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Critic’s Notebook

What Becomes a Star Most? For Tom Cruise, It’s Control.

Sheer force of will is now part of his potent mix of athleticism and charisma. That combination goes a long way to explain why “Top Gun: Maverick” is a hit.

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By Calum Marsh

“In order to do my job,” Ben Stiller, as Tom Cruise’s stunt double Tom Crooze, muses in a video made for the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, “I have to ask myself: Who is Tom Cruise? What is Tom Cruise? Why is Tom … Cruise?”

This is a tricky line of questioning.

Onscreen, Cruise is unmistakably our biggest movie star, as the New York Times reporter Nicole Sperling recently explained — the last true exponent of a century-old studio system that has been steadily eroded by the rising forces of franchise filmmaking and streaming. His powerful charisma and daredevil stunt work have combined, yet again, in his latest hit, “Top Gun: Maverick,” bringing it past the $1 billion mark.

Offscreen, Cruise is elusive. He is the frequent public mouthpiece for a cryptic, controversial religion that seems harder to understand the more he talks about it . He is intensely secretive about the details of his private life. Even when he makes the occasional effort to seem like an ordinary, relatable guy, he winds up sounding like an A.I. approximation of one. Asked by Moviebill magazine to describe his most memorable filmgoing experience, Cruise couldn’t name one . (“I love movies,” he said, very normally.) When asked which team he was rooting for at a Giants-Dodgers game he attended last fall , he replied, “I’m a fan of baseball.”

It can be hard to reconcile these disparate sides. So it is worth considering the question: Who is Tom Cruise?

Much of his early success as an actor, through the ’80s and ’90s, was predicated on a certain down-to-earth charm. The sexed-up, troublemaking young Cruise of “Risky Business”; the guileless, endearingly naïve Cruise of “Cocktail”; and the tenacious, morally principled Cruise of “Jerry Maguire” each relied on his ability to convincingly embody the American Everyman, the sympathetic heartthrob the audience could desire or root for. Around the turn of the century, he complicated that image by appearing in more challenging, less accessible films, like “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Magnolia.” Auteurs like Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson helped showcase Cruise as a serious actor, capable of delivering subtle, nuanced performances.

He has moved away from romance, drama and the independent art house. Over the last decade-plus, he has become more firmly entrenched in the action-adventure genre, perfecting the summer tentpole blockbuster. His performances tend to emphasize his easy charisma and powerful athleticism, but Cruise still brings to these roles a touch of the same delicate charm and actorly nuance of his dramatic fare. You see it in the breezy, naturalistic chemistry he shares with Jennifer Connelly in “Maverick,” and in the jaded, world-weary intensity he has carried through the last couple of “Mission: Impossible” sequels. My favorite recent Cruise performance was from the underrated “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014), in which he plays a cowardly, sniveling politician forced to relive the same deadly battle over and over again — a playful sci-fi take on “Groundhog Day” that found the actor playing against type to delightful effect.

But that’s just part of the story. One of the defining features of the last decade of his career is a level of quality control for which he himself is chiefly responsible. It’s not that he is incapable of making a bad movie: “The Mummy” (2017), Universal’s failed attempt to kick off an entire “Dark Universe” of big-budget creature features, made that clear. But recent Cruise films have in common a degree of ambition and enthusiasm that is rare in today’s blockbuster landscape, and when everything works, that effort pays off enormously. You will not see Cruise phoning in a performance. You get the sense that he treats every movie he does these days as if it were the most important one he has ever done.

The results of this commitment have a way of feeling almost miraculous. How could anyone have expected “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel to a 35-year-old action movie with a rather cool critical reputation, to be not only far superior to the original film, but also one of the finest action films in many years? But then you read about Cruise’s dogged insistence on keeping everything as real as possible — demanding a minimum of computer-generated effects, forcing himself through arduous flight training, encouraging his co-stars to bear G-force speeds until they literally threw up. Some of Cruise’s co-stars over the years have characterized his obsessiveness as extreme to the point of what sounds like cinematic despotism, and it’s true that it would probably be easier, and cheaper, to do much of this in front of a green screen. But that’s not Cruise. When it comes to this stuff, he cares too much.

“Mission: Impossible” was a slick espionage film, directed by Brian De Palma, based on a TV series from the 1960s. How is it possible that it yielded five sequels, and how is it conceivable that the sequels keep getting better, culminating in “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), which is pretty much an unqualified masterpiece? (The final two installments, “Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Dead Reckoning Part Two,” are due in 2023 and 2024.) Again, the credit should go mainly to Cruise, who, for the sake of our entertainment, will happily climb the world’s tallest building , hold his breath for six and a half minutes , or jump out of an airplane with the cameraman .

But Cruise’s devotion to the movies runs deeper, if that’s possible. It’s a devotion to the Movies with a capital M. As A-list talent flocks to deep-pocketed streamers with blockbuster ambitions, Cruise has remained adamant that he will not make a movie for the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, refusing to negotiate on the possibility of a V.O.D. premiere for “Maverick” earlier in the pandemic. (“I make movies for the big screen,” he explained.) His interest in preserving that traditional cinematic experience shines through in the colossal scale of the productions themselves, so that when Cruise is looming over you in immense, Imax dimensions, he feels every bit as big as the image. It’s a reminder that so much of what we watch is tailored to the streaming era — a mass of “content” designed to play as well on a phone as on the big screen. For those of us who still care deeply about the cinema and fear for its future, Cruise’s efforts feel invaluable.

It’s also a reminder of why we go to the theater to see Tom Cruise movies — to see Tom Cruise himself. We can still be tempted to the cinema by the names on the marquee, but as franchises have become the dominant force in the business, the persuasive power of those names has declined. The supremacy of proven, bankable intellectual property today over the traditional star system has meant that we are more likely to seek out Spider-Man, Thor and Captain America than Tom Holland, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans; the actor in the cape is more interchangeable than ever. With Cruise movies, that relationship is inverted. Does anyone particularly care about the adventures of Ethan Hunt? (That’s the name of his character in “Mission: Impossible,” in case you forgot.) Hunt is just another name for the man we really care about: Cruise, plain and simple.

Cruise has all of the qualities you want in a movie star and none of the qualities you expect of a human being. As a screen presence, he is singular; as a person, he is inscrutable. But it’s his inscrutability that has allowed him to achieve a sort of clarified, immaculate superstardom, one that exists almost entirely in the movies, uncontaminated by mundane concerns. Cruise the star burns as bright as any of his contemporaries, and far brighter than any who have come up since, in part because he continues to throw more and more of himself into his work and give up less and less of himself everywhere else. Who is he? You have to look to the movies to find out.

