every movie tom cruise has been in

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Birth Name: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

Birth Place: Syracuse, New York, United States

Profession Actor, producer

Subject (person only)

Screenwriter, executive producer, production designer.

All 44 of Tom Cruise’s movies, ranked

This article was published more than 6 months ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire (1996). Columbia TriStar via The Associated Press

“He is uniquely trained and highly motivated – a specialist without equal – immune to any countermeasures. ... He is the living manifestation of destiny.”

Those words belong to Alec Baldwin’s CIA honcho in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation , describing the superspy Ethan Hunt played by Tom Cruise. But Baldwin might as well just be describing Cruise himself, a pure force of will who has elevated (almost) every movie he has been involved with. After spending the past half-year diving into the star’s filmography, here is my mission report. Presenting all 44 Tom Cruise movies , ranked from worst to best.

Meet Christopher McQuarrie, wingman to Tom Cruise’s death-defying maverick

The Tao of Tom Cruise, our last action hero

Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018). David James/The Associated Press

44. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016): Good advice, someone should’ve heeded it.

43. Rock of Ages (2012): Puke-box musical.

42. The Mummy (2017): Denial ain’t just a franchise in Egypt.

41. Endless Love (1981): Barely a pipsqueak, Cruise’s first role is just plain squeaky.

40. Losin’ It (1983): A charmless thing starring a man of pure charm, fancy that.

39. Interview with the Vampire (1994): Dead, and not loving it.

38. The Last Samurai (2003): The Last White Saviour movie to likely get such a high budget.

37. Lions For Lambs (2007): Faux-political drama operating on slaughter-house rules.

36. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000): To John Woo, thanks for nothing.

35. All the Right Moves (1983): Perhaps Jerry Maguire could help Cruise’s NFL wannabe. Perhaps not.

34. Far and Away (1992): Ron Howard must be, but so far hasn’t been, stopped.

33. Knight and Day (2010): Right repairing with Vanilla Sky ’s Cameron Diaz, but the wrong movie.

32. Oblivion (2013): Sterile sci-fi, but it introduces Cruise to Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.

31. Legend (1985): Tawdry make-believe that imagines a better movie just beyond its grasp.

30. Cocktail (1988): The martini glass is half-empty. But points for Kokomo – and Toronto.

29. Valkyrie (2008): Once you adapt to his accent-less Nazi turncoat, it sorta clicks.

28. Jack Reacher (2012): Just a few inches short of a tight thriller.

27. Taps (1981): Cruise’s determination codified, if not yet quite personified.

26. The Outsiders (1983): Rare ensemble work that toughs it out.

25. Vanilla Sky (2001): Cameron Crowe and Cruise follow Jerry Maguire with a vision too heavy for even the sturdiest of eight-pound heads.

24. Tropic Thunder (2008): Timeless performance in film otherwise composed of ancient cultural artifacts.

23. The Color of Money (1986): True grit from Cruise, Paul Newman and Martin Scorsese, three of our finest hustlers.

22. Days of Thunder (1990): Inseparable from Top Gun , cementing Cruise as our Golden Boy.

21. Top Gun (1986): Ridiculous beefy silliness that breaks the sound barrier.

20. The Firm (1993): The true origins of Cruise’s running-man shtick.

19. Mission: Impossible (1996): RIP Emilio Estevez’s character, but long live Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The Canadian Press

18. War of the Worlds (2005): Apocalyptic parenting par excellence.

17. Mission: Impossible III (2006): The resuscitation of a megafranchise, bigger and louder and Alias -er.

16. American Made (2017): All smiles, sweat and sex, delightfully absent any moral centre.

15. Rain Man (1988): No one plays the jerk-who-comes-round better.

14. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015): In Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise finds his kindred collaborator/enabler.

13. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011): Jeremy Renner could never.

12. Edge of Tomorrow (2014): Live, die, repeatedly watch this all-killer-no-filler Groundhog Day riff.

11. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023): No movie is worth dying for, but then again ...

10. Collateral (2004): The rare villainous turn, slicked to the nines with devilish dark-night-of-the-soul fun.

9. Born on the Fourth of July (1989): The war movie no one expected from Cruise, but the war movie he had to make.

8. Magnolia (1999): In this life, it’s not what you hope for, it’s not what you deserve – it’s what you take.

Tom Cruise and Samantha Morton in Minority Report (2002). Handout

7. A Few Good Men (1992): In which Cruise gives us the god’s honest truth, 100 per cent.

6. Risky Business (1983): Sunglasses at night, old time rock-’n’-roll charm during the day.

5. Eyes Wide Shut (1999): Revelatory work that shatters celebrity perception.

Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures

4. Minority Report (2002): Steven Spielberg’s finest sci-fi fantasia and Cruise’s top fugitive fantasy.

3. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018): In which Cruise becomes immortal.

2. Jerry Maguire (1996): It’s had us at hello for a quarter-century now.

1. Top Gun: Maverick (2022): The hero American cinema needs, the hero the world deserves.

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Every single Tom Cruise movie, ranked

• Tom Cruise has been acting for nearly four decades. 
• The almost 57-year-old is still making some of the best movies of his career. 
• His top-rated movie is 2018's "Mission: Impossible Fallout." 
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.

Tom Cruise is still dominating the box office after nearly 40 years in the film industry. 

Beginning with 1981's "Endless Love," Cruise has risen to become one of the most recognizable actors of his generation. With a prolific career like his, not every movie can be a critical success, but most of the actor's films have been hits, including "Risky Business" and most of the "Mission: Impossible" movies. 2018's "Mission: Impossible Fallout" is his best film to date. 

In honor of the actor's 57th birthday on July 3, here are all of Cruise's movies ranked according to the critics' scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

42. In 1988's "Cocktail," Cruise plays a New York City bartender who moves to Jamaica for work and falls in love.

Synopsis :  "A talented New York City bartender takes a job at a bar in Jamaica and falls in love."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 5%

41. Cruise plays an Army sergeant in 2017's "The Mummy," a failed reboot of the "Mummy" franchise.

Synopsis :  "An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 16%

40. Cruise is one of four boys who get into some wild adventures during a trip to Tijuana, Mexico in 1983's "Losin' It."

Synopsis : " Set in 1965, four rowdy teenage guys travel to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of partying when they are joined by a heartbroken housewife who is in town seeking a quick divorce."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 20%

39. Cruise made his film debut in 1981's "Endless Love" with a minor role as a teen who says he started a fire as a kid.

Synopsis :  "A high school student's love for a 15-year-old girl is thwarted by parental disapproval, circumstance, and accident."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 29%

38. Cruise is a senator who comes up with a new war strategy in Afghanistan in 2007's "Lions for Lambs."

Synopsis : " Injuries sustained by two Army rangers behind enemy lines in Afghanistan set off a sequence of events involving a congressman, a journalist, and a professor."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 27%

37. Cruise lives in the forest, loves a princess, and must stop darkness from descending upon the land in 1985's "Legend."

Synopsis : " A young man must stop the Lord of Darkness from both destroying daylight and marrying the woman he loves."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 36%

36. Cruise returned as the titular action hero in 2016's "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back."

Synopsis : " Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name. On the run as a fugitive from the law, Reacher uncovers a potential secret from his past that could change his life forever."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 38%

35. Cruise starred alongside his future wife Nicole Kidman as a race car driver in 1990's "Days of Thunder."

Synopsis : " A young hotshot stock car driver gets his chance to compete at the top level."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 39%

34. Cruise is a rock star in 2012's "Rock of Ages."

Synopsis : " A small town girl and a city boy meet on the Sunset Strip while pursuing their Hollywood dreams."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 42% 

33. In 2001's "Vanilla Sky," Cruise is a playboy who falls in love but whose ex-girlfriend returns and changes his life.

Synopsis : " A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 42%

32. Cruise plays an Irish man who moves to America after his family's home is burned down in 1992's "Far and Away."

Synopsis : " A young Irish couple flees to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 48%

31. Cruise portrays a high school football player in 1983's "All the Right Moves."

Synopsis : " A high school football player desperate for a scholarship and his headstrong coach clash in a dying Pennsylvania steel town."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 52%

30. In 2010's "Knight & Day," Cruise plays a CIA spy trying to clear his name.

Synopsis : " A young woman gets mixed up with a disgraced spy who is trying to clear his name."  

29. Cruise stars in the 2013 post-apocalyptic movie "Oblivion."

Synopsis : " A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 53%

28. Cruise is well-known for playing a naval pilot in 1986's "Top Gun."

Synopsis : " As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom."  

Rotten Tomatoes score : 55%

27. Cruise plays Agent Ethan Hunt in the "Mission: Impossible" movies, and of the six films released so far in the franchise, 2000's "Mission: Impossible 2" has the worst rating.

Synopsis : "I.M.F. Agent Ethan Hunt is sent to Sydney, Australia to find and destroy a genetically modified disease called Chimera."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 57%

26. Cruise portrays real-life Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a German soldier who made a plan to assassinate Hitler in 2008's "Valkyrie."

Synopsis :  "A dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 62%

25. In 1994's "Interview With the Vampire," Cruise is a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt who revels in killing humans.

Synopsis :  "A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger."

