News

When thinking of the career of Nicolas Cage, it's hard for just one character to come to mind. The actor has given so many memorable and acclaimed performances over his prolific career and created many iconic characters. But every fan inevitably has their own favorite Cage character.

From his valiant heroes to his malicious villains and all the other eccentric characters in between, there is a lot for fans to choose from. Cage's fans over on Reddit passionately shared their opinions about which of his many characters stands out among the rest as the very best.

Updated on December 1st, 2022 by Jordan Iacobucci:

Nicolas Cage may have just celebrated his 40th anniversary of working as an actor, but recent films like the hit action comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent prove that he is still far from the end of his career. As audiences eagerly await to see the...

Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spoof: Gerber & Pozdorovkin Indulge Bout

You probably know him by his wildly exaggerated media coined title, the ‘Merchant of Death’, or you might even remember Nicolas Cage’s war mongering Hollywood fictionalization of the man in Lord of War, but the real life Viktor Bout, though undeniably complicit in the black market arms trade, may have been more a business savvy buffoon than the master of ballistics he’s thought to be. Collaborating for the first time, directors Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin paint a very different picture of the man than we are used to seeing. Harvesting a wealth of hilarious and humanizing home movies shot by Bout himself and his wife, Alla, the filmmakers reveal a man not obsessed with weaponry nor money, but one whose joy springs from time spent with his adoring network of family and friends, as well as from the simple pleasures of tourism,...

I enjoyed Andrew Niccol‘s Lord of War when it came out in 2005. It was a fast-paced, enjoyable ride down the rabbit hole of the illegal arms trade, but I had no idea Nicolas Cage‘s character Yuri Orlov was based on a real life “Merchant of Death”. His name is Viktor Bout and he wasn’t even arrested until three years after Hollywood sensationalized the myth of his businessman seen as an international criminal throughout the media. As directors Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin sought to tell a tale within this sector of gun smuggling, he of course would prove the logical subject to focus on. The fact he was an amateur filmmaker who documented his travels via home video only made the prospect more intriguing.

Their documentary The Notorious Mr. Bout begins with the 2008 sting operation that brought the titular Russian down. There he sits in grainy black...

Read More: Exclusive: Meet The Man Who Inspired 'Lord Of War' In Clip From Sundance Doc 'The Notorious Mr. Bout' Andrew Niccol's 2005 film "Lord of War" earned Nicolas Cage some of the best reviews of his varied career. Cage played Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian-American gunrunner, and now the inspiration behind the character is coming to light in a new documentary from Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin. Titled "The Notorious Mr. Bout," the doc exposes the wild life and unconvential professions of Russian buisnessman Viktor Bout. The official synopsis reads: "Viktor Bout was a Russian entrepreneur, a war profiteer, an aviation magnate, an arms smuggler and, strangest of all, an amateur filmmaker. Until three days prior to his 2008 arrest on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, Bout kept the camera running, documenting a life spent in the grey areas of international law. Dubbed the 'merchant of death,' Viktor Bout...

Cult favourite Nicolas Cage has carved out an eclectic and brilliant career spanning the decades and across genres, with forays into action, drama and comic book adaptations to name but a few. To celebrate the release of his latest film, Dying of the Light, out on Blu-ray and DVD from the 2nd March 2015 courtesy of Signature Entertainment, we take a look back at some of his greatest roles.

Dying of the Light (2015)

This brilliant thriller, directed by Paul Schrader and executive produced by cinematic wunderkind Nicolas Winding Refn, stars Cage as Evan Lake, a desk-bound Langley CIA agent, forced into retirement by signs of early onset dementia. At the same time he discovers that his former nemesis, Jihadist Muhhamed Banir (Alexander Karim – Zero Dark Thirty, TV’s Tyrant), is not dead as has been assumed for the last two decades, but alive and receiving experimental medical treatment. Banir’s exact...

“Who’s Mr Bout?” is the first thing anyone asks on hearing the title. Think Nicolas Cage’s unscrupulous arms dealer in Lord of War (2005) and you have the answer. However, whereas Cage’s fictitiously-named Yuri Orlov, who is based on Mr Bout, the ‘Merchant of Death’, is slightly insane, the real-life character in directors Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s documentary comes across as anything but – initially, more jolly capitalist cashing in on a lucrative shipping market in post-Soviet Russia than abject rogue.

