Editor’s note: this list was originally published in July 2021. It has since been updated to coincide with the release of “Longlegs.”

It’s amusing, in hindsight, to look back at Nicolas Cage’s first lead role. After a small role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the scion of the Coppola dynasty headlined 1983’s “Valley Girl,” playing the teen heartthrob that swoops Deborah Foreman’s LA blonde off her feet. Sure, Cage was playing a punk instead of a football player, but it was altogether a rather conventional stock character, the kind that populates many teen films that came before (“Grease”) and after (“The Breakfast Club”).

As soon as he moved on from teen rom-com parts (see also: “Peggy Sue Got Married”), Cage largely has taken roles that have been anything but ordinary. The intense star specializes in playing men on the edge of madness, who feel deeply and express those emotions loudly.