24. Cruise portrays the titular hero in 2012's "Jack Reacher."

Synopsis :  "A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 63%

23. Cruise is introduced as Agent Ethan Hunt in 1996's "Mission: Impossible"

Synopsis :  "An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 63% 

22. Cruise is Steve Randle, a member of the poor Greasers gang, in 1983's "The Outsiders."

Synopsis :  "The rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, only heats up when one gang member kills a member of the other."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 64% 

21. Cruise is sent to train an army in Japan but is captured by samurai and decides to join their cause in "The Last Samurai"

Synopsis :  "An American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 66%

20. In 2006, Cruise once again returned to play Ethan Hunt in "Mission: Impossible III."

Synopsis :  "IMF Agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fiancee in response."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 70%

19. Cruise plays a West Point cadet in 1981's "Taps," his second movie role.

Synopsis :  "Military cadets take extreme measures to ensure the future of their academy when its existence is threatened by local condo developers."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 71% 

18. Cruise is a father who tries to protect his family when aliens attack in "War of the Worlds."

Synopsis :  "As Earth is invaded by alien tripod fighting machines, one family fights for survival."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 75%

17. Cruise plays a recent Harvard grad who joins a law firm but discovers it's not what he expected in the 1993 thriller "The Firm."

Synopsis :  "A young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side."

16. Cruise and Kidman starred together one last time before their divorce as a couple in 1999's racy "Eyes Wide Shut."

Synopsis : "A New York City doctor embarks on a harrowing, night-long odyssey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife reveals a painful secret to him."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 75% 

15. Cruise is unrecognizable as a studio executive in 2008's "Tropic Thunder."

Synopsis : "Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 81%

14. Cruise is a Lieutenant and inexperienced lawyer given a case of defending Marines accused of murder in 1992's "A Few Good Men."

Synopsis : "Military lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder. They contend they were acting under orders."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 82%

13. Cruise won a Golden Globe for playing a sports agent in 1996's "Jerry Maguire."

Synopsis : "When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent agent with the only athlete who stays with him and his former secretary."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 83%

12. Cruise earned his last Oscar nomination for playing a motivational speaker in 1999's "Magnolia."

Synopsis : "An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley."

11. Cruise is real-life CIA pilot Barry Seal who also started smuggling drugs for the Medellín Cartel in "American Made."

Synopsis : "The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 86%

10. Cruise plays a hitman fired to kill five people in 2004's "Collateral."

Synopsis : "A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles."

9. Cruise stars alongside Paul Newman in 1986's "The Color of Money" as a pool player.

Synopsis : "Fast Eddie Felson teaches a cocky but immensely talented protégé the ropes of pool hustling, which in turn inspires him to make an unlikely comeback."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 89%

8. Cruise earned his first Oscar nomination for playing real-life Vietnam vet Ron Kovic who is left paralyzed during the war and becomes a political activist in 1989's "Born on the Fourth of July."

Synopsis : "The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for."

7. In 1988's "Rain Man," Cruise plays a selfish rich kid who learns of his autistic older brother after their father dies and leaves most of his inheritance to the older sibling.

Synopsis : "Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country."

6. Cruise is a soldier who finds that every time he dies, he relives the same day over and over again as he attempts to save the day in 2014's "Edge of Tomorrow."

Synopsis : " A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 90%

5. Cruise plays a cop being hunted for a murder he's predicted of doing in 2002's "Minority Report."

Synopsis : "In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 91%

4. Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt for the fourth time in 2011's "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol."

Synopsis : "The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 93%

3. Cruise continues dominating as Ethan Hunt in 2015's "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation."

Synopsis : "Ethan and team take on their most impossible mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate — an International rogue organization as highly skilled as they are, committed to destroying the IMF."

2. Cruise broke out as a teen whose plans to have fun while his parents are gone go awry in 1983's "Risky Business."

Synopsis : "A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 96%

1. Cruise continues to prove that Ethan Hunt isn't going anywhere in 2018's "Mission: Impossible Fallout."

Synopsis : "Ethan Hunt and his IMF team, along with some familiar allies, race against time after a mission gone wrong."

Rotten Tomatoes score : 97%

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Every Tom Cruise Movie Performance, Ranked

No one better than Tom Cruise exemplifies the breed of megastars who dawned during the 1980s, felt like gods during the 1990s, and are now a curious class of their own in the twilight of the traditional stardom they represent. Since the early ’80s, Cruise steadily and successfully carved out a career fueled by his boyish megawatt smile, a practiced brand of charisma, and an interest in physically throwing himself into his roles with dangerous gusto. His work has run the gamut. He’s swaggered through dramas, romantic comedies, heaps of science fiction, and most often, action films — including his latest, Mission: Impossible — Fallout . In honor of the actor’s latest big-screen spectacle, we revisited and ranked all of Cruise’s performances in order to interrogate why he’s remained such a fixture in the public imagination all these years.

42. Rock of Ages (2012)

The worst thing a star can do is refuse to grow. Cruise has had performances that reached high yet fell short, but in his turn as rock star Stacee Jaxx, he’s never been more unengaging or laughable. Jaxx illustrates the reasons for many of Cruise’s recent duds: a lack of self-awareness, a refusal to adapt as he’s grown older, an element of humorlessness. Watching Cruise shirtless-singing to ’80s metal hits like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” tips into self-parody. It’s a train wreck of a performance that lacks any of the charm necessary to not come across as an unintentional joke, making this Cruise role hard to forget for all the wrong reasons.

41. The Mummy (2017)

No matter how miscalculated his moves, Tom Cruise isn’t usually the kind of actor you’d ever call listless. He’s known for that manic energy and sheer force of will that marks so much of his work. But in The Mummy, playing Sergeant Nick Morton — a military man who unintentionally unearths the tomb of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who haunts him after choosing him to be the vessel for the god Set for some damn reason — Cruise is drained of any energy. He leaves no distinct impression; the part feels like it could be played by anyone and no one in particular. It doesn’t help that the film is more or less terrible, but sometimes Cruise can rise above that. Not this time: His performance comes up empty.

40. Endless Love (1981)

Cruise’s first big-screen appearance is a brief role in this 1981 romantic drama about a bunch of teenagers in the Chicago suburbs. It has none of the vitality to hint at the star Cruise would become later in the decade. (Also, 19-year old Cruise has a surprisingly high-pitched, annoying voice.)

39. Losin ’ It (1983)

Losin’ It is one of a string of films that pockmarked the decade that brought Cruise to prominence. They are failures to be sure, but forgettable enough to not rank lower. This charmless teen comedy, hinging on a group of friends trying to lose their virginities, marks Cruise’s first starring role, one that’s unfortunately saddled by dullness. There’s not enough appeal here to make this more than a masochistic exercise for Tom Cruise completists.

38. Cocktail (1988)

For some, Cocktail is a beloved albeit thoroughly ridiculous testament to the cinematic excesses of the 1980s. To others (including myself), it’s a testament to how easily Cruise can read as loathsome and smarmy rather than buoyantly alluring. The film focuses on Brian Flanagan (Cruise), a student who turns to bartending to make ends meet. Cruise is energetic to a manic degree (which doesn’t always work in his favor), producing a vibe that repels rather than seduces.

37. Legend (1985)

I have a bit of a soft spot for this Ridley Scott–helmed dark fable, one of Cruise’s only forays into fantasy territory. But it’s hard to ignore how miscast he is as the adventurous, dashing young man saving his beloved from the Lord of Darkness (an unrecognizable and amazing Tim Curry). He’s a bit lost and even seems perpetually confused in this muddled story, unable to create the gravitational pull he’d go on to prove capable of elsewhere.

36. Knight and Day (2010)

Knight and Day reteams Cameron Diaz with Cruise in a markedly different film than their first collaboration, Vanilla Sky. This spy/romantic romp should play to Cruise’s strengths, but there’s something severely miscalculated about his performance as Roy Miller, an oddball superspy on the run who ropes Cameron Diaz’s everywoman into his mission against her will. What’s supposed to be played as eccentric ends up falling into an uncomfortable territory that kills any sense of romance or intrigue. This role, more than any other he’s played, shows how easy it is for the hypercapable, badass superspy character to tip into asshole/know-it-all territory, more eye-roll-worthy than charming.

35. Lions for Lambs (2007)

Tom Cruise seems tailor-made for the role of a Republican senator pointedly trying to cajole and enchant a liberal-minded journalist (Meryl Streep) in order to get positive coverage for a new initiative in this muddled Iraq War drama. But he lacks the slipperiness and conviction necessary to elevate the dialogue, and the movie suffers for it, coming across as a well-intentioned morality play with little heft.

34. Far and Away (1992)

It is often said about actors of Cruise’s stature that they are merely stars that play themselves again and again. It’s an argument I disagree with for a number of reasons. In Far and Away, the tepid 1992 romantic drama directed by Ron Howard, it’s clear Cruise purposefully working against that notion — but in all the wrong ways. He adopts a shaky Irish accent in order to play a boxer/immigrant who joins Shannon Christie (Nicole Kidman) in America looking for a better life. Cruise gives it his all.

But he’s an actor best suited for our times, coming across as uncomfortable in period dressing. His energy and style is far too modern to pull this off completely, although his chemistry with Kidman remains a bright spot in an otherwise drab entry.

33. Days of Thunder (1990)

I can see how Days of Thunder seemed like a good idea, as it reteams Cruise with Top Gun director Tony Scott. And Cruise, as a race-car driver trying to make a name for himself, does have nice rapports with co-stars Robert Duvall and Nicole Kidman. But it isn’t enough to craft a strong emotional center to what is an ultimately bland performance.

32. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

This misguided, tonally confused sequel is an example of a decent Tom Cruise performance dragged down by the lackluster film that surrounds him. Cruise is highly dedicated as the titular character, going at it with a scrappiness and sense of focus that’s fun to watch. Unfortunately, he’s burdened by a makeshift family story line (which includes Cobie Smulder as a wrongfully framed colleague and a teenager who may be Reacher’s daughter?) as he goes on the run. Cruise admirably nails the action-oriented scenes, but when he’s called to sell the emotional reality of his predicament (particularly with his maybe-daughter character) he fails to deliver.

31. The Last Samurai (2003)

Cruise is widely considered one of the last stars in today’s Hollywood ecosystem whose sheer force of personality and high-wattage smile is a brand unto itself. But not even he has enough confidence to distract from how ill-formed this bloated epic is, or how ill-suited he is to lead it. Cruise himself doesn’t seem convinced in his portrayal of the bitter, alcoholic war veteran who travels to Japan and finds himself fighting alongside the rebellion he was originally tasked to help quell. This is just more fuel for my belief that something about Cruise’s energy is all wrong for period pieces (except for one example that comes later) — especially a 19th-century period piece set in Japan. Co-star Ken Watanabe provides the authenticity and complexity that Cruise lacks, leading him to steal the film entirely.

30. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

After the success of the first outing, the franchise moves into vastly different territory, thanks to Hong Kong action legend John Woo and screenwriter Robert Towne doing a  very obvious riff on Hitchcock’s Notorious and, more broadly, operatic action films that rely on a lot of slow-motion. These qualities are important to understanding what doesn’t work about Cruise’s performance as he’s asked to handle clashing tones and earnest romance, leaving him out of his depth. A part of me actually enjoys his chemistry with leading lady Thandie Newton, who plays an amoral thief. Unfortunately, Cruise sometimes tips into skeezy territory, and his best action work relies on a sort of simpleness that Mission: Impossible 2 seems allergic to. Despite his considerable efforts, Cruise often gets lost in the movie’s bombast.

29. The Firm (1993)

I’ve seen The Firm several times, but not much of it, including Tom Cruise’s starring performance, sticks with me. It’s a capably structured legal thriller but not much else. Cruise seems disconnected from the story, lacking the right mix of raw-nerved paranoia and intensity to rise above the admittedly lacking narrative. Mark this as another solid but otherwise uneventful performance.

28. The Outsiders (1983)

With a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s beloved classic, Cruise turns in a solid if not altogether memorable turn, dimmed a bit by the presence of his more fascinating co-stars, including a magnetic Patrick Swayze.

27. All the Right Moves (1983)

As a football player hell-bent on leaving his dead-end small town with a scholarship, Cruise provides the kind of tender and heartfelt performance the film calls far. He convincingly communicates the intensity and grandeur that comes with high-school sports, in which every win or loss feels like a harbinger for rest of your life.

26. Valkyrie (2008)

Cruise was far from the best choice to play doomed German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg, who aims to assassinate Adolf Hitler and undermine the Nazi Party with his dedicated crew of peers. But he actually finds a nice rhythm as the stakes for his character escalate, even if he doesn’t bring the kind of electricity needed to stand out from the film’s ensemble.

25. Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015)

After the critical failure of Mission: Impossible 2, the franchise course-corrected; any sort of emotional arc would play a distant second to Cruise’s interest in difficult stuntwork. Good: The franchise is pure thrill-ride cotton candy. Still, not all thrill rides are created equal. Cruise’s return as superspy Ethan Hunt has its pleasures, yes; a particular highlight is watching Cruise work with Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, an undercover MI6 agent with steely intensity. The primary joy of Rogue Nation , however, is in watching Cruise pivot from one action scene to another, running with a peerless frenzy. It’s fun one, if a bit weightless.

24. Vanilla Sky (2001)

Cruise’s work in Cameron Crowe’s trippy, messy psychological thriller is best described as an admirable failure. He plays David Aames, a rich and powerful publisher whose romantic cruelty has disastrous results when a former paramour (an unhinged Cameron Diaz) drives their car off a bridge. Post-accident Ames is disfigured and plagued by visions that question the nature of his reality. Unsurprisingly, Cruise is able to play up Aames’s narcissistic and exacting qualities, but as the film ventures into more confusing, less emotionally well-thought out territory, he loses hold of the character.

23. Taps (1981)

Taps was only Tom Cruise’s second performance on the big screen , but it already shows the nascent version of a character type he’d later perfect: a man who’s determined to the point of psychosis. Cruise plays Cadet Captain David Shawn, a rigid young man whose youthful aggression becomes sinister when his fellow military students decide to take over their school in hopes of saving it from closing. He proves to be the perfect foil for the conflicted Cadet Captain Alex Dwyer (Sean Penn) and more thoughtful lead Cadet Major Brian Moreland (Timothy Hutton). Cruise’s performance lacks the fine-tuning he’d demonstrate down the line, but it is an impressive early turn that nearly dominates the entire film and proves his star presence.

22. Jack Reacher (2012)

What makes a truly good action film? I’m talking about the bare-bones qualities of an action film that forgoes the fantasy or horror gleam that many modern examples have these days. I’ve thought about this question a lot, especially while watching Tom Cruise in his first appearance as the titular Jack Reacher, a bruising U.S. Army military police corps officer with no fixed address. Cruise is notably completely wrong if you’re looking for a direct adaptation of the Lee Childs hero. His fights are more brutal and occur in closer range. His humor veers from dry to downright caustic. He’s a bit darker-edged than the typical lead Cruise tends to adopt. And while there are moments when Cruise doesn’t quite nail the tone — or the blunt, vaguely offensive jokes (like the clip above demonstrates) — this performance still holds many delights.

21. American Made (2017)

American Made is a confused film, unsure whether it wants to be a glossy Hollywood anti-hero romp or a grimy 1970s crime flick. Tom Cruise’s leading performance as Barry Seal — a perpetually sweat-drenched hot-shot TWA pilot turned gun/drug runner for the American government and narcotics smuggler for the Medellín cartel — reflects that confusion. It isn’t a wholly terrible performance. Cruise is engaging, carrying a blend of cocksure bravado and befuddlement at the sheer ridiculousness of the situations he finds himself in. American Made feels like an throwback to Cruise’s well-worn playbook; it’s particularly in line with his work in Top Gun. It’s mostly fun, though Cruise does lose points for trying (and failing) to pull off a Baton Rouge accent that can be best described as Generic Southern Accent That Doesn’t Really Exist™.

20. Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011)

Ghost Protocol sees the MI franchise eschew even the semblance of reality. It’s full-on cartoonish, bombastic action, and it’s clear Cruise is having a ball with the increasingly inventive dilemmas his superspy is forced into. Ethan Hunt is a bit more world-weary here than he’s been before (can you blame him?), but the film never gets dour thanks to Cruise’s great chemistry with castmates Simon Pegg and Paula Patton.

19. Tropic Thunder (2008)

To survive at Cruise’s level of stardom, you have to understand how the business works. That veteran insider knowledge goes to great use in his small but uproarious turn in Tropic Thunder. He’s nearly unrecognizable as studio exec Les Grossman, who makes venomous, expletive-laden insults an art form. But Cruise’s approach to the character is the chilling undercurrent he lends Grossman. Just look at the dead-eyed glare he gives Matthew McConaughey when he calmly explains how to use an actor’s death to his own advantage. It’s rare but refreshing to see Cruise cut loose and be a little less concerned about endearing himself to the audience.

18. Oblivion (2013)

At first blush, Oblivion looks to embody some of the more noxious issues that mark a lot of recent Cruise work: a sterile action film with a science-fiction sheen; thin emotional through lines; Cruise paired with actresses notably younger than he is . Thankfully, Oblivion proves to be a fascinating, if uneven, study on the nature of loss, much of which is thanks to Cruise’s turn as a futuristic repairman in Earth’s devastated future — a role that gives him the opportunity to stretch a bit more than he’s had to lately.

17. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Edge of Tomorrow adds new wrinkles to the typically hypercompetent military figure he’s played elsewhere. This time he’s an official with no combat training thrust into a messy war with an alien species — and he dies nearly immediately when he hits the battlefield. He ends up reliving his final day again and again, dying in creative ways each time. In truth, the movie’s true badass is a curt Emily Blunt as Sergeant Rita Vrataski, who whips him into shape, creating a fun tension between the two. But it’s exhilarating to watch Cruise lean into the physical humor and meld together the various personae that have come to define his career as a leading man.

16. A Few Good Men (1992)

Legal dramas — particularly those written by the likes of Aaron Sorkin — can be tricky pursuits for actors, requiring a verbal dexterity that can easily overpower them. But Cruise is excellent here, conveying an ease and gravitas as Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who must work a thorny case when a Marine is murdered and a cover-up ensues. Cruise more than holds his own against the bluster of Jack Nicholson, an actor who can easily dominate whatever scene he’s in. But by the end of the film Cruise has a confidence and steadfast demeanor that proves to be a fascinating, subtle transformation.

15. The Color of Money (1986)

In an interview on Inside the Actors Studio , when discussing this Martin Scorsese–helmed sequel to The Hustler, Cruise described co-star Paul Newman as an idol. It’s clear here that Cruise is learning from Newman’s trademark ease and depth as an actor, rising to the challenge the movie asks of him. Cruise has played plenty of young, talented hot shots early in his career, but his work as Vincent Lauria is particularly noteworthy for the exuberance he carries, and how wonderfully he plays off the weary Newman.

