10 Acting Performances Way Better Than You Thought They'd Be
5. Nicolas Cage - Mandy
Still the most meme'd actor on the planet and the undisputed king of losing his sh*t on the big screen, 2018 marked the most interesting year in the career of Nicolas Cage in years, one that let him explore every aspect of his unique screen persona.
He got to play Superman and Spider-Man in the same year, albeit both were voice roles in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies and Into the Spider-Verse respectively, he churned out several awful direct-to-video genre flicks as he is wont to do on an annual basis, and added to his ever-expanding list of viral 'Cage Rage' clips by destroying a pool table with a sledgehammer while singing the Hokey Cokey in Mom and Dad.
Every now and again, Cage will give a performance so brilliant that it reminds people why he's still regarded by his peers as one of the finest talents of his generation, and he's done it again in Panos Cosmatos' utterly demented Mandy.
The trailer barely even scratches the surface of how insane the movie is, and it would have been easy for an actor with Nic Cage's reputation to simply gurn and scream his way through it. Instead, he delivers some of the best work of his career as a man destroyed by grief, consumed by rage and fueled by some strong-as-sh*t LSD. Imagine Cage in a hallucinatory, surreal grindhouse thriller and dial it up to ten, and it won't even scratch the surface of the emotinal and physical range of his performance in Mandy.