The film is pieced together with homemade video from filmmaking enthusiast Viktor Bout to build a picture of him at home and in ‘the workplace’. It then follows the timeline of events until his arrest in Thailand in 2008, following a Us government sting operation that all seems too ‘easy’ to be true. There is also ‘present-day’ commentary from his loyal wife, Alla, as she bravely faces...

Few names conjure up as vivid an image of wildly over-the-top, scenery chewing acting than that of Nicolas Cage. In fact, YouTube hosts multiple compilations with worn titles like “Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit” featuring dozens of clips from a slew of different movies, spanning his whole thirty-year career. While it’s certainly true that watching Cage do flamboyantly odd things is quality entertainment, it’s also true—if all-too-oft forgot—that the man is a talented, legitimate actor. It’s nice to have a reminder. Here, then, are six performances where Nicolas Cage displayed subtlety and nuance: Lord of War Andrew Niccol’s gun-running yarn may have teetered uncomfortably on the brink of squandering an interesting premise through bland execution, but none of that fault was the leading actor’s. Cage, who also co-produced, starred as Yuri Orlov (a composite of several real people), who parlayed a series of opportunities into a career as an international...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 16 Jan 2014 - 06:20

Another 25 unsung greats come under the spotlight, as we provide our pick of the underappreciated films of 2005...

It's underappreciated films time again, and this week, we delve deep into the year 2005 - a collection of months dominated by the likes of Star Wars: Episode III, another Harry Potter, Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, Peter Jackson's King Kong, and CG family movie Madagascar.

It was also the year Pierce Brosnan formally bowed out of his role as James Bond, and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator was hyped to win the director his first Oscar, but didn't. Still, the contents of this list received nothing like the acclaim of The Aviator, nor the financial pickings of a Star Wars or Harry Potter. As ever, we've focused on 25 films which we think deserve a bit more love.

So with apologies to...

In the vein of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘s previous indie hit, the much beloved Little Miss Sunshine, their new film Ruby Sparks isn’t exactly what one would expect, considering the way it’s been sold. As funny as both of their films may be, there is a surprising amount of tragedy at their core. Ruby Sparks, like Little Miss Sunshine, is a sad and offbeat story of failure.

Calvin, played by Paul Dano – who’s once again portraying a struggling writer this year (check out this year’s overlooked Being Flynn) — is on his way of becoming a one-hit wonder. In his teenage years, Calvin wrote a single book, a novel which earned him a huge following and grand comparisons to J.D. Salinger. After years of struggle and nothing but blank on the page, our young neurotic protagonist comes upon a story, one that becomes all too real.

Andrew Niccol thinks ahead, with a track record of socially-relevant films with a entertaining through-line. His latest film, In Time, only offers a third of the equation – entertainment. And while that is perfectly adequate in most cases, we expect more from Niccol. His Gattaca is a sophisticated sci-fi drama unlike any other film in the sci-fi genre, while Lord of War is a superb exploration of moral contradiction. Even Sim0ne, his weakest film, is a noble failure in terms of of Hollywood satire. It’s ambitious and takes chances, something In Time never gets around to.

The biggest fumble is the mismanagement of a great premise. The idea of time being used as currency is immensely intriguing. How did we get to the point of making such a boneheaded decision? A character in the film mentions how this system would lead to overpopulation issues – which any sane person should...

Many top gangster films today rely on real mafia men in order to make their characters more believable and realistic. Specifically, the films, “The Departed,” “Lord of War,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Public Enemies,” and “Goodfellas” based their protagonists on major racketeers throughout the 20th century. Here’s a description of the men they based their films on. 1. “The Departed”- James “Whitey” Bulger Jack Nicholson plays the character of Frank Costello, who runs a mob in South Boston. According to Imdb, while an undercover cop is “assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate....a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the sate police as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power...” The mob that Frank Costello was running in the movie was really based that of Bulger which he ran at the peak of his career, called the Winter Hill Gang. 2. “Lord of War”- Viktor Bout...