14. Risky Business (1983)

In her excellent essay collection This Is Running for Your Life, Michelle Orange wrote, “True movie stars are born twice.” She’s right. There is, of course, the first story of how their stardom happened. The second birth is when they do something fans can’t forget, moments that became singed into the cultural consciousness. Cruise has produced a handful of them, but one of the most important happens here , when he dances to “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Bob Seger. Risky Business helped launch Cruise’s stardom, and it’s no wonder why.

13. Jerry Maguire (1996)

Tom Cruise has not appeared in many romantic comedies, and for good reason. Not many modern rom-coms could play toward his strengths — that practiced allure, the charming opportunism behind his easy-but-calculated smile, and the distinct impression that he’s holding something back. All of these qualities are used to great effect in this Cameron Crowe rom-com/sports drama, which gives Cruise some of his most iconic lines. But most importantly, it gives him a venue to chart a fascinating progression from a self-obsessed sports manager with shadings of a classic fuckboy to a man who reckons sincerely with his more loathsome instincts.

12. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

The third installment of what’s now Cruise’s signature franchise sees Ethan Hunt retired from fieldwork, training new recruits, and eventually squaring off with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who relishes and dominates every scene he’s in. The story line involving Michelle Monaghan as Hunt’s kept-in-the-dark fiancée has some well-worn beats, but Cruise is still an absolute pleasure to watch. The film’s otherwise excellent team dynamics allow him to expand his repertoire within the franchise, showing off some wry humor and even a surprising tenderness opposite Keri Russell.

11. Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018)

During its short time thus far in theaters, Mission:Impossible — Fallout has proven to be an action master class, marrying ridiculous plot turns with astounding set pieces. Cruise matches the bravura of the film around him with gusto. He throws himself headlong into his outrageous stunts — one of which led to an injury, which brings up a host of questions about how his career can continue in this manner. But Cruise is a blast to watch as he navigates confusion and double crosses, his performance dented only by the requirement of traditional romance (although his scenes with Michelle Monaghan bristle with an intriguing awkwardness). He shares the glory here with some great supporting cast, most notably Henry Cavill’s surprisingly effective turn as a bruiser with slippery loyalty and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, the gimlet-eyed agent turned quasi–love interest.

10. Rain Man (1988)

While Cruise is obviously adept at providing the presence and physical dexterity action films require, his skills as an actor really shine through in drama films of this caliber. Rain Man gives Cruise the chance to stretch his abilities without resting on his typical charms. The entire film depends on his ability to capably communicate his character’s tricky arc: Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, an unscrupulous and cunning yuppie who finds out that most of his estranged father’s estate is being given to an older brother he didn’t know about (Dustin Hoffman in an Oscar-winning role). As the two brothers travel across the country, Cruise delivers a genuinely touching portrayal of a man shedding his abrasive, self-centered nature to become a protective, tenderhearted brother. He has rarely felt so vulnerable onscreen.

9. Top Gun (1986)

Maverick is the quintessential cocksure, determined, highly skilled leading character that Cruise has spent a career perfecting. For many people, Top Gun is synonymous with the actor — it’s the first image they think of when they think of Tom Cruise. And while the film, directed by Tony Scott, exemplifies some of the worst aspects of Reagan-era America, Cruise himself isn’t dragged down by this one bit. It’s easy to see why this performance has left such an impact on the pop-culture imagination. His physical bravado, confidence, and joyfulness cast a spell.

8. Mission: Impossible (1996)

It’s easy to believe that Tom Cruise The Action Star has always been with us. But Mission: Impossible is when he became the real-life action figure we know him as today. And what a doozy it is. Helmed by Brian de Palma, in the film Cruise effortlessly toggles between espionage-thriller mood and impactful physicality. The movie perfectly demonstrates how smoothly Cruise can shift between tones when he needs to — just look at the infamous Pentagon break-in sequence, where he blends sweaty anxiety with light humor and, on top of all that, the action-movie tension needed to make it all work.

7. Minority Report (2002)

Minority Report is a sleek, absorbing science-fiction yarn that manages to turn a Philip K. Dick story into an expressive blockbuster action film. But Tom Cruise’s performance as John Anderton, an on-the-run detective in a futuristic world in which people can be arrested for crimes before they’ve even committed them, pushes the dark social commentary and exhilarating nature of the story to new heights. As Anderton, Cruise marries the best of his genre-film talents into one impressively gripping performance. There’s a haunted quality to his Anderton, the kind of man who carries his past wounds with him. Cruise proves to be extremely potent as a neo-noir lead.

6. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

This adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic (played by Cruise) is an emotional gauntlet for the actor — and it requires a dramatic physical transformation too. I’ve lamented Cruise’s work in period pieces, but he works well in this film’s ’60s and ’70s settings. One of Cruise’s specialties is to dissect the American myth, and he gets ample opportunity to do so here as he charts Kovic’s transformation from a fresh-faced soldier to an emotionally wounded, paralyzed, war-protesting vet. A mirror opposite of the more traditional military leads Cruise tends to play, his performance here is arresting, raw, and powerful.

5. War of the Worlds (2005)

Cruise is not exactly the first actor you’d expect to play an Everyman like Ray Ferrier, the longshoreman at the heart of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 sci-fi epic . But he brings gravity and heart to the central dynamic of the film — Ferrier’s desire not to be a failure as a father, and the all-consuming goal to protect his children from the alien havoc decimating the world. It’s an excellent, absorbing, humane performance that sees Cruise’s typical mania soften into a heartwarming dedication to save his family.

4. Magnolia (1999)

Few modern actors understand the mask-like quality of celebrity better than Tom Cruise, who interrogates these ideas with aplomb in Magnolia. Has Cruise ever been more utterly disturbing or strangely entrancing than as self-help guru and living embodiment of toxic masculinity Frank T.J. Mackey? Cruise only plays a supporting role here, but he’s what the viewer is drawn to most; he embodies modern masculinity’s most noxious qualities. And when all that bravado is threatened by the mere mention of his family, the way Cruise communicates the damaged vulnerability lurking beneath the surface is a marvel.

3. Collateral (2004)

In a Black Book interview, director Mary Harron shared that actor Christian Bale found inspiration for American Psycho ’s obsessive serial killer Patrick Bateman in Tom Cruise. “We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. And then one day he called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy.” It’s for precisely this reason why Cruise never feels like a truly capable romantic lead: There’s something practiced, even unnatural about his charisma, like a mask being worn. Most directors miss out on this quality, but Michael Mann capitalized on it. Cruise delivers one of his most assured and complex performances as Vincent, a hit man who ropes in an unsuspecting cabdriver played by Jamie Foxx. Cruise’s charisma is finally used as a weapon, not a lure.

2. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Dr. Bill Hartford is an unlikely part for Cruise. He’s humiliated, confused, and frequently out of his depth in Stanley Kubrick’s odd erotic drama Eyes Wide Shut. But it proves to be one of Cruise’s richest and most complex performances as he navigates a strange milieu of sexual desire. The tension between him and then-wife Nicole Kidman, playing his movie wife Alice Hartford, along with Cruise’s utter lack of an equilibrium make this as much about sexuality as it is about the trials and tribulations we endure to find any sense of happiness.

1. Interview With the Vampire (1994)

Lestat, the preening and egotistical creation by Gothic novelist Anne Rice, is the photo negative of a typical Tom Cruise role — at least that’s how he seems at first. He doesn’t run or channel manic energy or do stunt work; he saunters and stalks with the coolly focused energy of a wolf. He’s languid and frightening, lupine and menacing. But Lestat does share one trait that snakes its way through Cruise’s greatest work: bold narcissism. Interview With the Vampire allows Cruise to lean into that. It lets Cruise be something he’s rarely been — archly humorous, disturbingly erotic, truly dangerous. It’s wondrous watching him turn from sincere to brutal as he plays off the cheerfully cruel Kirsten Dunst and the solemn Brad Pitt.

More importantly, this is one of the rare performances in which Cruise utterly cuts loose and experiments beyond the usual archetypes he’s grown accustomed to. It isn’t a perfect performance — it’s better than that. Beguiling and malevolently anti-charismatic, Cruise has never been more fun to watch.

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Things That Happen In Every Tom Cruise Movie

Tom Cruise has graced the big screen for decades, dating all the way back to the early 1980s when he first struck gold with the hit comedies "Risky Business" and "All the Right Moves." Following that early success, his career ascended like a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet blasting into the sky at Mach 10 thanks to smash hits such as "Top Gun," "The Color of Money," "Cocktail," "Rain Man," "A Few Good Men," "The Firm," "Jerry Maguire," "Minority Report," and the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. He's worked with some of our finest directors — including Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson (among many others) — and enjoyed extraordinary financial success . Worldwide, the actor's vast catalog of films has amassed a stunning $11.6 billion , making Cruise one of the biggest Hollywood icons of all time.

After so many motion pictures, it's inevitable that audiences would notice certain characteristics that pop up in each of the actor's films. Ever the showman, Cruise has a tendency to cater to his rabid fan base, which is probably why he eschewed weightier fair like "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Magnolia" in favor of popcorn-driven spectacle like "War of the Worlds" and "Top Gun: Maverick" later in his career.

At any rate, no matter the genre, Tom  always  seems to give fans what they want, which makes it easier for us to hammer out a list of things — in no particular order — that tend to happen in every one of his movies. Read on to discover what you can expect to find in a Tom Cruise movie.

