Puppy eyes, sad hair and a big boom box: John Cusack films – ranked!

The list opens at 20 with The Journey of Natty Gann, a Depression-era Disney-style tale in which Cusack impressed as a wise young hobo, and moves through Tapeheads, a goofy 1980s slapstick produced by Mike Nesmith. High Fidelity finds him as a record-store manager embodying commitment-phobic, gatekeeping masculinity, while Max casts him in a 1918 Munich drama featuring eye-popping performance art.

Mid-ranking entries include Say Anything… with its iconic courtship-by-boombox scene, Con Air where he plays a sweaty US marshal amid hijacked-plane antics, and Fat Man and Little Boy in which his scientist character suffers the consequences of a lab mishap. Bullets Over Broadway sees him as a Woody Allen surrogate; The Sure Thing and Eight Men Out show his early teen and adult turns; 2012 trashes the planet with solar flares, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions; and The Paperboy, Grand Piano, Identity and 1408 illustrate a range from swamp-dwelling creep and smarmy menace to a virtuoso solo performance of paranoia.

Germany, Munich

john cusack, high fidelity, say anything, con air, the paperboy, 1408, grand piano, 2012, tapeheads, max