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• Born July 3 , 1962 · Syracuse, New York, USA
• Birth name Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
• Height 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history. Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986) ; The Color of Money (1986) , Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) . By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) , Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996) , for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise. In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom McDonough, Grant failor
• Spouses Katie Holmes (November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012) (divorced, 1 child) Nicole Kidman (December 24, 1990 - August 8, 2001) (divorced, 2 children) Mimi Rogers (May 9, 1987 - February 4, 1990) (divorced)
• Children Isabella Jane Cruise Suri Cruise Connor Cruise
• Parents Thomas Mapother III Mary Lee Pfeiffer
• Relatives William Mapother (Cousin) Amy Mapother (Cousin) Katherine Mapother (Cousin) Lee Anne De Vette (Sibling)
• Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
• Often plays characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances
• Frequently plays intelligent yet laidback and likeable characters
• Beaming smile and intense eye contact
• Boundless off-stage energy
• His acting idol is Paul Newman . Much to the delight of Cruise, they became good friends during work on The Color of Money (1986) . Newman got him into racing, and Cruise ultimately raced on his team.
• Stopped to help a hit and run victim and paid her hospital bills. The victim was aspiring Brazilian actress Heloisa Vinhas (1996).
• Insists on performing many of his own stunts in his films, including climbing the exterior of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, during the filming of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) , and driving during the car chases in Jack Reacher (2012) .
• Cruise earned roughly $75 million for Mission: Impossible II (2000) . He did this by turning down any upfront salary, for instead taking a back-end deal that landed him 30% of the film's gross for both his producing and acting duties.
• He did not stay for the remainder of the 2002 Academy Awards after opening them because it was his turn to look after his and ex-wife Nicole Kidman 's children. He reportedly left the Kodak Theatre by a back door after opening proceedings and dashed home to watch the rest of the event on television with his kids Connor and Isabella.
• The thing about filmmaking is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own checks, be responsible.
• [to Jay Leno regarding his topless Vanity Fair cover shoot] I don't drink but I had a beer that night and they only did one setup like that. I'm a cheap date. What can I say?
• [on Eyes Wide Shut (1999) ] We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed. We felt honored to work with Stanley Kubrick . We were going to do what it took to do this picture, whatever time, because I felt - and Nic [ Nicole Kidman ] did, too - that this was going to be a really special time for us. We knew it would be difficult. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn't done this.
• I have cooked turkeys in my day but when Mom's around I let her do it.
• I was 18 when I saw Akira Kurosawa 's Seven Samurai (1954) . After about 30 seconds, I realized that this was not just a cultural thing, it was universal. Years later, I read Bushido. It talked about many things that I strive for in my own life: loyalty, compassion, responsibility, the idea of looking back on your life and taking responsibility for everything you've ever done. I'm fascinated by the samurai and the samurai code - it's one of the main reasons I wanted to make The Last Samurai (2003) .
• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two (2025) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Top Gun: Maverick (2022) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• The Mummy (2017) - $13,000,000 + % of gross
• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - $12,500,000 + % of back end

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Tom Cruise’s Space Movie Will Make Him the ‘First Civilian to Do a Spacewalk Outside of the Space Station,’ Universal Boss Says

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Tom Cruise will “hopefully” become “the first civilian to do a spacewalk” outside of the International Space Station when he blasts off to space to shoot a new action movie with director Doug Liman . Donna Langley , the head of Universal Pictures , teased as much during a recent BBC interview . Universal is backing the Cruise space project, which reportedly carries a budget in the $200 million range. While it was already known the movie would shoot scenes on the ISS, Langley said the plan is to also have Cruise perform a spacewalk.

Langley revealed that while the movie will send Cruise to space, it “actually [mostly] takes place on Earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.” The Universal chairwoman described Cruise’s character as “a down-on-his-luck guy who finds himself in the position of being the only person who could save Earth.”

Liman and Cruise previously collaborated on films such as “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) and “American Made” (2017). Further plot details about the duo’s space movie are being kept under wraps, although they are working with both NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. No Hollywood studio has ever filmed a narrative feature film in space before.

“When a producer proposes something crazy to you, like, let’s try to shoot a movie in outer space, and NASA and SpaceX sign on, and Tom Cruise signs on… you’re just a little bit more receptive,” Liman told Thrillist last year about boarding the project.

Sources previously told Variety the film’s production budget has been set at $200 million. Cruise could earn somewhere between $30 million and $60 million, according to insiders. This would cover his services as a producer and star, and also be comprised of significant first-dollar gross participation.

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Den of Geek

Tom Cruise: The Last Movie Star Who Gets Better with Age

Tom Cruise returns to the skies for Top Gun: Maverick, but his movie star persona has never touched the ground since 1986. In fact, it’s flying higher than ever.

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It’s not exactly subtle. Appearing in even the first teaser of Top Gun: Maverick —released an astonishing three years ago!— Tom Cruise ’s fighter pilot is getting an epic dressing down from the boss. His superior, Radam. Chester “the Hammer” Cain (Ed Harris), is sick and tired of Maverick’s hot shot ways and insubordination. And he’s here to put the younger man in his place. It’s a scene we’ve witnessed many times, including to iconic effect in the original Top Gun from 1986, and yet the Hammer’s critique of his fiftysomething naval officer is sharper here. More pointed. He is getting at something existential about the trajectory of a man’s life.

“You can’t get a promotion,” Harris’ rear admiral sneers, “you won’t retire, and despite your best efforts, you refuse to die. You should be at least a two-star admiral by now… or a senator. Yet here you are, captain . Why is that?” We then cut to Cruise’s slightly more weathered yet remarkably still boyish face, and he simply teases the outline of a familiar smirk.

The sequence, which comes early in the finished Top Gun: Maverick , is obviously meant to clue us into what its title character has been up to for the past 36 years. But it also works as an admission that Maverick and Cruise’s biographies are entwined. Despite the actor once being weary of doing a Top Gun sequel, and dismissing the idea out of hand in a 1990 Playboy interview, Cruise is back in one of his most beloved roles and doing what he’s always done best: fly really fast planes, drive really fast motorcycles, and look quite cool while doing both.

In many respects, this makes Maverick a rarity: a character study on the life of a movie star who for four decades has operated at the very height of American pop culture and entertainment, and who instead of choosing the path that so many other gifted stars of yesteryear—graduating to the rank of esteemed character actor and a cinematic statesman, becoming a Paul Newman or Robert Redford, who were no strangers to playing senators—he remained the guy in the cockpit, doing it better than anyone his junior. In fact, he’s doing it better than when he was in his junior years.

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In this way, it’s interesting that his superiors in Maverick include Harris. The older actor is only 12 years Cruise’s senior and once played globally renowned fighter pilot John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983). As the years passed, Glenn became a real-life senator, and Harris is now playing an admiral. Similarly, in Cruise’s signature action movie franchise, Mission: Impossible , the star is often reprimanded by IMF Director Alan Hunley, a character played by Alec Baldwin. Also like Cruise, Baldwin came up in the 1980s and starred in his own classic spy thriller, The Hunt for Red October (1990).

Harris and Baldwin both were “promoted” to the role of the proverbial senator. But Cruise? He’s the last and perhaps only living proof that movie star charisma can endure. It can even get better with age.

Once a Different Type of Movie Star

Before Top Gun was released in 1986, the idea of Tom Cruise as the grinning action star did not exist. After Top Gun , Cruise still at least somewhat resisted being placed only in that box. To be sure, he’d already achieved a certain level celebrity before then by appearing in 1983’s surprise hit Risky Business . But while largely remembered today for the innocuous image of Cruise playing a teenager eager to dance to Bob Seger in his underwear, that picture actually remains a moody and surreal thriller about a young kid who is out of his depth when he’s seduced by a call girl into turning the family home into a brothel.

It brought Cruise attention, but it didn’t make him a household name, nor did the similar romantic teen dramas (and one bizarre Ridley Scott fantasy) he made immediately afterward. Top Gun was the inflection point; the picture where Cruise starred in the highest concept Jerry Bruckeheimer and Don Simpson’s hard-partying offices ever came up with in the ‘80s. This blend of fighter jets, postcard sunsets, and well-tanned male bodies went on to become the biggest movie of 1986 too, not to mention the greatest recruitment video the Navy ever had.

As a result, Cruise was a brand, and one as reliable as Coca-Cola. When it came to the biggest hits of his early career— Top Gun , Cocktail (1988), Days of Thunder (1990)—they all followed a pretty familiar formula as outlined by standup comic Rich Hall . Whether he was a fighter pilot or a yuppie mixologist, he was still the same hotshot who needed to be slightly humbled (but never defeated) by the love of a good woman.

