Ah, Nicolas Cage. The man has had quite a few highs but also quite a few lows in his acting career. Here we lovingly mention his five best and five worst efforts in an homage to the man who gave us the immortal line, “OH, NO! NOT THE BEES!” (And, yes, that movie is in this list.)

His Five Best:

 

1. Raising Arizona (1987). The classic Coen brothers comedy where Cage plays a former convict who kidnaps a baby so he and his wife can start raising a family. Still just as funny now as it was then.

2. Adaptation (2002). A unique flick by Charlie Kaufman starring Cage as not only Kaufman himself, but also his less artistically-minded twin brother Donald. Meryl Streep co-stars.

3. The Rock (1996). Pure action-packed fun. Cage plays a chemical weapons specialist who has to help take Alcatraz back from a group of rogue U.S. Marines holding it hostage.

4. Wild At Heart (1990). A bizarre but critically-acclaimed romantic drama starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as lovers on the run.

5. Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). A fun action thriller where Cage plays a retired car thief forced to steal 50 cars. It’s full of exciting car chases – fun to watch, but tough on tires. If it had been in real life he’d have to be on the lookout for low price tires like the ones at tireteam.com.

 

And his worst:

 

6. Windtalkers (2002). This movie about Navajo code talkers during World War II was heavily criticized for focusing its Navajo-based story only on Caucasian heroes. The film was a box office bomb.

7. Snake Eyes (1998). A thriller about a conspiracy in the world of gambling. It made money at the box office flop, but critics didn’t care for it much.

8. Next (2007). Despite the fun sci-fi premise, this movie about a man who can see two minutes in the future didn’t go over well, with audiences criticizing the special effects and the unsatisfying ending.

9. Ghost Rider (2007). Cage plays a stunt biker who sells his soul in this comic book adaptation. Cage received a Razzie nomination as Worst Actor for this movie, which takes itself so seriously that it’s unintentionally hilarious.

10. The Wicker Man (2006). No “worst of Nicolas Cage” list would be complete without this. It’s Cage at his hammiest, accompanied by a terrible script. The film was nominated for five Razzies, though it won none.