If You Liked This 2024 Movie, Watch This Nicolas Cage Movie

You’ll also like this movie, I promise.

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2024, to this point, has been an interesting year at the movies. We've seen swimming pools that kill, CGI fists of both the giant monkey and Jake Gyllenhaal varieties, and we finally found out who the real Agent Argylle was - I didn't. I didn't see it.

Something for everyone.

And if there's one actor who has done it all and more, it's Nicolas Cage. He's the kind of guy that makes a piece like this, one of my "If you like this, you will like this" columns, really easy. He has over 100 acting credits. He's seen budgets the likes of Hollywood blockbusters and direct-to-video stinkers. And we all know what kind of performance he can give in any kind of movie. 

With him, there's always more to discover.

Luckily for you, I've done that digging for you. Here are some recommendations based on what you've liked so far this year. 

if you liked Madame Web (2024), you’ll like Next (2007)

If you liked Madame Web, you're on the right website. Everyone knows the idiom, "It was like a train wreck and I couldn't look away," but Madame Web was like a high-speed collision that caused a multi-car pile-up...and then somehow got hit by a train. It was awesome. 

Next is not nearly as technically disastrous, but it is a by-product of similar studio who-cares thinking in 2007, the same decision-making that led Cage to movies like Bangkok Dangerous and Knowing. 

Both films follow main characters who can see into the future - just far enough to escape danger, but never far enough out to actually do anything preventive to stop a bad guy's secret plan. Led by mumbly leading performances from Dakota Johnson and Cage, they're propped up by supporting performances from a long list of Hollywood crushes: Sydney Sweeney, Jessica Biel, and Julianne Moore. 

if you liked Drive Away Dolls (2024), you’ll like Red Rock West (1993)

Despite having totally different vibes, both Drive Away Dolls and Red Rock West are Southern-fried noir roadtrippers.

Drive Away Dolls is goofy, the brand of comedy that helped us better understand which half of the Coen Brothers canon was Ethan's contributions. Featuring "Why aren't these the most famous people on the planet?" performances from Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Colman Domingo, it's hard-boiled country cookin' wrapped up in a dorky little comedy. 

That's the chaser for your shot of Red Rock West. Recently revived on 4K from Cinématographe (and thank God for this Lara Flynn Boyle restoration), it's underseen Cage at its most underseen...that is until now. For the ladies in Drive Away Dolls, misunderstandings lead to hijinks. For Cage, a blowin'-through-town drifter in Red Rock West, a case of mistaken identity leads to serious danger as he's hunted down by Dennis Hooper (who is ramping up to his Speed and Waterworld persona.)

Plus, both films feature great twists. I won't spoil either, but I can assure you that the one in Drive Aways Dolls only makes it sillier and the one in Red Rock West only makes it scarier. 

if you liked Lisa Frankenstein (2024), you’ll like Vampire’s Kiss (1989)

Both films are horror-comedies riffing on famous gothic fairy tales, giving them a "modern-day" late '80s twist - Vampire's Kiss came out in '89, Lisa Frankenstein is set that same year.

Lisa Frankenstein is the exact kind of thing that plays terribly in a 150-second trailer. In that short-form setting, it feels like a try-hard out-quirk competition. When it flashes "written by Diablo Cody," you have to will your eyes back to their correct, forward-facing direction. However, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed what has become an underrated favorite of the year. I underestimated Diablo Cody, that was my fault. She's written a delightfully dark distortion of the John Hughes era in Hollywood. It's wicked fun.

Vampire's Kiss is significantly more grown-up but no more mature. It's got Cage at his most meme-able as a guy who maybe-sorta-probably didn't get bit by vampire. Chewing the scenery doesn't do it justice. He's swallowing it and everything around him whole. And sinking his teeth in. He's schlocking it up to a degree that his performance would feel over the top in a production of Rocky Horror. It has become one of my favorite Cage performances, baffling in all the best ways. 

if you liked Civil War (2024), you’ll like The Humanity Bureau (2017)

Civil War opens wide today, so you probably haven't seen it yet. But you must. You should see it this weekend and you should see it on the biggest, loudest screen you can find, (the technical elements blew me away during my advance IMAX screening.) Kirsten Dunst gives what is maybe the most vulnerable performance of her career and we have a new Actor of our Generation in Cailee Spaeny. The politics and messaging of it all might feel a little obvious, but the current state of American political affairs is way past subtle. 

The Humanity Bureau, on the other hand, makes you yearn for the subtlety of Civil War. For context, I'm pretty sure the Blu-ray sits on the shelves of my home library because I kept seeing it over and over again at Dollar Tree. We're in a straight-up DTV trash era Cage. But it's Nic Cage DTV trash with personal favorites Sarah Lind and Hugh Dillon. If you liked Civil War because it is (so far) the movie of the year, then this is not the movie for you. But if you appreciate lines like, "There's not enough food and water to go around" in pre-reconstruction American landscapes, this is the best Cage offering I've got.