Cruise and his agents obviously agreed to all these lucrative box office hits, but even in those heady Reagan years, there was an initial apprehension by Cruise and his team to let the biggest movie star in the world become only that. As a young man, he made a point to star in those guaranteed moneymakers, as well as passion projects by auteurs. He was Paul Newman’s protégé in the Martin Scorsese-directed The Color of Money (1986), and after Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War reverie, Platoon (1986), won Best Picture, Cruise fought to star in Stone’s next film about that nightmare, Born on the Fourth of July (1989). His unexpected casting as Vietnam vet Ron Kovic, who returned from Southeast Asia paralyzed and as an anti-war activist, still remains the best performance in Cruise’s career.

As Cruise’s star status reached its zenith in the 1990s, he continued to try to be both the brand—hence the first Mission: Impossible movie in 1996—and the leading actor who chased auteurs. Stanley Kubrick; Rob Reiner; Neil Jordan; Paul Thomas Anderson; Michael Mann; Cameron Crowe; Steven Spielberg. He worked with all of them in the most prolific period of his career, sometimes in movies that were intended to be blockbusters, such as the sci-fi one-two punch of Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005) with Spielberg, or the seminal military courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992) with Reiner. But, generally speaking, he allowed his star status to get weirdly ambitious projects greenlit and marketed like blockbusters due to his participation.

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And, frankly, even the interesting failures in that category—like Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Kubrick’s arguably unfinished final film that was released after his sudden death and which starred Cruise and Nicole Kidman at the end of their marriage—are more captivating than a lot of the well-oiled star vehicles he was doing concurrently, such as the only bad Mission: Impossible movie, M:I-2 from 2000.

Yet all careers ebb and flow, and the natural order of thing for stars, no matter how bright, is to fade—infamously so in Cruise’s case after his personal life came under heavy scrutiny due to his outspoken (and presumptuous) views about psychotropic medication, his very public courtship of his third wife Katie Holmes (who was 16 years younger), and his general participation in the Church of Scientology.

One year after Cruise gained national derision for jumping on Oprah Winfrey’s couch, Mission: Impossible III (2006) underperformed at the box office, and Paramount made no bones about blaming the actor’s off-screen perception. For a time, the studio even seemed ready to terminate Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character.

This was the point an aging movie star would be expected to recline from that status, accept things will never be as they once were, and take on more character roles like Lions for Lambs (2007), the Robert Redford movie in which Cruise played a senator in a supporting role.

The maverick actor, however, would go on to choose a different path.

A Star Is Reborn

There was a time when Paramount Pictures was entirely done with Cruise as the lead of the Mission: Impossible franchise. After the J.J. Abrams-directed M:I-3 earned substantially less than its predecessor from six years earlier, then-Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone told The Wall Street Journal (via Screen Crush ), “We don’t think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot.” Redstone had Paramount terminate their production deal with Cruise and shutter his office behind the studio’s famous gate. They quite literally pushed the biggest star in the world, who led numerous summer blockbusters for the studio, off the lot.

Typically an event such as this marks the tombstone in a Hollywood lead’s status. It’s the moment where they (and their agent) realize celebrity has waned and it is time for reinvention. But Cruise’s idea of reinvention was not to do a lot more movies like Lions for Lambs ; it ultimately became to do what he had done before… but far better than anyone ever imagined was possible.

Admittedly, the moment of grace and public rehabilitation came from a smaller supporting role, in-keeping with that time he might’ve played a narcissistic motivational speaker in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), except in Tropic Thunder (2008), Cruise’s ability to completely over-commit to a seedy character role was dialed up to 11 in a mainstream comedy where he personified what has long been speculated to be a parody of then-Hollywood power player Scott Rudin (whom Cruise worked with on 1993’s The Firm ). Under pounds of prosthetics and makeup, Cruise looked unrecognizable as Les Grossman, a fictional late 2000s-studio mogul as repugnant as his pun-y name might suggest… and just as entertaining.

The public enthusiasm over Cruise’s Grossman dancing to hip-hop during Tropic Thunder ’s end credits may have been the last of two footholds Cruise had to salvage his stardust. The other was a continued friendship with Abrams, who despite helming the only Mission: Impossible movie to take a bath at the box office came out of the experience smelling like roses to the studio. He even became a golden boy when he reinvented Paramount’s Star Trek franchise in 2009 with the movie that turned it seemingly into a long-running action saga in the Star Wars mold.

It was the success of Tropic Thunder , and Abrams’ wingman-ing, that caused the studio to agree to let Cruise return for M:I-4 … if Cruise also agreed they could cast a new leading man who would be set up to take over the franchise in the following film(s).

If you go back and study the marketing material for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), it’s now amusing how hard Paramount pushed Jeremy Renner as franchise newcomer William Brandt. On the poster, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is intentionally made to look older and weathered for the first time, adorning a hoodie to hide Cruise’s famous black mane of hair. Meanwhile, over his shoulder, stands a crisp and bespoke Renner: a fresh face at the literal right hand. Similarly, almost every trailer concluded with the moment Cruise’s Ethan Hunt pulls a gun on Brandt, and Renner’s new protagonist is able to disarm him and hold Cruise at gunpoint instead. A supposed heir apparent has emerged, or so went the implication. And this one is an Avenger .

Yet something that Paramount’s top brass perhaps did not expect was also emerging in the fourth Mission: Impossible : a middle-aged and chastened Cruise deciding that, with his star status diminished, he’d re-commit to the type of big screen spectacle that made him a household name in the first place. He’d obviously been that guy ever since audiences first got a glimpse of Maverick zooming across a military runway on a motorcycle at sunset in Top Gun . But back then, the motorcycle might’ve been real, and the naval jets definitely were, but Cruise was (almost never) flying in them.

Yet alongside Incredibles director Brad Bird, the middle-aged star now engineered some of the most spectacular stunts ever put to screen in Ghost Protocol , and he did them all. When you see Ethan Hunt pull a proverbial Spider-Man and wallcrawl—and run, and skip—alongside the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, that’s really him doing it. Tobey Maguire used CGI, but Cruise is hanging from a rope as he dangles around a manmade colossus.

Similarly, as an actor previously publicized for doing his own stunts, Cruise used this pivot point in his career to better highlight that fact in long, wide, and dazzling shots that bucked the modern trend of relying on rapid editing. Bird let audiences savor that Cruise is the guy up there. And by the time the actor found his collaborative soulmates in stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and director Christopher McQuarrie on Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), the whole marketing likewise shifted toward that aspect. Entire posters for M:I-5 were nothing more than photographic evidence that Cruise was the one actor seemingly crazy enough to hang from the side of a plane that’s taking off. Meanwhile Renner’s Brandt was reduced to a true supporting role in that one before not appearing at all in 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout .

Top Gun: Maverick Review – Tom Cruise Sticks Landing

The First Mission: Impossible Still Has One of the Greatest Action Set Pieces

The last american movie star.

So, yes, Cruise was able to wrestle control back over the Mission: Impossible movies and genuinely make them better than ever, with each of the last three installments surpassing what came before. But more than that, when given the choice of “retirement” or “promotion,” Cruise like Maverick defied the odds and stayed in the cockpit, achieving feats never before seen in his field despite his advancing age.

The context of this in the larger industry is striking. With the infamous exception of 2017’s The Mummy reboot , the 2010s saw an older Cruise retain a commitment to what is obviously traditional blockbuster storytelling. But it is also incredibly well-crafted, intelligent storytelling executed at the peak of Hollywood resources.

