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Actor · Voice actor · 1964

Nicolas Cage

8: briefs
13:00: average
104 min: in total

On film.briefs8

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Amy Heckerling · 1982

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) is Amy Heckerling’s feature debut, adapted by Cameron Crowe from his immersive non-fiction study of Clairemont High. Set over one school year in the San Fernando Valley, it tracks Stacy Hamilton’s freshman year, Brad’s senior drift, Spicoli’s stoner defiance, and Rat’s nervous courtship — all without narrative hierarchy or moral framing. Shot with documentary restraint by Matthew F. Leonetti and edited for rhythm not revelation, it treats adolescence as a series of low-stakes rehearsals, not a crucible. Its authenticity lies in patience, not accuracy.

Moonstruck

Norman Jewison · 1987

A Brooklyn widow engaged to a man who leaves for Sicily accepts his estranged brother’s invitation to the opera — and finds herself drawn into a love that upends family loyalties, generational habits, and her own understanding of mourning. Directed by Norman Jewison from John Patrick Shanley’s Oscar-winning script, it treats romance as a force as elemental as gravity, staged with operatic precision and performed with unwavering sincerity.

Rumble Fish

Francis Ford Coppola · 1983

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of S. E. Hinton’s novel is a formally rigorous, high-contrast black-and-white fable about adolescent longing, imitation, and time. Starring Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke, it treats Rusty James’s worship of his enigmatic brother as a ritual rather than a relationship — sustained by Stephen H. Burum’s expressionist cinematography and Stewart Copeland’s percussive, location-recorded score.

The Rock

Michael Bay · 1996

The Rock is a 1996 action thriller directed by Michael Bay, set on Alcatraz Island, where a rogue Marine general threatens San Francisco with VX gas. An FBI chemist and a retired SAS operative must infiltrate the prison to disarm the rockets. Anchored by Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, it prioritises spatial logic, procedural detail and moral calibration over political complexity or stylistic experimentation.

Wild at Heart

David Lynch · 1990

David Lynch’s 1990 Palme d’Or winner adapts Barry Gifford’s novel into a hyper-stylised Southern Gothic crime film starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as a couple fleeing violence across the American South. Anchored by Elvis obsession, Wizard of Oz motifs and Angelo Badalamenti’s score, it trades psychological realism for emotional extremity — landing some sequences with unforgettable force, while others rely too heavily on shock. Its value lies in its unwavering commitment to a singular, dissonant vision.

Face/Off

John Woo · 1997

John Woo’s 1997 action thriller Face/Off stars John Travolta and Nicolas Cage as an FBI agent and terrorist who swap faces via experimental surgery. Built on operatic violence, precise choreography, and dual performances of startling commitment, it uses identity exchange as narrative engine rather than philosophical probe. Shot by Oliver Wood and scored by John Powell, it balances absurd premise with rigorous craft — delivering coherent, emotionally charged set pieces across 133 minutes. Though thin on thematic depth and scientific rigour, its confidence, control, and clarity make it a durable artefact of late-20th-century studio action cinema.

Raising Arizona

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 1987

A 1987 Coen brothers comedy starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as an ex-con and ex-cop who kidnap a baby to start a family. Shot in Arizona with Barry Sonnenfeld’s vivid cinematography and Carter Burwell’s folk-inflected score, it balances surreal farce with emotional sincerity. Though divisive on release, it has since become a cult classic praised for its originality, dialogue, and tonal audacity.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Bob Persichetti · 2018

After a radioactive spider bite and Peter Parker's death at the hands of Kingpin, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales is thrown together with five other Spider-People pulled in from parallel universes to stop a machine that threatens to destroy them all. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's screenplay, directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, pairs a six-Spider-Man ensemble with a hand-drawn comic-book visual technique built specifically to make computer animation look like it was inked and printed.