Nicolas Cage's Absolutely Bonkers Action Thriller Gets a New Streamer

3 weeks ago 18

Published Jan 31, 2026, 11:40 AM EST

In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 2500 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix's Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom.

For Nicolas Cage, a bonkers movie is just another day at the office. The man behind some of the most memorable films of the past forty years, for better or for worse, Cage's ability to turn a potentially average role into something extraordinarily refreshing is arguably unmatched. From a remake of The Wicker Man to the recent Dream Scenario, Cage's catalog is stacked with unforgettable performances. One such performance came in a perfectly chaotic action thriller that earned enormous critical acclaim in the late '90s.

As of February 1, you'll be able to watch John Woo’s 1997 action thriller, Face/Off, on Paramount+. Starring Cage alongside John Travolta, Gina Gershon, Joan Allen, and Alessandro Nivola, it was recently announced that this acclaimed flick was set to leave Netflix at the end of the month, with Paramount+ swooping in to save the day.

Sporting a near-perfect 93% score from critics and 82% from audiences on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, there is no questioning Face/Off's brilliance as an extremely violent, thoroughly gripping thriller. The critics' consensus on the review site reads, "John Travolta and Nicolas Cage play cat-and-mouse (and literally play each other) against a beautifully stylized backdrop of typically elegant, over-the-top John Woo violence." A synopsis for the movie reads:

"Obsessed with bringing terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) to justice, FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) tracks down Troy, who has boarded a plane in Los Angeles. After the plane crashes and Troy is severely injured, possibly dead, Archer undergoes surgery to remove his face and replace it with Troy's. As Archer tries to use his disguise to elicit information about a bomb from Troy's brother, Troy awakes from a coma and forces the doctor who performed the surgery to give him Archer's face."

Was 'Face/Off' a Box Office Hit?

The combination of Travolta, Cage, and director Woo proved irresistible to 1997 audiences. Face/Off tripled its reported $80 million budget during a successful theatrical run, earning $241 million worldwide. Split between a domestic haul of $112 million and an additional $129 million from overseas markets, the movie became the 13th-highest-grossing of 1997 worldwide and Cage's second-highest-grossing movie at the time, falling short of the $336 million haul of The Rock.

Nicolas Cage's Face/Off will be available to stream on Paramount+ from February 1. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for all the latest streaming stories.