Ever since reclaiming Mission: Impossible and his status, the actor has eschewed the auteur projects he coveted in his youth, but the blockbusters he’s doubled down on have improved: Jack Reacher (2012), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), American Made (2017), the three aforementioned M:I movies, and now Top Gun: Maverick are all exceedingly well-made spectacles in which filmmaking craft is at the highest bleeding edge. The emphasis on sharp writing, much of it done by Oscar-winner McQuarrie, is arguably even higher too, which is why McQuarrie became the first director to helm more than one Mission: Impossible movie, and seems poised to draw a curtain on the franchise with the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning two-parter that continues his novel innovation of actually developing Ethan Hunt into a character instead of an archetype.

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In a vacuum, this is impressive. But in contrast with the rest of the industry that is chasing interconnected shared universes in the Marvel Studios vein, and a style that values spectacle generated in a computer (and storytelling that appears to be going in an endless circle), it feels like a life raft. Sometimes the old ways are the best. And while it’s nice that movie stardom is more prolific than ever before with a greater diversity of voices and faces in front of the screen, the entire next generation of “stars” seem obligated to make a Faustian bargain where their success hangs on their likenesses being encased in the plastic uniform of a comic book character.

Conversely, and against all odds, Cruise has maintained his own name as the true brand. Mission: Impossible is technically based on an intellectual property, but you’d be crazier than Hunt if you think its fandom comes from adulation of a 1960s TV show. It’s Cruise’s insistence on maintaining the quality of the writing, the acting, and the stunts which has kept people coming back. Consider that despite the fact he’s pushing 60, Cruise is beloved more than any Hollywood leading man since the days of Douglas Fairbanks for his daredevil antics. It was even while mimicking one of Fairbanks’ between-rooftops leaps in Fallout that Cruise broke an ankle. Nonetheless, they kept filming (the take with his injury is in the finished film) and ultimately incorporated his limp into the movie’s finale.

That style of movie stardom feels like a revenant from the past in the 21st century. That style of stardom felt like a revenant in the late 20th century when Cruise was in his heyday and not actually flying any planes in Top Gun . And yet, as Jennifer Connelly recently attested to us, that’s really him piloting her in a single engine plane in Top Gun: Maverick .

In 2020, Cruise’s intensity came under scrutiny again during the filming of the first forthcoming Dead Reckoning movie. Shooting during the early days of the pandemic—and at a period before there was a vaccine—he apparently was enraged when he saw crew members not practicing social distancing or properly wearing their masks.

“We want the gold standard,” Cruise bellowed. “They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us! Because they believe in us and what we’re doing! I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they’re looking at us [as the example for how] to make their movies.”

Overly harsh? Maybe. Indicative of an inflated hero complex? Most probably. But proof of an ironclad dedication to the art and commerce of moviemaking in the old school Hollywood sense? Absolutely.

Once, in a different era, Cruise starred opposite another movie star who was at a transition point in his career, Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men . In that movie’s classic finale, which was penned by a young Aaron Sorkin, Cruise’s Lt. Daniel Kaffee attempts to get Nicholson’s Col. Nathan R. Jessep to confess culpability in a crime. It’s most famous now for Cruise finally shouting, “I want the truth,” and Nicolson screaming in response, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Yet there’s another gem of a line in this sequence where Nicholson, justifying his hardline tactics, explains, “We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded… you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”

For about 40 years, Cruise has stood on a wall of his own, and he may very well be the last man up there in 2022. One day, as Harris’ rear admiral suggests in Top Gun 2 , he will have to retire and come on down. Moviegoers will be the poorer for it. But not today. Today, the wall looks taller than ever.

David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

Actor Tom Cruise is the star of several box-office hits, including Risky Business , A Few Good Men , The Firm , Jerry Maguire , and the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Who Is Tom Cruise?

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as Tom Cruise, was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, to Mary and Thomas Mapother. Cruise's mother was an amateur actress and schoolteacher, and his father was an electrical engineer. His family moved around a great deal when Cruise was a child to accommodate his father's career.

Cruise's parents divorced when he was 11, and the children moved with their mother to Louisville, Kentucky, and then to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, after she remarried. Like his mother and three sisters, Cruise suffered from dyslexia, which made academic success difficult for him. He excelled in athletics, however, and considered pursuing a career in professional wrestling until a knee injury sidelined him during high school.

At age 14, Cruise enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with thoughts of becoming a priest, but he left after a year. When he was 16, a teacher encouraged him to participate in the school's production of the musical Guys and Dolls . After Cruise won the lead of Nathan Detroit, he found himself surprisingly at home on the stage, and a career was born.

'Taps,' 'The Outsiders'

Cruise set a 10-year deadline for himself in which to build an acting career. He left school and moved to New York City, struggling through audition after audition before landing an appearance in 1981's Endless Love , starring Brooke Shields. Around this same time, he snagged a small role in the military school drama Taps (1981), co-starring Sean Penn .

His role in Taps was upgraded after director Harold Becker saw Cruise's potential, and his performance caught the attention of a number of critics and filmmakers. In 1983, Cruise appeared in Francis Ford Coppola 's The Outsiders , which also starred Emilio Estevez , Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe —all prominent members of a group of young actors the entertainment press dubbed the "Brat Pack." The film was not well received, but it allowed Cruise to work with an acclaimed director on a high-profile project.

'Risky Business'

His next film, Risky Business (1983), grossed $65 million. It also made Cruise a highly recognizable actor — thanks in no small part to a memorable scene of the young star dancing in his underwear.

In 1986, after a two-year hiatus, the budding actor released the big-budget fantasy film Legend , which did poorly at the box office. That same year, however, Cruise's A-list status was confirmed with the release of Top Gun , which co-starred Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan . The testosterone-fueled action-romance, set against the backdrop of an elite naval flight school, became the highest-grossing film of 1986.

'The Color of Money,' 'Rain Man' and 'Born on the Fourth of July'

Cruise followed the tremendous success of Top Gun with a string of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful films. He first starred in The Color of Money (1986) with co-star Paul Newman , and then went on to work with Dustin Hoffman on Rain Man (1988). Cruise's next role, as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in the biopic Born on the Fourth of July (1989), earned him an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

'A Few Good Men,' 'The Firm' and 'Interview with a Vampire'

In 1992, Cruise proved once more that he could hold his own opposite a screen legend when he co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men . The film grossed more than $15 million its first weekend and earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination. He continued to demonstrate his success as a leading man with The Firm (1993) and Interview with a Vampire (1994), which co-starred Brad Pitt.

'Mission: Impossible,' 'Jerry McGuire'

Next, Cruise hit the big screen with two huge hits—the $64 million blockbuster Mission: Impossible (1996), which the star also produced, and the highly acclaimed Jerry McGuire (1996), directed by Cameron Crowe. For the latter, Cruise earned a second Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe for Best Actor.

'Eyes Wide Shut,' 'Magnolia'

Cruise and then-wife Kidman spent much of 1997 and 1998 in England shooting Eyes Wide Shut , an erotic thriller that would be director Stanley Kubrick 's final film. The movie came out in the summer of 1999 to mixed reviews, but that year Cruise enjoyed greater success with the release of Magnolia . His performance as a self-confident sex guru in the ensemble film earned him another Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

'Vanilla Sky,' 'The Last Samurai'

Cruise then starred in the long-awaited smash hit Mission: Impossible 2 in 2000, alongside Anthony Hopkins , Thandie Newton and Ving Rhames. In 2002, he starred in Vanilla Sky , his second collaboration with Crowe, as well as Steven Spielberg 's Minority Report . The following year, Cruise traveled to Australia to shoot the $100 million war epic The Last Samurai, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination.

