Cusack was/is a favourite of mine. Despite recent efforts - 2012, 1408, Must Love Dogs - and releases that either didn't get a release over here or slipped out without bluster - Grace Is Gone, The Ice Harvest, War Inc., Martian Child - I always await his next outing like a faithful dog. The wag is losing its gusto, though. The problem is that he can't find a role to match his talents. Not that I want him to play Lloyd Dobbler or Rob Gordon or Lane Meyer for the rest of his life - that would be a living hell for an actor - but I don't want to see John Cusack escaping erupting volcanoes or battling ghosts in a haunted room. Or in a hot tub time machine (although the first 40 minutes of that were okay).

Why do I like John Cusack? He was me. Or he was the me I thought I was. He played ordinary bloke roles - there was nothing special about him and he knew this and he was cool with it. That was cool to me. To be comfortable in one's own skin. To be aware of one's faults but know that the hidden positives far outweighed the negatives if only the right girl would notice. Although coming to prominence in the 80s and starring in the likes of Class and Sixteen Candles (he was set to play Bender in The Breakfast Club too), Cusack managed to dodge the Brat Pack tie-in to do his own thing. That was cool too. He'd even turn nothing roles into something special: I bestow on him the title of Best Movie Older Brother for his two scene part in Stand By Me.

Let's get the negatives out of the way. Here are Cusack's top 5 worst movies:

5. America's Sweethearts - it's actually not as bad as all that as Billy Crystal's script throws up a few laughs BUT it's the first chink in the armour. Cusack tries to reinvent himself as a rom-com lead after High Fidelity. It doesn't work. The positives of Max aside, he hasn't made a great movie since.

4. Serendipity - Came out the same year as America's Sweethearts. Cusack and Kate Beckinsale meet, fall in love and then, for some absurd plot-contrivance, decide to leave it to fate if they're going to meet up again. Too syrupy for me and for anyone raised on Cusack. It's only twelve months since High Fidelity was out and already it feels like Cusack has been crap for years.

3. Must Love Dogs from 2005 - Cusack's movie romance obsessive doesn't convince and he has no chemistry with the always lovely Diane Lane, which is a crime in itself. In his defence Lane is a bit dry here too. A movie that never got out of the gate.

2. The Raven - Cusack and thrillers do not make a good couple. This one from 2012 proves why. Cusack looks uncomfortable as Edgar Allan Poe as he chases around Baltimore for the madman who has kidnapped his fiancée.

1. You've all seen it, you've all been bored. In some parallel universe, 2012 isn't over yet, as Cusack and co. are avoiding another falling building. It was on last Christmas and I distinctly remember my father coming into the room and saying, is that shite still on? Yes. Yes, it is.

So without further ado (there has been enough ado as it is), here are my Top 5 John Cusack movies…

5. High Fidelity
A rom-com for guys, High Fidelity tapped into the very blokeishness misguided ideal that music was just as important as relationships and love. It also cracked open a bottle and toasted to a particular facet of male insecurity, and that's what has been lost in Recent Cusack - he's not the ordinary, everyday guy anymore. He now plays movie stars, serial killers, and Edgar Allan bloody Poe. Grosse Pointe Blank and this gem were products of his company, New Crime Productions, and there was hope that Cusack would go on to bigger and better things after this. It turned out to be the last great Cusack movie. Boo! Speaking of Grosse Pointe Blank…

4. Being John Malkovich
Cusack had attempted early on in his career to step away from his nice guy roles with the corrupt politician Peter Burton in True Colours and conman Roy Dillon in The Grifters but married this with the bizarre when he moved into more radical territory with Charlie Kaufman's curious tale. Being John Malkovich was a perfect storm. A unique and original writer in Charlie Kaufman, a debutant director in Spike Jonze prepared to takes risks, Diaz content to play it ugly, Cusack inverting his on-screen persona, Malkovich prepared to send himself up and Charlie Sheen playing himself - it was bound to fail. It didn't, though. "Sounds great! But who the f**k is John Malkovich?"

3. Say Anything
The ladies favourite. The gentlemen's too if they're honest. Come on, guys, admit - we're all gay for Cusack's kickboxing, music-loving, unambitious Lloyd Dobbler. With his sincerity and heart-on-his-sleeve personality, Dobbler could have easily been a wet dweeb or a creepy stalker if it wasn't for Cusack's deft portrayal, turning Dobbler into a hopeless romantic and a template for the classic gentleman. "Do you know what he did the first night I went out with him? We were walking across by the Seven-Eleven, and he pointed out some glass for me to walk around. And I always think of that when people say, 'What are you doing with Lloyd Dobbler?" Boasting great lines ("I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.") and a now iconic boombox scene undiminished, in my eyes, by the endless lampoons, Say Anything is a modern classic. There, I said.

2. Grosse Pointe Blank
Cusack would use the 80s for nostalgia again with Hot Tub Time Machine but here he got everything right here - the tone, the mix of comedy and action, the romance (love interest Minnie Driver actually (a) looks fun to be around and (b) looks like she's in love with Martin. Both go a long way in a rom-com!), the great soundtrack (I can't hear Under Pressure without thinking of that baby now) and reminded everyone that Dan Aykroyd is funny. Plus Jeremy Piven is in it. And Hank Azaria. And Alan Arkin.
Marrying action, comedy and romance is tough without one being diluted. Sure, the action here is funny - hammering someone's head with a frying pan while confessing your love to your ex isn't exactly serious business - but the fight scene in the school takes on a real element of danger. Cusack and co. remembered to include the sweat and the blood for a brief moment, which gives the final shootout the edge it wouldn't normally have. Good show!

1. Better Off Dead
It might not have the technical brilliance or originality of Being John Malkovich or the iconic status of Say Anything or the acerbic wit of High Fidelity but the heart is nostalgic above all else and Better Off Dead gets the nod for a Top 5 Spot. It was my first Cusack and the first Cusack is the deepest.
This is a 1986 teen movie, sure, but it's also a surreal black comedy. Typical of Cusack's 80s roles, he plays an outsider who is content to be an outsider. Director 'Savage' Steve Holland's mixture of animated sequences, stop-motion animation of dancing burgers playing guitars and its slight parody of teen movies tropes (the school's sport is skiing? The bad guy is called Roy Stalin?) Better Off Dead is an odd one to say the least. Odder still is that Cusack turned his back on the movie and director after its premiere. In an interview with The Sneeze, Holland said Cusack was incensed, "The next morning, he basically walked up to me and was like, 'You know, you tricked me. Better Off Dead was the worst thing I have ever seen. I will never trust you as a director ever again, so don't speak to me.'" Why then does Hot Tub Time Machine ape Better Off Dead in more ways than one then, John? Hmm.

Honourable mentions…

The Sure Thing
Cusack plays a loveable rogue who travels the length of the country for one night of sex with Nicolette Sheridan's body but ends up falling for Daphne Zuniga's mind.

Max
In a very un-JC role that actually works, he plays a one-armed Jewish art dealer who sees promise in a young artist called Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor).

Eight Men Out
The story of the 1920's Black Sox where Cusack's Buck Weaver keeps his integrity is a heart-felt paean to the loss of innocence. Plus it was on set here that John Mahoney convinced him to read the script for Say Anything. Hooray for John Mahoney then.