Right out of the gate, we have to talk about Tom's tendency to run, because this particular trademark has reached levels of absurdity at this point. Dating all the way back to 1981's "TAPS," Tom has found a way to show off his incredible knack for sprinting in all but a handful of films. "The Firm" saw him outrunning good ole Wilford Brimley, "Far and Away" used the device as a means to flash forward into the future, and even Cameron Crowe figured out a way to slip a sequence of Tom's running technique into the tail end of the 1996 romantic comedy/drama "Jerry Maguire." 

Those were mere warmups. Nowadays, when Tom runs — he  runs.  One need only pop in any of the "Mission: Impossible" features to catch a glimpse of his fancy footwork. In fact, J.J. Abrams devotes nearly an entire minute of the climax of "Mission: Impossible 3" to Tom literally sprinting through Xitang, China in pursuit of the film's key villain. The latest trailer for " Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One " teases viewers with a brief shot of the man, the myth, the legend running through a mysterious locale immediately following his name credit. 

So, yeah, at this point, it seems Tom is in on the — ahem –  long-running joke .

Tom performs a cool stunt

Tom's wild stunts weren't always a staple in his films. There are no death-defying leaps off of high rises in "Rain Man" or vertigo-inducing jet battles in "Eyes Wide Shut," but the actor still managed to show off his need for adrenaline-fueled antics early in his career. Case in point: In "The Outsiders," Tom's character does a backflip for no apparent reason after running out of a house with his mates. According to actor Rob Lowe in an interview with Entertainment Tonight , director Francis Ford Coppola asked the cast to learn how to do a backflip and Tom was the only one capable of pulling off the difficult feat. 

To our astonishment, the actor also insisted on driving a real NASCAR racecar in "Days of Thunder" (via ESPN ), and according to a profile in Rolling Stone , rode the fastest horse on set during the climactic land race scene in "Far and Away." It's small potatoes compared to the stunts he achieves in "The Mummy" and the "Mission: Impossible" and "Jack Reacher" franchises, but worth noting.  

So, why does he do it? During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show , Tom admitted it all comes down to the storytelling: "I feel that [when acting] you're bringing everything, you know, physically and emotionally, to a character in a story," he told Graham Norton. "I've trained for 30 years doing [stunts] and it allows us to put cameras in places where you are normally not able to."

Tom rides a motorcycle

Not only is Tom Cruise a thrill junkie, but he also loves himself a slick motorcycle — a fact made abundantly clear when the actor memorably rode his Kawasaki GPZ900R along an airport runway in 1986's "Top Gun." Over 35 years later, Tom once again hopped aboard a Kawasaki — the Ninja H2 to be exact a.k.a. the fastest motorcycle in the world — for the enormously successful sequel "Top Gun: Maverick." In the interim, Tom has thrilled audiences with his astonishing motorcycle skills in John Woo's "Mission: Impossible II" (in which he rode a Triumph Speed Triple), Joseph Kosinski's "Oblivion" (featuring a modified Honda CRF450X), and "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (where he cruised around on a BMW R nineT).

Tom's love for motorcycles extends off-screen as well. Apparently, after wrapping a project, the actor will take home or purchase the motorcycle used in the film and add it to his vast collection, which is detailed by Hot Cars . According to  Motorious , Tom has in his possession the BMW S1000 RR used in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation," the Triumph Thruxton used in "Edge of Tomorrow," and yes, even that Kawasaki from "Top Gun" (among others). If that weren't enough, he occasionally purchases the latest popular model just for kicks, such as when he dropped $103,000 for a Vyrus 987 C3 4V that he then showed off at his 51st birthday party. Clearly, the man's need for speed is more than just a Hollywood myth. 

Tom goes solo

While many of Tom's movies feature the box office star working alongside a group of notable co-stars, there always seems to be a moment where his character must cut the rip cord and go solo to save the day. We see this often in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise in which Tom's IMF Agent Ethan Hunt leaves his teammates in the dust to go one-on-one with the film's principal bad guy, but this trait also extends to some the actor's more dramatic ventures. Notably, in "A Few Good Men," Tom's cocky lawyer, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, ignores the advice of his team (consisting of Demi Moore and Kevin Pollack) and takes on Jack Nicholson's sharp-tongued Colonel Nathan Jessep all on his own, leading to that rather famous "I want the truth!" bit. 

Likewise, in 2008's "Valkyrie," Tom's one-armed, one-eyed Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg plots with an assortment of German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and ends up planting the bomb himself (this one is based on an actual historical incident , so we'll let it slide). Other Cruise vehicles such as Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," Christopher McQuarrie's "Jack Reacher," Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July," and Sydney Pollack's "The Firm" position Tom against an evil/corrupt establishment that he must battle on his own.

Does the superstar actively look for such projects, or is Tom's massive portfolio of rogue action heroes merely a case of typecasting?    

Tom throws on the shades

You can't really discuss Tom Cruise without acknowledging his vast collection of shades. Whether shooting pool with Paul Newman in Martin Scorsese's "The Color of Money," counting cards in Las Vegas with his brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) in Barry Levinson's "Rain Man," or chasing Jamie Foxx around downtown Los Angeles in Michael Mann's thriller "Collateral," Tom has a knack for hiding his mug behind a pair of sunglasses that somehow make the cool actor even cooler — if that's even possible.

In "Risky Business" and "Top Gun," Tom slid on a pair of Ray-Bans and helped popularize the brand in the 1980s, according to  Mental Floss . Some time later, in 2000's "Mission: Impossible II," Tom adorns Oakleys during the famous mountain climbing sequence, while "American Made" saw the star slip on a pair of Randolph Engineering Aviators with memorable results (via Ask Men ). 

In his latest feature, "Top Gun: Maverick," Tom oozes cool behind a pair of Ray-Bans that were custom-made to fit his face, according to "Top Gun: Maverick" costume designer Marlene Stewart in an interview with  The Daily Beast .

In other words: It ain't a Tom Cruise film unless it features Tom Cruise in sunglasses. 

Tom saves the day

Aside from a few exceptions, Tom is typically the de facto star of the films he appears in. As such, it makes sense that his character always ends up saving the day from the forces of evil. In fact, the only time he doesn't save the day in an epic action movie is Michael Mann's "Collateral." Even then, his cold-hearted assassin influences Jamie Foxx's world-weary cab driver enough to force a positive change in the young man's life, which can technically be seen as a win for Tom — without Vincent, it's doubtful Max ever finds the confidence needed to dump his crappy job and move on with his life.

Otherwise, Tom is typically the man of the hour by the final reel of any film. Whether its stopping dastardly terrorists or corrupt IMF operatives from destroying the world in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise , saving Iceman and Rooster in the "Top Gun" films, or taking down an alien tripod to save his daughter in "War of the Worlds," you can pretty much count on Tom to get the job done with nary a hindrance to his superstar good looks.

Even when Tom plays a jerk — as he does in Doug Liman's sci-fi epic "Edge of Tomorrow" — he finds a way to ditch the ego long enough to reset time and destroy an entire alien race (with a little help from Emily Blunt). It seems no mission is too impossible for Tom freaking Cruise.

Tom gets the girl

Tom enjoys plenty of perks thanks to his unflinching heroism. His characters typically earn the respect of their peers — and sometimes even the antagonist! — and then head off into the sunset with a newfound meaning on life, a pile of money, and, well, the girl.

No matter the circumstances, Tom Cruise always gets the girl. In "Risky Business," he ends up with Lana (Rebecca De Mornay), the sensitive sex worker. "Top Gun" sees our beleaguered hero ride off with Kelly McGillis, while "Top Gun: Maverick" pairs him with Jennifer Connelly — who happens to be a very rich, well-to-do single mother — and "Minority Report" rewards his efforts by fixing him up with his estranged wife.

Following his courtroom standoff with Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," it's hinted that Demi Moore has eyes for Tom, while Michelle Monaghan and Rebecca Ferguson take turns locking lips with our main man in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." In all likelihood, Tom probably could have run off with Vanessa Kirby!

In short, Tom can get any woman he wants. Now, whether they're attracted to his killer good looks, impeccable fashion sense, daredevil stunt-work, heroic swagger, or all of the above is a topic worth discussing.

Tom gets mad

Tom Cruise may be the king of cool, but even the most even-keeled action heroes lose their patience every now and again.

As it turns out, Tom's explosive temper rears its ugly head so often that it's practically a trademark. It's little wonder that Ben Stiller cast him as the foul-mouthed Les Grossman in the 2008 comedy "Tropic Thunder." Hidden under layers of prosthetics, Tom shouts, curses, and dances away with the film, revealing a darker side that somehow fits snugly amidst the comic antics of Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black. In one of the film's most memorable scenes, Les loses his cool at a Vietnamese soldier, whom he assumes is another movie producer trying to screw him over (it's a long story), resulting a prolonged tirade of profanity and insults that left audiences in stitches.

More dramatically, in "A Few Good Men," Tom rages against Demi Moore after she makes an egregious error and even does the "toss everything off the desk" bit for good measure. In "Mission: Impossible," he justifiably loses his cool after his entire team is killed during a mission gone wrong. And in "War of the Worlds," Tom tosses a slice of peanut butter-covered bread at a window, following a frustrating exchange with his children. These are but a few examples of Tom's ability to blow a gasket, but make no mistake, Tom loses his cool quite often throughout his filmography. 