'War of the Worlds'

Cruise proved he remained a top draw by starring in the Spielberg-directed remake of the science-fiction classic War of the Worlds (2005), which grossed more than $230 million at the box office.

His next effort, Mission: Impossible 3 (2006), also scored well with audiences. However, Cruise was faced with a professional setback in August when Paramount Pictures ended its 14-year relationship with the actor. The company's chairman cited Cruise's erratic behavior and controversial views as the reason for the split, though industry experts noted that Paramount more likely ended the partnership over Cruise's high earnings from the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Cruise quickly rebounded and on November 2, 2006, he announced his new partnership with film executive Paula Wagner and the United Artists film studio. Their first production as a team, the political drama Lions for Lambs (2007), proved a commercial disappointment despite a strong cast that included Meryl Streep and Robert Redford .

'Tropic Thunder'

Taking a break from weighty material, Cruise delighted audiences with his performance in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008). Despite his relatively small role in a movie that featured Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller , Cruise stood out by obscuring his trademark good looks to play a balding, obese movie studio executive.

'Valkyrie,' 'Rock of Ages'

In December 2008, Cruise released his second project through United Artists. The film, Valkyrie , was a World War II drama about a plot to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler . Cruise starred as a German army officer who became involved in the conspiracy.

Cruise returned to one of his most popular franchises in 2011 with Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol . Breaking into new territory, he then starred in the 2012 musical Rock of Ages . Although Cruise received some positive reviews for his performance as a rock star, the movie failed to attract much of an audience.

'Jack Reacher,' 'Edge of Tomorrow'

Returning to his mainstream action roots, Cruise starred in the 2012 crime drama Jack Reacher , based on a book by Lee Child. He then headlined a pair of science-fiction adventures, Oblivion (2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Showing no signs of slowing down, the veteran actor in 2015 delivered his usual high-energy performance for the fifth installment of his blockbuster franchise, Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation .

Latest Movies and Familiar Franchises

In 2016, Cruise reprised the role of Jack Reacher for Never Go Back . He then headlined a reboot of The Mummy (2017), which performed respectably at the box office but was savaged by critics, before earning better reviews later that year for the crime thriller American Made .

2018 brought a return to familiar territory for Cruise, who starred in Mission Impossible —Fallout that summer. Prior to its release, he tweeted a photo to mark day 1 of production on the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick , scheduled for a June 2020 release.

Scientology and Personal Life

Cruise married actress Mimi Rogers in 1987. It was through Rogers that the actor became a student of Scientology, the religion founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise credited the church with curing his dyslexia, and he soon became one of its leading proponents. However, while his spiritual life flourished, his marriage to Rogers ended in 1990. That same year, Cruise made the racecar drama Days of Thunder alongside Kidman. Though the movie was unpopular among critics and fans alike, the two lead actors had real chemistry. On Christmas Eve 1990, after a brief courtship, Cruise and Kidman married in Telluride, Colorado.

Divorce from Kidman

For much of the 1990s, Cruise and Kidman found themselves fiercely defending the happiness and legitimacy of their marriage. They filed two different lawsuits against tabloid publications for stories they considered libelous. In each case, the couple received a published retraction and apology, along with a large monetary settlement which they donated to charity. The couple has two children, Isabella and Connor.

On February 5, 2001, Cruise and Kidman announced their separation after 11 years of marriage. The couple cited the difficulties involved with two acting careers and the amount of time spent apart while working. Following the divorce, Cruise briefly dated his Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz , followed by a much-publicized relationship with actress Katie Holmes. A month after his ties to Holmes became public, Cruise professed his love for the actress in a now-famous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which he jumped on Winfrey's sofa, shouting "Yes!"

Marriage to Katie Holmes

In June 2005, after a two-month courtship, Cruise proposed to Holmes in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel tower. In October, they announced that they were expecting their first child together. The hasty proposal and surprise pregnancy quickly became tabloid gossip. But Cruise made even bigger headlines that year as an outspoken advocate for Scientology. He openly criticized former co-star Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants during her recovery from postpartum depression. He also denounced psychiatry and modern medicine, claiming Scientology held the key to true healing. Cruise's statements led to a heated argument with news anchor Matt Lauer on The Today Show in June 2005, for which Cruise later apologized.

In 2006, Cruise and Holmes welcomed daughter Suri into the world. That year, they were married in an Italian castle, with celebrities Will Smith , Jada Pinkett Smith , Jennifer Lopez and Victoria and David Beckham among those in attendance. However, the storybook romance wouldn't last, and in June 2012, the couple announced their separation.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1962
• Birth date: July 3, 1962
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: Syracuse
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Actor Tom Cruise is the star of several box-office hits, including 'Risky Business,' 'A Few Good Men,' 'The Firm,' 'Jerry Maguire' and the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise.
• Astrological Sign: Cancer

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Tom Cruise Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/tom-cruise
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• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: March 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

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Top Gun 3 Update: Jerry Bruckheimer Says Tom Cruise Has Been Pitched a 'Story He Liked' (Exclusive)

While Jerry Bruckheimer says Tom Cruise liked a story pitch for 'Top Gun 3,' he notes Cruise is "a very in-demand actor and he's got a lot of movies lined up"

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Plans are in motion for Tom Cruise to take to the skies again in a third Top Gun movie.

Jerry Bruckheimer , the producer behind Cruise's 1986 hit Top Gun and the 2022 box office sensation Top Gun: Maverick , tells PEOPLE "we're working on" Top Gun 3 as he promotes his new movie with filmmaker Guy Ritchie , The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare .

"We pitched Tom a story he liked. But he's a very in-demand actor and he's got a lot of movies lined up, so we have to wait and see," Bruckheimer, 80, adds.

When asked what might surprise fans about Cruise, 61, Bruckheimer immediately points to the actor's work ethic. "How hard he works," he tells PEOPLE. "A lot of actors, they finish the day, they get in their car and they go home. Tom stays around, talks to the other actors, looks at the film that they shot, wants to know what's happening tomorrow. He's really engaged in every part of the process."

Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett

Top Gun: Maverick grossed nearly $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office following its release in 2022. The sequel was the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office that calendar year and currently stands out as the fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time in the U.S. and 12th-highest in the world.

When asked what the movie's success more than 25 years after the first Top Gun means to him, Bruckheimer tells PEOPLE, "Oh, it's fantastic."

"Just the fact that we can entertain so many people around the world was something that we worked so hard on. It is just the best there is," he says. "Just to stand back in the theater and watch an audience applaud and cry and laugh. Laughter is the best thing in the world."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Paramount Pictures/Alamy

Bruckheimer's next movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is   in theaters April 19. The producer teamed up with director Ritchie, 55, for a film that stars Henry Cavill as a British special ops agent during World War II.

"I've been a fan of his since [1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ], way back when he was a young pup," Bruckheimer says of working with Ritchie. "It's been a long time trying to get him. Finally, [we] got him."

Related Articles

TOM CRUISE is a global cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema by creating some of the most memorable characters of all time. Having achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer and philanthropist in a career spanning over three decades, Cruise is a three-time Oscar® nominee and three-time Golden Globe Award® winner whose films have earned over $10 billion in worldwide box office—an incomparable accomplishment. Eighteen of Cruise’s films have grossed over $100 million domestically, and a record 23 have made more than $200 million globally. His latest film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout has made over $775 million worldwide becoming Cruise’s most successful film to date.

Cruise has starred in numerous legendary films such as Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Risky Business, Minority Report, Interview with the Vampire, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Rain Man, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, The Color of Money and the Mission: Impossible series, among many others. Combined, the Mission: Impossible franchise has brought in over $3.5 billion since Cruise conceived the idea for a film adaptation of the classic television series and produced the first in 1996. He is currently in production on the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun.

