Cage holds the proceedings together with his charisma, allowing you to marvel at and empathize with the character's depravity. (It helps that the absolutely bonkers case also includes Evan Medes, Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer, Brad Dourif, Shea Whigham, Michael Shannon, and Xzibit!) When you think the entire movie might collapse into absurdity, it stumbles onto a moment of stupefying beauty or destabilizing horror. But director Werner Herzog, pursuing some bizarre tangents (the iguanas!) while playing other parts of the script's noir plot relatively straight, and Cage, plumbing the depths of addiction like he did in Leaving Las Vegas, prove to be an irresistible duo. With its CBS procedural-like title, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans looks like a cynical attempt to reboot a singular '90s artifact for a new era, transporting the action from NYC to post-Katrina Louisiana. There's no topping Abel Ferrara's original Bad Lieutenant, a lacerating portrait of Catholic guilt featuring an all-time-great Harvey Keitel performance as the titular lousy cop. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2018) In honor of Cage's wild and weird career, Thrillist is ranking his 20 best performances.ġ8. Almost no one else could pull off a self-reflexive gambit to such a degree. Now, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent-a hyper-meta curio that wouldn't be possible without the electricity of recent projects like Mandy and Color Out of Space-lets Nicolas Cage play Nicolas Cage, literally. He calls his technique ' nouveau shamanism,' a way to heighten one's imagination in order to feel like a particular character.

When he doesn't let loose, his films tend to sink (see: It Could Happen to You and The Family Man).

It works because it makes sense: 'Gonzo' has long been the go-to word to describe Cage's performances, and if he is testing the limits of just how unhinged a movie star can be, that trajectory has roots in early roles like Raising Arizona and Wild at Heart.

(Imagine Cage's Jack Torrance.) America's wildest actor, now 58, is enjoying a renaissance that adheres to no playbook anyone could have contrived a decade ago. What precedent does Hollywood have for someone like Nicolas Cage? He makes Jack Nicholson look buttoned-up.

Nic cage wild at heart