Tom takes off his shirt

Like all good movie stars, Tom is blessed with a superhuman-like body that he seems to keep in incredible shape at all times. Save for his overweight character Les Grossman, Tom typically carries an incredible physique that he's clearly not afraid to show off at every possible opportunity, sometimes with humorous results. 

In "Jack Reacher," for example, Tom sheds his shirt and attempts to carry a serious conversation with Rosamund Pike's Helen Rodin. At one point, she stops mid-sentence and implores him to cover his naked torso, which is an order he comically ignores. Likewise, in the action comedy "Knight and Day," Tom wows Cameron Diaz during a foray on a tropical island. And in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation," he sheds his top for an exciting fight sequence during which he crunches up a pole to escape — an action so extraordinary, you can't help but chuckle. And who could forget the infamous scene in "Top Gun" that sees Tom and Val Kilmer (along with a handful of co-stars) engage in shirtless volleyball?

We're not judging! After all, we'd probably spend our entire life hanging out by the beach if our abs looked like Tom's. If you've got 'em, flaunt 'em! 

Tom is surrounded by incompetent supporting characters

Tom tends to steal the spotlight from his fellow co-stars mainly because, well, they aren't very good. There's Demi Moore's headstrong lawyer in "A Few Good Men," who makes a number of egregious errors that force Tom to fly solo. In the "Mission: Impossible" films, we're told Tom's IMF crew rank among the best of the best, but — aside from Rebecca Ferguson's scene-stealing Ilsa Faust — most of his team prove quite inadequate in the line of fire and contribute very little to the overall mission (besides pressing a button or two).

In Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," Tom's John Anderton escapes the clutches of his co-workers mostly due to their incompetence, whilst the climax of "Top Gun: Maverick" pairs him alongside Miles Teller's inept Rooster and all but forces our leading man to take control of the precarious situation. The result? Tom commandeers an F-14 and engages in combat, while Rooster spectates from the co-pilot's seat.

Can you think of another character from, say, "Days of Thunder," or "Jack Reacher?" Neither can we. Tom has a tendency to hog the spotlight whilst his co-stars gawk at his coolness from a distance. Again, no judgment. We're not knocking Tom Cruise. In fact, we're too busy gawking at his awesomeness with everyone else.

Tom goes real fast

We've already discussed Tom's obsession with motorcycles, but that's only part of the story. Nearly every Tom Cruise movie features the actor going  really  fast, either by running, driving, flying, or boating. "Top Gun" is the obvious choice here, but also consider Ron Howard's dramatic epic "Far and Away," in which Tom hops on a horse and outruns  everyone  to claim his piece of Oklahoma property. Or, how about "Minority Report," where he leaps on the back of a flying attacker and rockets up a building? One of the most memorable sequences in "War of the Worlds" involves Tom driving a minivan  really  fast down a highway while arguing with his son. And "Collateral's" climax literally takes place on a high-speeding subway train. 

So, yeah, when Tom Cruise says he feels the need for speed, he means it. 

In fact, Newsweek notes that in "Top Gun: Maverick," the actor took to the skies in an actual fighter jet and by the looks of it, hit some pretty astonishing speeds, while "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" gave him a chance to fly a helicopter through snow-covered mountains at an accelerate rate. Smithsonian Magazine details how "American Made" allowed the actor to put his pilot's license to use and perform intense flying sequences in a six-seat Piper Aerostar 600 and a Cessna 414.

Let's just say, Tom knows how to take our breath away.

Tom hangs on for dear life

In many of Tom's films, the actor is forced to hang onto something for dear life. You may remember that plane sequence at the beginning of "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation," but there are actually so many instances of the superstar clinging to the side of something or other in a desperate attempt to keep himself from falling, or (in this case) as a means to slide a key card into an underwater computer. In "Knight and Day," the action maestro hangs onto Cameron Diaz's car while battling bad guys; in "War of the Worlds" he hangs onto a group of strangers to avoid being sucked into an alien ship; and in "Rock of Ages," he clings to a pole while performing a shirtless musical ballad.

Perhaps most famously, Tom hung off of the side of the massive Burj Khalifa building for "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol." Stunt coordinator Greg Smrz explained to Yahoo! how Cruise managed to hang off this enormous skyscraper that extends 2,722 feet in the air (which Cruise later ascended to obtain this photo ). Even "Edge of Tomorrow" featured the actor clinging to an object — a machine gun attached to a military aircraft — during the action-packed climax, which is set at the well-renowned Louvre in Paris, France. 

Considering his age, it's likely we won't get to see Tom hang around much longer, but we'll continue to enjoy his many death-defying feats for as long as he's willing to perform them.

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The More Tom Cruise Runs, The Better His Movies Are: We Did the Math

We dove deep into the tomatometer (and box office) data and discovered that tom cruise films with more running tend to earn more accolades..

TAGGED AS: Action , blockbusters , movies , Summer

Tom Cruise has sprinted a little over 29,961 feet on screen throughout his 37 years in the movies, and with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One currently in theaters, the numbers on his cinematic pedometer have gone up. His tendency to run — a lot ­— in his 44 films has become a thing of legend; online, you’ll find 19-minute video supercuts of his sprints and style breakdowns that note his stellar form: eyes forward, elbows sharp, feet a blur. But does all that running make for better movies? That’s what we’ve investigated here, comparing the amount of running Tom does in movies to the amount of money Tom’s movies make and the amount of Freshness they score on the Tomatometer.

The methodology was simple, if time-consuming. We counted every instance of Cruise’s running on screen, in seconds, and then calculated the distances run by assuming he is clocking a six-minute mile (14.6 feet per second). The result is a list of estimated distances for each film that we believe is the most solid you’ll find in the online canon of Tom Cruise Running Materials. We then split his movies into four different distance categories, ranging from Zero Feet all the way to 1,000-Plus Feet, to spot the trends.

The biggest trend? Movies featuring Cruise running more than 1,000 feet have a higher Tomatometer average (a huge 76%) than the movies in which he runs less than that, or not at all — and the same movies make more money at the box office, with an average inflated international gross of $472 million. We also found that the age-defying star has been increasing his movie running as he gets older: he covered almost the same amount of ground in 2006’s Mission: Impossible III (3,212 feet) as he did in the entirety of the 1980s (12 movies, 3,299 feet run), and five of his top 10 running films were released after 2010 – the year he turned 48.

You can find Cruise’s 10 biggest movies, according to how many feet he ran in them, at the bottom of this piece, but for now let’s dig into the data, one sweaty category at a time.

[Updated 7/20/2023]

When Tom Doesn’t Run At All (0 feet)

• International Box Office Average: $113 million
• Tomatometer Average: 59.2%

Magnolia (1999) | Lions for Lambs (2007) | Tropic Thunder (2008) | Valkyrie (2008) |  Rock of Ages (2012)

When Tom stands still (or just dances and/or paces across a stage), he can give very good supporting performances: think Tropic Thunder and Magnolia . He doesn’t cover much ground in these movies, but he does run away with off-brand appearances as chauvinistic alpha-males who built empires by essentially becoming evil versions of Tom Cruise. Ever wondered if Maverick could deliver expletive-filled monologues or dance convincingly to a Ludacris song? Look no further than these two tragically sprint-free R-rated treasures.

It’s no surprise that this category has the lowest box-office numbers — zero running suggests little action, the lifeblood of most box office-destroying blockbusters. Also, there is a high-risk, high-reward element for Cruise when he messes with his onscreen persona and plays against his action archetype. The rewards are Oscar and Golden Globe noms, but the risks are smaller financial returns — Lions for Lambs and Valkyrie  (in which he resists the urge to run, even as bombs go off) were Cruise’s lowest domestic grossers of the 2000s.

When Tom Takes a Short Sprint (1-500 feet)

• International Box Office Average: $164 million
• Tomatometer Average: 61.4%

Endless Love (1981) | Taps (1981) | Losin’ It (1983) | The Outsiders (1983) | Risky Business (1983) | Legend (1985) | Top Gun (1986) | The Color on Money (1986) | Rain Man (1988) | Cocktail (1988) | Days of Thunder (1990) | A Few Good Men (1992) | Far and Away (1992) | Interview With the Vampire (1994) | Jerry Maguire (1996) | Eyes Wide Shut (1999) | The Last Samurai (2003) |   Jack Reacher (2012) | American Made (2017)

Almost half of the 44 Cruise movies we analyzed fall into this category of “Some Running, But Not a Ton,” and it’s worth nothing that 80% of these movies were released in the 1980s and 1990s. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that Cruise really hit his stride, not coincidentally at around the time the Mission: Impossible  series kicked off. Pre-1996, it was mostly light jogging and moments of panicked sprinting in movies like Endless Love (43 feet) and Losin’ It (102 feet) . Nobody panic-sprints like Running Tom Cruise.

It was in 1996 that we got one of our most iconic non–action movie Tom Cruise Running scenes, as he dashes through the empty airport in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire . Most sport agents you probably know — because you know so many, right? — would huff and puff during a late-night airport dash like that, but Jerry looks effortless as he strides like a gazelle through the terminal. Tom, you had us at ready, set, hello.

This set of films cumulatively has the lowest Tomatometer average, showing that while we like Tom Cruise running, it cannot be a jaunt. The critics demand commitment.