A consummate filmmaker involved in all aspects of production, Cruise has proven his versatility with the films and roles he chooses. He has made 43 films, contributing in a producing role on many of them, and collaborated with a remarkable list of celebrated film directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, Brian De Palma, Cameron Crowe, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ed Zwick, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, J.J. Abrams, Robert Redford, Brad Bird, Doug Liman and Christopher McQuarrie.

Cruise received Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. He was a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Magnolia and won Golden Globes (Best Actor) for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, in addition to a Best Supporting Actor prize for Magnolia. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Risky Business, A Few Good Men and The Last Samurai. Cruise has earned acting nominations and awards from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review.

Cruise’s previous few films include the critically acclaimed American Made, The Mummy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Oblivion and the suspense thriller Jack Reacher, which earned $218 million worldwide. Prior to that, he made a memorable appearance in Ben Stiller’s comedy smash Tropic Thunder, as the foul-mouthed Hollywood movie mogul Les Grossman. This performance, based on a character Cruise created, earned him praise from critics and audiences as well as his seventh Golden Globe nomination.

Cruise has been honored with tributes ranging from Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award to the John Huston Award from the Artists Rights Foundation and the American Cinematheque Award for Distinguished Achievement in Film. In addition to his artistic contributions, Cruise has used his professional success as a vehicle for positive change, becoming an international advocate, activist and philanthropist in the fields of health, education and human rights. He has been honored by the Mentor LA organization for his work on behalf of the children of Los Angeles and around the world. In 2011 Cruise received the Simon Wiesenthal Humanitarian Award and the following year he received the Entertainment Icon Award from the Friars Club for his outstanding accomplishments in the entertainment industry and in the humanities. He is the fourth person to receive this honor after Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Empire magazine awarded Cruise its Legend of Our Lifetime Award in 2014. Most recently, Cruise was the first actor to receive The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation’s Pioneer of the Year Award in 2018.

• Top Gun: Maverick (2021)
• Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018)
• American Made (2017)
• The Mummy (2017)
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
• Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Oblivion (2013)
• Jack Reacher (2012)
• Rock of Ages (2012)
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
• Knight and Day (2010)
• Valkyrie (2008)
• Tropic Thunder (2008)
• Lions for Lambs (2007)
• Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
• War of the Worlds (2005)
• Collateral (2004)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Vanilla Sky (2002)
• Mission: Impossible 2 (2001)
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
• Magnolia (1999)
• Jerry Maguire (1996)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Interview with the Vampire (1994)
• The Firm (1993)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• Far and Away (1992)
• Days of Thunder (1990)
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Cocktail (1988)
• The Color of Money (1986)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Legend (1985)
• Risky Business (1983)
• All the Right Moves (1983)
• The Outsiders (1983)
• Losin’ It (1983)
• Taps (1981)
• Endless Love (1981)

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Tom Cruise signs up for new film by The Revenant director Alejandro G Iñárritu

The Top Gun star will take a break from action blockbusters to make an English-language film with the multiple Oscar-winning Mexican director

In a dramatic departure from his recent run of large-scale action blockbusters, Tom Cruise has agreed to appear in the new film from Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu .

According to Deadline , Cruise has signed on to star in the film, about which little is known other than that it will be in English and has been written by Iñárritu along with Sabina Berman, as well as Birdman co-writers Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolas Giacobone.

The film is due to be produced by Warner Bros under Cruise’s recently announced non-exclusive contract with the studio, which allows for Cruise to work on projects for other Hollywood entities. A third Top Gun film is in the works at Paramount, and Cruise is believed to currently be filming Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, production of which was delayed by Covid, and which is due for release in May 2025. Cruise is also working “diligently” on a long-gestating project that involves shooting in space.

Alongside his success in action movies, Cruise has a strong record in more dramatic and comedic films. In 1994 he starred alongside Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire , and followed it up with the lead role in Jerry Maguire, for which he was Oscar nominated. In 1999, he appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut, and subsequently received a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. In 2005 he starred opposite Jamie Foxx in Collateral, and played a movie producer in the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder.

Iñárritu, the first Mexican to be nominated for the best director Oscar, released Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths in 2022, and last made an English-language film in 2015 with The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. His films have won eight Academy awards, including three for The Revenant (including best director) and a special achievement Academy Award for the virtual-reality short film Flesh and Sand.

• Alejandro González Iñárritu

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Is Edge of Tomorrow 2 now possible with Tom Cruise back at Warner Bros.?

A decade ago, Tom Cruise  and Emily Blunt starred in Edge of Tomorrow , a sci-fi alien invasion flick based on the memorably named Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill . However, Edge of Tomorrow didn’t bring in the big profits for Warner Bros. and it finished with $370.5 million worldwide against a $178 million budget. Nevertheless, the film has picked up a cult following that has clamored for Edge of Tomorrow 2 , and those hopes may actually come to fruition now that Cruise is back at Warner Bros. with a long-term deal.

Via The Hollywood Reporter , Cruise’s new pact with Warner Bros. includes teaming up with studio executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy to develop and produce “original and franchise theatrical films.” Cruise’s other successful franchises — Top Gun and Mission: Impossible — are both lined up at Paramount. The only preexisting WB franchise that Cruise has already starred in is Edge of Tomorrow . That is, unless Cruise suddenly wants to star in a Harry Potter flick or put on a cape for DC.

Cruise’s frequent collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie, co-wrote the script for Edge of Tomorrow . And McQuarrie first mentioned that Cruise came up with a concept for the sequel in 2015 . Director Doug Liman and Blunt have also expressed their desire to return for a sequel. As recently as last year, Blunt appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and said that she had already been slipped the script by Liman. But she cast doubt on the film happening anytime soon.

“I mean, I would love to make it a reality, but I just don’t know when or how,” said Blunt. “And how many Mission Impossible s does [Cruise] need?”

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• The 7 best Tom Cruise action movies, ranked
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One trailer teases Tom Cruise’s last hurrah

As it happens, Cruise is filming his final Mission: Impossible movie this year, which will finish the story that began in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One . Cruise will than make a movie for Universal that will be partially filmed in the International Space Station. Beyond that, perhaps there could finally be room for Edge of Tomorrow 2 .

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In 1986, the original Top Gun helped firmly establish Tom Cruise as a movie star. And unlike many icons from the '80s, Cruise has maintained that status and avoided the direct-to-video phase of his career. Now, Cruise is revisiting the franchise that started it all in Top Gun: Maverick. The film was actually finished three years ago, but it has faced numerous pandemic-related delays. Now that the new trailer has arrived, there are finally clear skies ahead for the sequel.

The trailer picks up with Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) nearly 30 years after the original film. While Maverick's peers have gone on to bigger things, he remains a captain and a test pilot simply so he can keep flying missions. Maverick finds himself back in the Top Gun program while teaching a new generation of pilots the skills they will need to survive in hostile skies. But at least one of the cadets will remind Maverick of his darkest hour, when his friend, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), was killed in the original movie.

In theory, Warner Bros. Pictures should be basking in the spotlight of The Batman's impressive opening weekend, secure in the knowledge that three other big DC films are coming this year. However, those plans received a major shake-up today, as two of this year's marquee superhero films have been pushed all the way back into next year.

Via Variety, The Flash movie, which was previously slated to race into theaters on November 4, will now arrive on June 23, 2023. Meanwhile, the Aquaman sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, is not set to be released on March 17, 2023, three months after its former date of December 16.

