The Academy Award winner broke down his filmography into 5 essentials during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Nicolas Cage has never been afraid to take on left field roles in Hollywood, just as he isn’t afraid to share his personal ranking of his own films with the world.

On Thursday’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the TV host asked the actor, 59, to list off his favorite films he’s worked on, and his answers might surprise some die-hard Cage-crazed fans.

His final list? Pig (2021), Mandy (2018), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Bad Lieutenant (2009), and Joe (2013).

“I’m gonna start with Pig, that’s my favorite movie I ever made,” Cage began. “I love Mandy, the movie Panos [Cosmatos] directed. I love Bringing Out the Dead, Martin Scorsese directed. I loved Bad Lieutenant, Werner Herzog. I love the movie called Joe, that David Gordon Green directed.”

Nicolas Cage on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”. THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT/YOUTUBE

Of course, with a career like the one Cage has had over the past few decades, there’s going to be some omissions in a best-of list. And Colbert, 58, was quick to call him out on one in particular: “I go Face/Off, but that’s me.”

“Oh, I like that one a lot,” Cage said. “I love Face/Off… You know, what was interesting about Face/Off — and I could’ve mentioned Vampire’s Kiss. Vampire’s Kiss was a little movie I made where I was able to explore my more abstract dreams with film performance.

I was sadly playing a character who was losing his mind that he was beginning to think he was the vampire from the original Nosferatu movie. And when you’re playing a character whose losing his mind, he can believe he’s Nosferatu. So I got to act like a German expressionistic silent movie star.”

“And that was cool, these facial expressions and what not. But Face Off was a big studio movie that I made at Paramount and I was able to use what I learned from this little Vampire’s Kiss movie and put it in this giant movie and it worked. I was like, ‘People really dig this.'”

Nicolas Cage on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”. SCOTT KOWALCHYK/CBS

Throughout his career — which took off with ’80s hits like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Peggy Sue Got Married and Moonstruck and found him with his first Academy Award win for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas — Cage has appeared in well over 100 films.

While his personal favorites skew a bit more recent, some of Cage’s most successful films include the National Treasure franchise, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse and Ghost Rider.

As for Cage’s latest picture, he appears as the legendary character of Dracula in Renfield. Speaking with Variety, the movie’s makeup artist Christien Tinsely explained that they shaved his teeth and used 3D-printed dentures to create his sharp fangs for the film.

“We shaved Nic’s teeth down and the dentures were fitted so as not to impede on Nic’s speech and allow full freedom,” he explained. “Nic wanted to emote and annunciate properly, so it was important the veneers were thin.”

Nicolas Cage in Renfield (2023). UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Tinsely, who earned an Oscar nomination for 2004’s The Passion of the Christ, added, “This was the first film that I know of where we used 3D printing to do all the dentures. We jumped in headfirst with 3D printing. We would scan Nic’s teeth and digitally sculpt them.”

The film’s star Nicholas Hoult also recently told Entertainment Tonight that working with Cage in his Dracula costume and makeup made him feel “really giddy most of the time on set.”

“It really was one of the most bizarre scenarios of my life looking glancing over and seeing Nic Cage, dressed fully as Dracula,” Hoult said. “I mean, it doesn’t get better than that. So I was really giddy most of the time on set, and had the best time working with him.”