Cage’s best roles (one that also happened to bring out a very real fear for the actor), while “Pig” itself has a nearly perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, even though it was outright snubbed by the Academy. With that in mind, it’s nice to see the movie doing well over on Netflix.
Neon
During its theatrical run “Pig” made $3.8 million on a $3 million budget, which doesn’t exactly qualify it as a surprise hit. Still, the movie fared extremely well with critics and has remained one of Nicholas Cage’s best late-career works ever since. “Pig” reminds us what it feels like to care, and as such, its resurgence is always a welcome development.
Now, the movie is doing just that courtesy of Netflix, where “Pig” is climbing the most-watched films chart in the United States. Cage’s drama hit the service on May 26, 2025, and has immediately emerged from the obscurity of the Netflix servers by charting at number four as of May 27 (via streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol). It’s not a number one debut, but there’s plenty of time left for “Pig” to make its way to the top of the film charts as the week progresses.
In order to do so, however, it will need to overcome the Mark Wahlberg family movie “Instant Family,” which recently became a Netflix success and looks to have some staying power on the streamer’s charts. That film is currently in the third position, right behind “Fear Street: Prom Queen” and “The Wild Robot.” That’s some pretty tough competition, but this is also a world where Kevin Hart’s Lift can become a number one Netflix hit. Besides, “Pig” is totally worth your time.
Neon
“Pig” might not have been a huge box office success, but it did well enough during its small theatrical run. More importantly, critics were very impressed with Michael Sarnoski’s drama, singling out Nicholas Cage in particular. A film with a premise as simple as “Nicholas Cage goes in search of his stolen pig” could have easily devolved into “John Wick” territory, but the film surprises by revealing itself to be a mournful and affecting drama.
/Film’s Chris Evangelista surmised in his “Pig” review that Cage gives one of his best performances in the haunting drama, while The New Yorker’s Richard Brody maintained that Cage’s portrayal “makes the movie.” Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph even provided a summary for long-suffering Cage fans, writing, “Anyone who’s been keeping faith with Nicolas Cage, through all his career’s snaking cul-de-sacs and mad escapades, has a tremendous reward in store when they sit down to ‘Pig.'”
With that in mind, you could do a lot worse than joining the Netflixers and giving “Pig” a stream. Considering a heist movie with an 8% RT score recently dominated the Netflix charts, I think it’s important that you do.