When Tom Goes Middle-Distance (501-1,000 feet)

• Inflated International Box Office Average: $413 million
• Tomatometer Average: 66.7%

All the Right Moves (1983) | Born on the Fourth of July (1989) | Mission: Impossible (1996) | Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) | Vanilla Sky (2001) | Collateral (2004) | Knight and Day (2010) | Oblivion (2013) |  Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Another great moment of 1996 Tom Cruise Running came with the franchise-spawning smash Mission: Impossible. The Brian De Palma-helmed thriller really set the pace for Cruise’s days of thunderous running. Remember the moment when Ethan Hunt uses explosive gum to blow a hole in a restaurant fish tank to escape his would-be captors — on foot ? We do, along with every other one of the 730 feet he ran in the film.

Five years later, another important milestone in Cruise’s running career came with Vanilla Sky. The film marked his second collaboration with Cameron Crowe, and they celebrated their sophomore adventure with a longer and more complicated bit of running than we’d seen in their first effort: the Vanilla Sky production team shut down Times Square to create an eerily empty track meet for Cruise (the movie features a total of 832 feet of running). The film wasn’t as financially successful as Jerry Maguire (it made $203.3 million internationally), but we almost have to give Crowe bonus points for realizing the potential of giving Running Tom Cruise longer, bouncier locks.

Overall, a few bombs – Knight and Day , Oblivion – drive down this category’s Tomatometer, which includes some of Cruise’s most iconic, and acclaimed performances ( M:I , All the Right Moves , Collateral ).

When Tom Goes Full Tom (1,001-plus feet)

• International Box Office Average: $472 million
• Tomatometer Average: 76%

The Firm (1993) | Minority Report (2002) | War of the Worlds (2005) | Mission: Impossible III (2006) | Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) | Edge of Tomorrow (2014) | Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) | Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) | The Mummy (2017) | Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) | Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023)

The older Tom gets, the farther he runs, and the better his movies seem to be. Nine of the 10 movies in this longest-distance grouping were released after 2002, and six of them were released after 2010 ( The Firm  is the only pre-2002 outlier). It was 2002’s Steven Spielberg-directed Minority Report that ushered in the 1,000-plus feet era (1,562 feet run), and trainer/director Spielberg upped the punishing routine in the 2005 blockbuster War of the Worlds (1,752 feet). Watching Cruise evade aliens while thousands of slower non-Tom Cruises were turned into dust was impressive, but not surprising: Cruise’s indefatigable onscreen cardio had built up over five decades, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

After War of the Worlds, Cruise reached a personal best in Mission: Impossible 3, which saw him running 3,212 feet, most of which were covered in some insane displays of athleticism (and Herculean camera work) through Shanghai. His movies since — like Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2,628 feet), Edge of Tomorrow (1,022 feet), and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (1,518 feet) — have crossed the 1,000-foot mark, but they haven’t managed the wild lengths of his 2000s movies. Only Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol could match those films’ step counts and box office success with 3,000-plus feet of running and a $695 million international gross.

The biggest snags in the More Running = Better Movies formula are Jack Reacher: Never Look Back and The Mummy. Both films featured abundant running (1,051 feet and 1,022 feet respectively), but both had unspectacular box office returns ($159 million and $410 million internationally) and critical receptions (Tomatometer scores of 38% and 15%).

In other words, more running = more money and more Freshness, but only most of the time.

Top Tom Cruise Movies (According to his pedometer)

• Mission: Impossible III  – 3,212 feet
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol –  3,066 feet
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout   – 2,628 feet
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One   – 2,131 feet
• War of the Worlds –  1,752 feet
• Minority Report –  1,562 feet
• Mission Impossible –   Rogue Nation – 1,518 feet
• The Firm –  1,241 feet
• Edge of Tomorrow –  1,065 feet
• Jack Reacher:   Never Go Back –  1,051 feet

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One is currently in theaters.

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Screen Rant

Every tom cruise movie where his character dies.

Thanks to obscure drama Taps and the underrated thriller Collateral, Ethan Hunt himself Tom Cruise can say he's been killed onscreen a few times.

Despite his status as a blockbuster hero, Tom Cruise is not unkillable - as proven by the few movies that dared to off one of cinema’s most famous faces. Top Gun: Maverick cast lead star Tom Cruise is a staple of blockbuster cinema who has been a regular fixture in multiplexes for decades now. However, while the actor has played heroes, villains, and even comic relief roles on occasion, one thing Cruise very rarely does onscreen is die. By and large, Cruise is an actor who viewers often (understandably) feel doesn't die in many of his movies.

Besides Edge of Tomorrow - where his many deaths were core to the movie’s central gimmick - thanks to his stardom and screen persona, Cruise’s characters feel all but unkillable. The thought of seeing Ethan Hunt get offed at the end of a Mission Impossible franchise outing is all but inconceivable. However, Tom Cruise has actually been killed off onscreen several times. This includes the aforementioned Edge of Tomorrow putting an end to his character in many creative ways. Here's a rundown of every Tom Cruise character death.

Related: Tom Cruise's Huge Space Movie Plan Can Complete A Wild Career Trend

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

This one almost feels like cheating, as the very premise of director Doug Liman’s underrated Edge of Tomorrow is that the darkly comic thriller kills off Cruise's smarmy PR officer more times than viewers can keep track of. The sci-fi action movie strands Cruise’s Cage in the middle of an alien invasion occurring in Europe, leaving him to die repeatedly when alien blood accidentally gives him the power to regenerate after each death. With Cage’s 26 regenerations in Edge of Tomorrow , it’s fair to say that it's the Tom Cruise movie that kills off the actor the most times. However, it is worth noting Cage, ironically, survives in the end and saves the day - after dying 26 times in order to complete that goal.

Collateral (2004)

A much darker, more morally ambiguous type of thriller than Edge of Tomorrow , Collateral only kills Cruise’s character off once. However, the Michael Mann-directed movie makes sure to make the death count. Released in 2004 and co-starring Jamie Foxx as a deeply unlucky cab driver, Collateral sees Cruise plays amoral hitman Vincent, an assassin who takes said cab driver hostage and forces him to ferry him from one killing to the next. Taking place over one painfully long, tense night, Collateral concludes with Foxx’s hero saving Jada Pinkett Smith’s DA from becoming Cruise’s final victim by emptying a handgun into the chest of his latest fare. Tom Cruise's Vincent bleeds out on board a morning metro train, waxing lyrical to himself as he dies, presumably without arranging any payment for the lengthy cab ride.

Taps (1981)

Before he was Maverick Cruise played a similarly hot-headed military man in Taps . This dark drama follows the exploits of some students from a military academy who don’t respond kindly to their school being scheduled for demolition. As one of the cast’s less notable names at the time (this being only his second screen credit), Cruise does bite the bullet after a daring, ill-thought-out maneuver has real consequences for all involved. Although set in a military school, there's no denying this Lord of the Flies -esque tale of power and corruption is more akin to Full Metal Jacket than Top Gun , and the drama is well worth a watch for fans of Cruise. Interestingly enough, Cruise’s David Shawn survives until the movie’s closing moments unlike some of his fellow, less fortunate students, and loses his life only when he decides to go out in a blaze of glory rather than submit to the National Guard’s authority. It’s a brutal, bleak ending, one that was effective at the time but is now even more surprising as the later fame of its star makes the young protagonist of Taps seem all the more invincible.

Vanilla Sky (2001)

This one is debatable, as it is left unclear whether Cruise’s character survives the events of Vanilla Sky, possibly the weirdest Tom Cruise sci-fi movie . In essence, the movie, which is a remake of Alejandro Amenabar’s Open Your Eyes, tells the tale of David, a wealthy publishing media magnate whose life takes a trippy, confusing turn when he awakens one morning to find himself mysteriously imprisoned. Vanilla Sky eventually reveals that David is not experiencing reality as he knows it - but is actually in a prolonged lucid dream as doctors work to salvage his face and keep his brain alive for over a hundred years, prompting “Tech Support” to tell him he can choose between returning to the dream or waking up. In an ending not unlike the highly influential cult horror movie Jacob’s Ladder , David decides to wake up - a choice that comes in the form of him jumping off a skyscraper, which most definitely kills the dream version of David, even if his real-life counterpart’s fate is left ambiguous. While there's no way of knowing if Tech Support was telling the truth, viewers can be sure at least one David definitely dies.

Related: Every Kurt Russell Sci-Fi Movie, Ranked

Valkyrie (2008)

The real-life thriller Valkyrie saw Cruise play Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a German military man most notable for his brave but doomed plot to assassinate Hitler. The titular Operation Valkyrie refers to this plot, and much of the movie's action is devoted to detailing the ins and outs of the almost successful attempt on the Fuhrer’s life. Unfortunately for Stauffenberg, it failed and he was executed by firing squad as its ring leader. As such, unlike his earlier, fictional Top Gun hero Maverick , here the daring exploits of Tom Cruise ’ s character don’t pay off for him and the real-life figure doesn’t make it to the end of the movie alive.

One Theory Suggests Maverick Was Dead For Most Of Top Gun 2

Top Gun: Maverick slides into the list of movies that kills Tom Cruise by way of a fan theory that postulates Pete "Maverick" Mitchell was actually dead after the first scenes of the Top Gun sequel. This is due to how Maverick stubbornly pushes flying at Mach 10 speeds in the first part of Top Gun: Maverick , which results in his plane going out of control and the people on the ground deducing that he must have died. However, it's revealed later that Maverick lived after ejecting from his plane, asking for a glass of water in an unknown diner.