In 2007, Warner Bros. adapted Richard Matheson's post-apocalyptic sci-fi classic I Am Legend as a film, with Will Smith in the leading role. While the ending of that film didn't leave much room for a sequel, Deadline is reporting that I Am Legend 2 has come together with some pretty serious star power. Not only is Smith slated to headline the sequel, but he will also appear alongside Michael B. Jordan as co-lead in the movie. Both Smith and Jordan will also produce the project.

In the first film, Smith portrayed Dr. Robert Neville, one of the creators of a failed attempt to cure cancer. Instead of curing mankind of a virulent disease, the customized virus killed most of the human population. The vast majority of the survivors mutated into vampire-like creatures known as Darkseekers. Robert was one of the only remaining humans, and he lived a solitary existence as he tried to find a cure.

10 Movies That Defined Tom Cruise's Career

• Risky Business launched Tom Cruise's career at just 20, showcasing his charisma and acting chops in a darkly comedic film.
• Top Gun solidified Cruise's superstar status, showcasing his aerial skills and magnetic personality in a high-flying action movie.
• Rain Man displayed Cruise's range as an actor, earning him accolades and proving he could excel in drama as well as comedy.

One of the premiere movie stars of the modern era, Tom Cruise has a career that can be traced along several distinct milestones as marked by some of his most significant films. Tom Cruise's famous love of stunt work , tenacious charisma, and sheer unbridled energy have helped him maintain a position as a versatile movie star in Hollywood. Though the actor has not been free from controversy over the course of his career, he has endeared himself as a staple of the film industry for nearly forty years.

From his early films of the mid-80s to his breakout hits of the present day, Tom Cruise's best movies each mark an important chapter in the legendary performer's lauded career. The most iconic films attached to Cruise's name typically mark a new milestone, be it a high point or a low point, or introduce Cruise's acting capabilities to a new genre or tone. Whether he's dangling from a ceiling, flying a cutting-edge jet, or fostering a tender emotional connection, Tom Cruise's varied performances tell the story of his stardom just as much as the story of the film they're within.

Tom Cruise Becomes Major The Flash Villain In Stunningly Realistic DC Universe Art

Risky business.

Director Paul Brickman

Release Date August 5, 1983

Writers Paul Brickman

Cast Bronson Pinchot, Richard Masur, Joe Pantoliano, Rebecca De Mornay, Tom Cruise

A generation X classic, Risky Business was a strong catalyst for Tom Cruise's rise to stardom. The film set the precedent for the great films of John Cusack, following the romance a high school senior, played by a young, hungry Cruise, and a lady of the night. From the iconic dance scene set to Old Time Rock and Roll to the film's ability to balance comedy with darker themes, Risky Business was an instant success.

Essentially Cruise's breakout role, Risky Business put the actor on the map at the tender age of 20. Perhaps the single most important film of Cruise's career, without Risky Business , the short-statured movie star wouldn't have gotten the chance to head major action franchises. While The Outsiders of the same year also placed Cruise in an impressive ensemble cast managed by Francis Ford Coppola, Risky Business put him front and center, giving him room to flex his dazzling performance.

In this classic action flick, Tom Cruise stars as daring young pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Among the other students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school, he competes to be best in the class, and learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.

Director Tony Scott

Release Date May 16, 1986

Cast Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis, Tom Skerritt, Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards

Runtime 110 minutes

Top Gun strapped a freshly-famous Cruise into the cockpit of an F-14 as the hot-blooded Maverick.

If Risky Business proposed Tom Cruise's superstar status as a thesis statement, Top Gun confirmed it, officially cementing him in place as one of the premiere forces of personality Hollywood could rally around. To this day the single most influential dogfighting movie of all time, Top Gun strapped a freshly-famous Cruise into the cockpit of an F-14 as the hot-blooded Maverick. Fueled by a glam-infused 80s soundtrack, earnest patriotism and a palpable chemistry between Maverick and the rest of the Top Gun Academy pilots, the film was a near-instant success.

Top Gun went a long way in earning Cruise even more trust in Hollywood, proving he could pilot a blockbuster that left a massive cultural impact. The many planes of the Top Gun franchise also helped inspire Cruise's own love of aviation, later using much of his wealth to buy planes of his own, including a genuine P-51 Mustang from World War II. The choice of Cruise for the responsibility of putting a face to the absurdly expensive film paid off in a big way, with the U.S. Navy seeing record recruitment numbers after the film's release.

Director Barry Levinson

Release Date December 16, 1988

Cast Valeria Golino, Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Bonnie Hunt

Cruise may have proven himself as a scenery-chewing action hero in Top Gun , but Rain Man presented him an opportunity to re-ignite his comedy chops while showing off a new, more tender side to his performances. Starring opposite the great Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise starred in the film as a hustler who learns of his estranged brother, an autistic savant with a knack for numbers. The road trip buddy comedy excelled in both comedic pacing and genuine drama, thoughtfully promoting awareness of autism even if it did leave many audiences with an unrealistic view of the condition.

Few films were as rewarding for Cruise's resume as Rain Man , which went on to earn an astounding eight nominations at the 1989 Academy Awards and take home four wins, including the coveted Academy Award for Best Picture. Cruise in particular also didn't go unrecognized, gaining accolades as the year's Best Supporting Actor courtesy of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. Rain Man widened the public's perception of Cruise's range going forward, awarding him a reputation as a genuinely great actor rather than just an entertaining action star.

Mission Impossible

Director Brian De Palma

Release Date May 22, 1996

Cast Emmanuelle Bart, Henry Czerny, Tom Cruise, Jon Voight

Runtime 1hr50

Of course, Cruise's days as an action star were far from over, and the thunderous applause of the first Mission Impossible would see to it that he would remain a contender for a lead role in many blockbusters for years to come. Putting Cruise in the role of Ethan Hunt, the reboot of the classic heist film allowed him to flex his physicality, dangling from ceilings and holding on to moving trains for dear life. From the iconic theme song to the death-defying action scenes, Mission Impossible put Cruise on a whole new level.

Beyond spawning the critically acclaimed Mission Impossible franchise , which Cruise has continued to carry as a leading man, the film was among the first to give Cruise a reputation as a daredevil. Considering he was also a producer on Mission Impossible , it quickly became evident that Cruise was willing to go out of his way to put his safety on the line for some breathtaking practical action sequences. From proving Cruise's ability to drive a long-running franchise to honing his stunt skills and sharpening his producing acumen, MIssion Impossible was an incredibly important feather in Cruise's cap.

Jerry Maguire

Within the same year as the bombastic action of Mission Impossible , Tom Cruise released a more down-to-earth sports comedy that often gets unfairly shadowed by the other giants of his filmography. Playing the titular sports manager, Cruise demonstrates a more poignant acting talent beyond high-flying planes and death defying stunts, simmering in the simple story of a professional wishing to deepen his personal relationships. Though technically a sports film, it's the human drama that drove Jerry Maguire into success.

Jerry Maguire was the peak of Cruise's broad audience appeal in the 90s.

Jerry Maguire was the peak of Cruise's broad audience appeal in the 90s. Not the most narratively complex film, Jerry Maguire relied heavily on its talent to carry the weighty character drama to the end zone. Luckily, Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Renée Zellweger were more than up to the task, and Cruise provided proof of yet another expansion of his versatile acting capabilities.

Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama mystery directed by Stanley Kubrick centering on a Manhattan doctor who goes to unexpected lengths to please his wife after she admits she was unsatisfied and almost had an affair a year earlier. Eyes Wide Shut stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as husband and wife.

