“Leaving Las Vegas” (1995)
Cage’s two Vegas-centric films couldn’t be more different. Here, in a performance that deservedly won him an Oscar, Cage is a screenwriter who can’t control his drinking, and he doesn't want to. So with little desire to turn his life around, he decides to check out the only way he knows — by drowning himself in alcohol. It’s a dark and brilliant turn, and one where there’s little room for silver linings. Upon meeting prostitute Elisabeth Shue, audiences might think she’ll talk him out of his liquid suicide but she ultimately supports him in this ghastly endeavor, and the two find a connection that’s almost impossible to understand.
“Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992)
Sure, “Honeymoon” is somewhat formulaic, but it’s extremely fun and simply irresistible. Cage and girlfriend Sarah Jessica Parker are in Vegas and planning to get hitched when he suffers a bad beat at the poker table to James Caan. So bad, in fact, that the only way for Cage to pay off Caan is to allow Parker to hook up with him for one night. Cage agrees, until he finds out the one night will take place in Hawaii, and then he decides to do anything to stop them, including — and this is the scene the for which the movie will always be remembered — jumping out of an airplane with a bunch of Elvis impersonators.
“Valley Girl” (1983)
Still a teenager at 19 when he made it, Cage is a punk rocker from Hollywood who comes to the San Fernando Valley with his buddy and immediately becomes smitten with local Valley Girl cutie Deborah Foreman. It’s a Los Angeles-based “Romeo and Juliet,” and certainly the film that propelled Cage’s career. There’s a sweetness about the movie and the couple’s budding relationship that still resonates now, and it shows a tender side of Cage that we don’t see too much of anymore. It’s an overlooked gem, one that stands with some of the great Southern California teen comedies of the 1980s, including “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
“Face/Off” (1997)
Back when director John Woo was something special, there was “Face/Off.” Cage and Travolta are able to exchange identities, literally by taking the face of one and putting it on the other. Travolta is an FBI agent who realizes that Cage has the ability to blow up the entire city of L.A., and the only way for him to find out where the bomb is located is to talk to Cage’s brother. So after they switch faces, it all goes well — until Cage starts ruining Travolta’s home life by threatening to kill wife Joan Allen, who thinks he’s still Travolta. Make sense? Rent it and see why it was brilliant in both its concept and execution.
“Adaptation” (2002)
Even watching multiple times, it was always difficult to figure out when reality was intercepting with fiction, and vice versa. A masterpiece of a script by Charlie Kaufman, who Cage plays in the film as a frustrated writer forced to adapt a book by Meryl Streep with a deadline up against him. He also twin brother (also Cage) who’s making his life exceedingly difficult by coming up with hackneyed scripts that will make a lot of money but will ruin his reputation. Nominated for three Oscars — Cage, Streep, Kaufman — plus a win for Chris Cooper, “Adaptation” is a thinking man’s movie and the kind that make for some longwinded post-viewing discussion.