As the proponents of this dark Top Gun: Maverick fan theory argue, Mach 10 speeds would have killed even veteran jet fliers, which means that the entire movie is composed of the ace Navy pilot's final thoughts before succumbing to death in the above situation. Curiously, this explains not just how Maverick survived in the beginning but also the man's uncanny ability to avoid death despite jumping into the most dangerous situations. The way the movie ends happily for everyone in the main cast also supports the idea that Top Gun: Maverick may have been just one dying man's dreams.

Want more Top Gun: Maverick articles? Check out our essential content below...

• Does Top Gun: Maverick Have A Post-Credits Scene?
• Top Gun: Maverick Easter Eggs & Every Callback To The Original
• How Much Of Top Gun 2 Is Real & How Much Is CGI

Next: Top Gun: Maverick Ending Explained (In Detail)

Tom Cruise Has Seen Every Single Movie Released in Theaters

Tom Cruise sneaks into movie theaters and has seen every single movie released on the big screen. Yes, every single one.

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise is passionate about the cinematic experience, particularly in theaters, with the Top Gun: Maverick star revealing that he frequently puts on a simple disguise in order to see every movie that comes out. Every. Single. One. In a report courtesy of Vulture , which largely discusses how dull Cruise has apparently been at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it's revealed that the star of Mission: Impossible completes the seemingly impossible task of seeing every movie that is released in theaters. Yes, presumably even Morbius .

Cruise revealed that he goes incognito to the theater saying, “I put on my cap and I sit in the audience.” Now, whether Tom Cruise actually endeavors to see every single movie that hits the big screen is open to debate. But, if anyone can do it, then it’s probably Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise has not been shy about vocalizing his love for releasing movies on the silver screen, with the actor adamant that the upcoming legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick would not be released via streaming. Not so long as he draws breathe, anyway. “No, they wouldn’t — that’s not gonna happen, ever,” the actor said, no doubt smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. “That is never gonna happen. Ever. That is never gonna happen. No.”

This is far from the first time that Cruise has addressed the very suggestion of a streaming release for Top Gun: Maverick with such assertion. “That was not going to happen ever,” Cruise said of a streaming release for the long-awaited sequel last week. “I make movies for the big screen.” The actor even went so far as to contact theater owners and assure them that he will continue to fight for them. “I’ve spent a lot of time with theater owners. The people that serve the popcorn, the ones who make this [happen]," he said, before adding that he called them to say, "Please, I know what you’re going through. Just know we are making Mission: Impossible and Top Gun is coming out.”

Top Gun: Maverick Will Land in Theaters This Week

Top Gun: Maverick will pick up after more than thirty years since the release of the first Top Gun . Pete “Maverick” Mitchell has been of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators for just as long and feels he is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw, call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.”

Directed by Joseph Kosinski and written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, from a story conceived by Peter Craig and Justin Marks, Top Gun: Maverick is the sequel to the 1986 hit Top Gun and stars Tom Cruise as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, alongside Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer.

Top Gun: Maverick is scheduled to be released in theaters on May 27, 2022, and it is expected to be something to behold on the big screen.

IMDbPro Starmeter 99 2

• Contact info
• 64 wins & 119 nominations total

Photos 1992

• Nathan Algren

• Jerry Maguire

• Chief John Anderton
• Post-production
• Cage (rumored)
• In Development
• Pre-production

• Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell

• Team Member

• Nick Morton

• Jack Reacher

• Stacee Jaxx

• Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg
• producer (produced by)

• producer (uncredited)

• executive producer

• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Tomu Kurûzu
• 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• July 3 , 1962
• Syracuse, New York, USA
• Spouses Katie Holmes November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012 (divorced, 1 child)
• Children Isabella Jane Cruise
• Parents Thomas Mapother III
• Relatives William Mapother (Cousin)
• Other works Played Nathan Detroit in a high school production of "Guys and Dolls"
• 12 Print Biographies
• 9 Portrayals
• 32 Interviews
• 145 Articles
• 21 Pictorials
• 764 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia 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.
• Quotes 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.
• Trademarks Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
• Salaries Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two ( 2025 ) $13,000,000 + % of back end
• How old is Tom Cruise?
• When was Tom Cruise born?
• Where was Tom Cruise born?

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Tom Cruise Is Remaking A Wild Clint Eastwood Action Thriller | GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT

A few months ago the trades announced that Tom Cruise signed a strategic partnership with Warner Bros. to develop and produce original and franchise theatricals for Cruise to star in. At the time, what exactly he was planning to develop remained unknown.

Now GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT can exclusively report that one of those movies will be a remake of the 1977 Clint Eastwood action thriller The Gauntlet . Tom Cruise will take over the role originally played by Eastwood in the movie, that of alcoholic Detective Ben Shockley.

The original version of The Gauntlet was also directed by Clint Eastwood, but our source tells us Christopher McQuarrie will direct the Tom Cruise version. Tom Cruise will, of course, produce as part of his new deal with Warners.

McQuarrie has become Tom Cruise's go-to director over the years. He directed Tom Cruise on movies like Jack Reacher and three Mission: Impossible (soon four) movies. Now Christopher McQuarrie is working with Cruise on The Gauntlet .

This information comes from the same proven source that has broken several other, now confirmed , WB-related stories for us. GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT ‘s editorial policy prohibits me from printing stories submitted by sources without a proven track record.

The Gauntlet is not one of Eastwood's better-known projects. It received mixed to favorable reviews on its release. The story involves a detective ordered to escort a prostitute to a trial, where she's expected to testify against the mob.

As you'd expect, things don't go well, and Detective Shockley ends up under attack and on the run. The movie's filled with some pretty big action set pieces, including high-speed pursuits with helicopters and motorcycles. There's even a road warrior-style chase in a hastily armored bus. It's easy to imagine Tom Cruise turning that into one of his stunt-laden action flicks, only with perhaps a grittier twist than what we've come to expect from him in the Mission: Impossible films.

GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT

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'The Little Mermaid' Gets an R-Rated Makeover in New Trailer

No childhood classic is safe anymore.

The Big Picture

• Childhood classics are being reimagined into horror films, with an R-rated twist on The Little Mermaid now in production.
• The new Little Mermaid movie follows an archaeologist who falls in love with a mysterious woman with sinister secrets.
• This twisted trend includes upcoming projects like Bambi: The Reckoning and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare for horror fans to enjoy.

With the success of films like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey , it seems like no childhood classic is safe from getting a horror-themed re-imagining. Now a beloved Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale is getting its turn in the latest trend as, according to a recent report from Bloody Disgusting , an R-rated horror re-telling of The Little Mermaid is now on the way with its first official trailer.

Directed by Leigh Scott , the film centers on Dr. Eric Prince, an archaeologist, who makes the discovery that an ancient, advanced society once existed on a small island in the Caribbean. During his excavation, he soon encounters a mysterious woman named Aurora Bey , who he falls in love with. However, Eric’s friend, Dr. Ashley begins to discover that there is something more sinister to Aurora than what appears, and soon Eric will have to make the choice between listening to his friend or falling under the influence of an evil siren .

Lydia Helen stars in the film alongside Mike Markoff and Jeff Denton . The film is rated R for “language, some violence, and brief nudity,” following in the footsteps of other horror-themed fairy tale re-imaginings. The trailer certainly showcases the movie's R-rating, with Aurora, the film's evil titular mermaid, killing an onslaught of victims in order to gain the ability to walk on land. Definitely a far cry from Ariel’s journey in the original Disney classic .

Where Do You Know the Cast and Crew of 'The Little Mermaid'?

The film's director has worked on a number of films over the years, including directing other "reimagined" features like The Lost Girls , Dorothy and the Witches of Oz , Dracula's Curse , and Frankenstein Reborn . The cast is comprised of a lot of newcomers to the industry, including it's red-headed star Lydia Helen, who has primarily worked on short films. Wayne Gordon is perhaps the most notable member of the cast, though his role is currently unknown. Gordon is an accomplished voice actor who has had many notable roles in fan-favorite video games, including the recently released Dragon's Dogma II , and has appeared in hit series like Miracle Workers .

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' Kicked Off a Trend

The recent trend of adapting childhood characters into nightmarish form is continuing to grow following the success of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey , which debuted in limited theaters last year and earned over $5 million at the box office. The movie would quickly receive a follow-up this year with Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 , this time featuring the appearance of Tigger, which saw similar success and better critical reception. It should come as no surprise that horror would eventually lead into this direction, especially when taking into consideration that popular characters like Annabelle and M3GAN similarly play off the idea of innocent images turned into blood-fueled nightmares.

No Childhood Classic is Safe in This Latest Horror Trend

While horror adaptations of classic fairy tales are nothing new, the past couple of years have seen a significant rise in terrifying movies based on beloved children’s properties. What initially started with films, such as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey , looking to capitalize on the new public domain status of classic stories, has now turned into an entire horror movement. The Twisted Childhood Universe itself is looking to expand in the upcoming years with new installments like Bambi: The Reckoning , Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare , and Pinocchio: Unstrung , among several others. However, outside of that, there are still plenty of other related projects on the way, such as Cinderella’s Curse and Screamboat , based on the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie . Now with The Little Mermaid thrown into the mix, fans of the latest horror trend certainly have much to look forward to.

No official release date for The Little Mermaid has been set yet, but expect the film to debut sometime later this year. Check out the official trailer for the upcoming film here .