolas Cage performance of all time, at least as far as his bad movies go… and honestly, the commitment to the role on offer here rivals some of his most passionate performances in actually good movies, too.

It’s a convoluted crime movie that feels muddled and clunky, and the parts of the movie that don’t feature Nicolas Cage hamming it up can be a little boring. But the parts where Cage is going full Cage make Deadfall an essential watch for anyone who finds this darker and stranger side of the actor’s filmography compelling (or, at the very least, those people should watch the best clips on YouTube).

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NEXT: The Worst Nicolas Cage Movies of All Time, Ranked