Director Stanley Kubrick

Release Date July 16, 1999

Writers Frederic Raphael, Stanley Kubrick

Cast Marie Richardson, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Tom Cruise, Todd Field

Runtime 159 minutes

No film was a greater testament to the trust Cruise earned from Hollywood by the end of the 90s than his status as the lead role in the last entry in the great Stanley Kubrick's filmography . In Eyes Wide Shut , Tom Cruise plays a medical doctor that gets sucked into the scandalous world of a high-society cabal of sexual fantasies. The mystery, psycho-sexual themes and weighty personal tension of the film divided critics, becoming one of the most infamously polarizing films of all time.

If Jerry Maguire was a testament to Cruise's widespread appeal, Eyes Wide Shut proved he was capable of committing to off-beat stories that wouldn't necessarily go down easily for every viewer. Even many of the negative reviews of Kubrick's last film offered at least some amount of praise to Cruise's fierce, if eccentric, performance, usually not citing his leading role as a problem. In Eyes Wide Shut , Tom Cruise's willingness to take risks beyond committing to dizzying stunts truly shone through for the first time.

Minority Report

In Minority Report's utopian future, where murders can be predicted and prevented, police chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is accused of a crime he hasn't committed and goes on the run to prove his innocence. Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a Philip K. Dick short story, the 2002 sci-fi film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $350 million worldwide.

Director Steven Spielberg

Release Date June 21, 2002

Cast Neal McDonough, Max Von Sydow, Colin Farrell, Tom Cruise, Samantha Morton

Rating PG-13

Runtime 145 minutes

Tom Cruise entered the new millennium strong with Minority Report , an adrenaline-fueled science fiction film that proved to be more heady and existential than his other action films. Cruise lent his talent as John Anderton, a "pre-crime chief" in the near-future that specialized in apprehending criminals before they had a chance to even commit their crimes in the first place. Exploring themes of determinism, free will, and complicity in a broken system, Minority Report was able to balance its philosophy with some visceral action.

Minority Report was another successful high-profile collaboration between Tom Cruise and a famous director, this time Steven Spielberg. Whereas Cruise's thoughtful and action-oriented sides were previously separated by an invisible line, Minority Report proved that he could juggle both within the context of a single film. Earning a litany of awards, Minority Report was a critically and financially successful stop along Tom Cruise's impressive development as an actor.

The Last Samurai

Director Edward Zwick

Release Date December 5, 2003

Cast Shin Koyamada, Ken Watanabe, Tom Cruise, Tony Goldwyn, Koyuki Kato

Runtime 154 minutes

At first, The Last Samurai may seem like just another successful action film in Tom Cruise's endlessly impressive filmography. However, other than being one of the actor's more popular films, it also finally granted him a proper tangible recognition as a leading actor. Cruise's first period film, The Last Samurai posited the superstar as an American cavalryman in the 1870s who finds himself stranded in Japan, adapting to the warrior culture of the samurai while leading them in battle against the modernizing Imperial Army.

The Last Samurai finally gave Tom Cruise his long-deserved dues as an impressive lead performer, earning him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. While Western reviews of the film were merely average, describing it as a stock standard period epic, the film did surprisingly well in Japan, being one of the better Western depictions of the setting according to Japanese critics. It doesn't hurt that Cruise's training scene as Algren is one of the best movie sword fights around, maintaining a lasting impression for the entry in Cruise's catalog.

Edge Of Tomorrow

Edge of tomorrow.

Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow follows Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), who finds himself drafted into humanity's ongoing war against a seemingly unstoppable race of hostile aliens called Mimics. Cage is killed in combat, but wakes in a time loop, reliving the same battle day after day. Gradually, he realizes that if he teams up with the decorated war hero Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), he can exploit the time loop to defeat the Mimic army and save the human race. 

Director Doug Liman

Release Date June 6, 2014

Cast Emily Blunt, Tom Cruise

Runtime 1h 53m

Returning to the science fiction realm, Edge of Tomorrow holds a fascinating spot in Tom Cruise's career. Loosely based on the amazingly-titled Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill , the film put Tom Cruise in one of his most fantastic worlds yet, starring him as a hapless conscript in an alien war strapped into a suit of power armor with little choice. In a daring twist, the film was also a Groundhog's Day -style time loop movie , complimenting the straightforward science fiction action with a puzzling mystery.

Despite critical praise, Edge of Tomorrow had a lukewarm domestic box office reception, making most of its money overseas. While the film has gone on to amass something of a cult following, it was far from the success a well-written science fiction action thriller with Cruise headlining should've been. Edge of Tomorrow made the interesting point that Cruise's involvement in even a big-budget project isn't an instant herald of success, even if the film in question does nothing overtly wrong. As powerful as Cruise's star power is, it can't win every battle.

Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick is the sequel to the 1986 original film starring Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a top-tier pilot in the Navy. Thirty years after the original film's events, Maverick is asked to head up a section of the TOP GUN program to embark on a dangerous mission. Things become personal when the program includes the son of Maverick's late friend, forcing him to confront his past.

Director Joseph Kosinski

Release Date May 27, 2022

Cast Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Ed Harris, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Lewis Pullman, Bashir Salahuddin, Charles Parnell, Tom Cruise, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell

Runtime 130 Minutes

Returning to the role of Captain Peter "Maverick" Mitchell after a whopping 36 years, there were some understandable doubts in Cruise's ability to ignite the same amount of passion the first Top Gun had so long after what may have been considered the peak of his career. Luckily, Cruise swiftly disproved the notion of the first film's fading legacy by releasing a smash hit with Top Gun: Maverick. One of the most successful 80s revivals of recent years, the film saw Maverick take a mentor position with a new class of Top Gun cadets.

Earning over one billion dollars, Top Gun: Maverick became Tom Cruise's single most financially successful film, and for good reason. Critics and casual audiences alike heaped praise on Cruise's steady returning performance as the loose cannon Maverick, somehow outdoing the first film in both of jaw-dropping visuals and palpable emotional drama. Earning Cruise an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it's safe to say that Top Gun: Maverick reigns supreme as the current peak of Tom Cruise 's hall-of-fame career.

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Tom Cruise lines up next lead film role

It's a mystery project...

Tom Cruise has lined up his next lead role, with the star set to join the cast for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest film.

Cruise will produce the feature, which currently has no plot details. The project will also be Iñárritu’s first English-language feature since The Revenant , which saw Leonardo DiCaprio win an Academy Award for his lead performance.

Related: Mission: Impossible 4K steelbook boxsets get price cuts ahead of next sequel

While the untitled project is still a fair while away, Cruise is busy preparing for the eighth instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which has seen its release date delayed by a year.

Director Christopher McQuarrie recently spoke about the upcoming feature, teasing that they would be upping the ante in the stunt department, telling Collider : “Tom and I are constantly re-evaluating our own work and asking ourselves how we could have done it better.

“We've done underwater sequences previously. We've worked underwater in Edge of Tomorrow , and we worked underwater in Rogue Nation , and we left very dissatisfied with those sequences.

“And we analyse why we were dissatisfied. What were all the factors working against us? The biggest being not having real knowledge in that area. Everything you're looking at in Dead Reckoning is the application of knowledge from the previous sequence.”

Related: Mission: Impossible 7 director defends controversial death

The seventh film, Dead Reckoning , featured the shock death of Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, with the star addressing her character’s fate : “ Mission is such a huge dedication, and I've done it now, and it's fantastic. And it's amazing, and Christopher and Tom wrote this incredible character.

“There's just that much you can do with a character, I find, and I'm entitled to my own opinion on this too. I want her to go rogue. I'm interested in the dark side, I don't want to be a team member, I'm not interested in that. And I felt like that was where we were headed.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is now available to rent or purchase . An untitled eighth Mission: Impossible film will be releasing on May 23, 2025.

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Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media.  His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and John Wick to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.  

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