The Nicolas Cage Movie You Defend to Everyone

No other actor produces this particular argument. Ask a room to name the best Robert De Niro film and you get four titles. Ask the same room about Nicolas Cage and you get a fight, because the honest answer depends entirely on which Cage you mean.

There is the one the Academy gave an Oscar to, drinking himself to death in a motel room. There is the one who screamed the alphabet at a therapist in a film almost nobody saw in 1988, and who has been a reaction image ever since. There is the one who played twins for Spike Jonze, the one who stole the Declaration of Independence, the one who put a bunny in a box on a prison plane, and the one who spent a quiet ninety minutes looking for a pig. They are all the same career, and that is the whole problem.

The bracket runs the theatrical work from Valley Girl to The Surfer. Every matchup asks the same question in a different costume, which is whether you rate the performance, the film around it, or the sheer nerve of the choice.