6 Nicolas Cage movies you can’t miss before seeing it in “The Weight of Talent”

With a filmography that exceeds 100 titles, perhaps Nicolas Cage the only character he needed to play was an actor very similar to himself —so much so that he bears his name— who ends up tangled up with a narco fan and some federal agents.

Cage has worked in unforgettable films and others that are not allowed to be seen; many have great directors (his uncle Francis Ford Coppola, Alan Parker, David Lynch, Werner Herzog) and he himself has directed one (Sonny); almost all of them have impressive casts: Meryl Streep, Sean Connery, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, John Travolta, Penélope Cruz, Laurence Fishburne, Holly Hunter, John Hurt, Patricia Arquette, Chris Cooper, Cher, John Goodman.

But in general, the name that attracts the public on the posters of those hundred works is his. Cage is a movie star but he is also an emblem of cinema in decades of tectonic changes in the industry, which he has managed to gracefully go from the sublime to the ridiculous and has adapted to represent each era.

Some of his best performances are not streaming: the recent Pigthe one that gave him the Oscar, Goodbye to Las Vegas (Leaving Las Vegas). Either The Law of the Street (Rumble Fish), The Orchid Thief (Adaptation), Bad Lieutenant (Bad Lieutenant) either Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin). But many others are on the main platforms. With this colorful selection you can better prepare yourself for the experience of seeing him play himself in The weight of talent (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent).

Educating Arizona (Raising Arizona1987) – Star+

In this movie of the brothers Ethan Y Joel Coenswho had just debuted before with just bloodNicolas Cage is an ex-convict, HI, and Holly Hunter it’s an ex-cop, Ed, who they’ve fallen in love with so many times that she’s walked him into the station. They marry and settle in Arizona where they hope to start a family. But after the long search for a pregnancy, a medical consultation informs them that it will not be possible. Since they can’t adopt due to HI’s criminal history, they get an idea: local cheap furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona has had quintuplets and they could take one. In the meantime, child, it is difficult for them to realize what is missing.

HI then kidnaps one of the babies, which Ed gets excited about. With a series of subplots, the life of the couple is complicated not only by their tasks as parents but also by a chase that fills the film with memorable, absurd and funny scenes. make up the cast John GoodmanWilliam Forsythe Y Frances McDormand.

Wild Heart (Wild at Heart1990) – HBO Max

It is the version that only David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholand Drive) could have made novel Barry Gifford. Perhaps that is why this story of love and outlaws won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nicolas Cage is Sailor, who has just been released from prison and the first thing he does is look for his girlfriend, Lula, played by Laura Dern. Unaware that he cannot leave the place since she is on probation, they hit the road determined to flee. Lula’s psychopathic mother will do the impossible —starting by sending a mobster after the couple, with orders to kill Sailor— to prevent her daughter from staying in that relationship with the only person in the world who knows that she committed the crime. murder of her husband.

A car accident is presented as a bad omen for Lula and Sailor, who until now had been traveling happily. A series of sordid events and horrible memories follows, sustained by the celebrated performances of the protagonists and also of Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd Y Harry Dean Stanton.

Counterface (Face/Off1997) – Star+

john woo (A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled) directs Nicholas Cage as Castor Troy and John Travolta as FBI agent Sean Archer. Troy tried to kill Archer in the past, and the agent’s son was killed in the attempt. Deadly enemies ever since, Troy and Archer play cat and mouse for a few years, until the criminal is apprehended and knocked unconscious by a blow. But the agent does not have time to celebrate: Castor and his brother Polux Troy have built a bomb that, between chemicals and radiation, could annihilate the population of Los Angeles.

When Polux refuses to speak, Archer enlists a surgeon to change his face to Castor’s, to find out where the bomb is and how to disable it. But at that moment Castor wakes up and decides to force the surgeon to give him Archer’s face. The confrontation between the two has an extra value for the real Archer: to recover his family and his career.

Alessandro Nivola, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon Y Nick Cassavetes They complete the main cast.

Warlord (Lord of War2005) – Prime Video

In the early eighties, when the Eastern Bloc still existed, Yuri Orlov sold a few weapons to gangsters in his neighborhood. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a wealth of weapons became available to anyone who wanted to trade them. Yuri, who doesn’t want to be a restaurant employee all his life, sees an opportunity to make a lot of money selling everything from Kalashnikovs to tanks to the highest bidder, including a warlord of Africa and her unbalanced son.

An Interpol agent, Jack Valentine, follows in his footsteps as he battles his rivals in the business and increases his fortune. However, not even Valentine knows exactly the nature of his mission, and as he reveals himself, both he and Yuri must face his consciences. Written and directed by Andrew Nickolthis film brings together Nicolas Cage as Orlov, Ethan Hawke as Valentine and a cast that includes Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan Y Donald Sutherland.

The rock (rock1996) – Star+

Michael Bay directed this action-packed, suspenseful thriller about a gentle biochemist who ends up embroiled in a high-profile military operation. Stanley Goodspeed is happy because he just found out that he is going to be a father when he receives a call from the director of the FBI: a group of soldiers has broken the chain of command and has barricaded themselves on Alcatraz Island to protest because the government does not pay benefits to black ops veterans. They have 81 tourists hostage and chemical weapons that they threaten to use against San Francisco.

Stanley knows how to disarm those devices; the government asks him to enter the island accompanied by someone who knows him very well: a former British intelligence agent who was long detained there. Nicolas Cage is the scientist, Sean Connery the spy and Ed Harris the rebel soldier accompany them John SpencerTony ToddWilliam ForsytheDavid Morse Y Michael Biehn.

Lives to the limit (Bringing Out the Dead, 1999) – Star+

Nicolas Cage is Frank Pierce, a paramedic who works nights in New York City; unlike his ambulance companions, who have their heads in food or in religion, he thinks obsessively about the people he has not been able to save, and in particular he is haunted by the ghost of a woman dead for six months before. The exhausting work is about to end with him; he tries to quit, to get kicked out, but nothing works and he keeps coming back every night to the brutality of the urban world and the disease.

Then he meets Mary Burke, played by Patricia Arquette, the daughter of a heart patient he has treated. Ella, a former addict, waits in the hospital for her father to recover while he forms a sympathetic bond with Frank. with address of Martin Scorsesethis movie is a tour-de-force for Cage, who must push his character to the limit on three consecutive days aboard the ambulance. The cast includes Ving Rhames, John Goodman, Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt Y Queen Latifah.