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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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There’s Real Math to Prove That Tom Cruise Movies Are Better When He Runs in Them

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Tom Cruise is in on the joke. The actor’s Twitter bio notes that he’s been “running in movies since 1981,” and indeed it’s what he’s best known for doing onscreen. To mark the release of “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” the folks at Rotten Tomatoes  have put together a study suggesting that, the more Cruise runs in his movies, the better they are.

They did so using what sounds like painstaking methodology, counting “every instance of Cruise’s running on screen, in seconds, and then calculated the distances ran by assuming he is clocking a six-minute mile (14.6 feet per second).”

The average Tomatometer of movies in which Cruise doesn’t run at all — and there are only four, namely “Magnolia,” “Lions for Lambs,” “Tropic Thunder,” and “Valkyrie” — is a respectable 63.5%. Those in which he runs anywhere from one to 500 feet (of which there are 20, including everything from “Risky Business” to “Interview With the Vampire”) are a little bit lower, at 61.05%; clocking in ever-so-slightly higher are the eight films in which he covers between 501 and 1,000 feet, which average out to 61.625%.

Related Stories Lewis Hamilton Regretted Turning Down a Role in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’: ‘It Could’ve Been Me!’ Jerry Bruckheimer Offers ‘Top Gun 3’ Update: Joseph Kosinski Is Developing a ‘Wonderful’ Story Idea for Tom Cruise

Then comes the good stuff. The nine films that find their star going “Full Tom” (1,001+ feet) jump up to 71%, which is to say that three “M:I” movies, “Minority Report,” and “The Firm” rank among Cruise’s best-reviewed efforts.

Remarkably, the study also found that the 56-year-old Oscar nominee has been running more as he’s gotten older. Here are the full results of RT’s findings, and here are the 10 movies in which Cruise runs the most

• “Mission: Impossible III” — 3,212 feet
• “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” — 3,066 feet
• “War of the Worlds” — 1,752 feet
• “Minority Report” — 1,562 feet
• “The Firm” — 1,241 feet
• “Edge of Tomorrow” — 1,065 feet
• “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” — 1,051 feet
• “The Mummy” — 1,022 feet
• “Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation” — 1,007 feet
• “Vanilla Sky” — 832 feet

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The 10-minute supercut of Tom Cruise running in Mission: Impossible movies is joy

Nearly 30 years of gunning it, all in one video

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Share All sharing options for: The 10-minute supercut of Tom Cruise running in Mission: Impossible movies is joy

Since the original Mission: Impossible hit theaters 27 years ago, Tom Cruise and a rotating squad of directors have continually redefined what the spy thriller saga is all about. Brian de Palma kicked things off in 1996 with a high-tension conspiracy throwback, then John Woo swung the franchise into slow-motion frenzy four years later. A decade later, Cruise found himself dangling off the Burj Khalifa — and he was prepared to one-up himself with each subsequent sequel. Going into Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 , the star made very clear that his penchant for death-defying practical stunts was not slowing down. Later this month, he’ll be motorcycling off a cliffside for our enjoyment.

But if you look back at the Mission: Impossible films, there’s a clear connection between them, a commonality that gives each movie core: running like all hell.

Ethan Hunt’s personal mythology has become more knotted over the years, and the things that go boom have gone boomier thanks to 30 years of advances in moviemaking technology, but the real thing Cruise brings to every picture is his two high-speed feet. The man loves to run — and run and run and run. Then he takes a break. Then he keeps running! Fans of the series have picked up on the actor’s devout belief in racing to a MacGuffin finish line on camera. Eating is to Brad Pitt as sprinting like there’s no tomorrow is to Tom Cruise. At this point, Cruise knows his reputation; his Instagram biography reads “Actor. Producer. Running in movies since 1981.”

The running in Mission: Impossible movies can go overlooked when squeezed under the tentpole sequences of each movie, but they are there, and when watched in succession in this mesmerizing supercut stitched together by Paramount Pictures’ crack team of archivists/editors, it becomes evident why the franchise has... legs. (Ahem.) No director shoots Tom Cruise running in exactly the same way, and the contextual circumstances of why Ethan Hunt has to run in a given moment demand a certain amount of nuance from a performer who is also going harder than any of us ever have at the gym. Set to the tune of Lalo Schifrin’s original M:I theme, the edit, debuting here on Polygon, is bliss for fans of this stuff.

See Tom Cruise run. Run, Tom. Run. Run run run!

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 hits theaters on July 12.

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Tom Cruise’s Best Running Scenes in Movies, Ranked

Tom Cruise’s love for running is the subject of memes, video essays, and ESPN articles. Here are his best running scenes in movies, ranked.

It’s a running joke in Hollywood and one that is well-known among cinema audiences — Tom Cruise loves to run, and he does it exceptionally well. It’s one of those odd things that make it as a popular meme, but with zero exaggeration of the facts. His love of running has received commentary from ESPN and measured against box office success by Rotten Tomatoes . A YouTube video titled "Every Tom Cruise Run. Ever.," which compiles nearly 19 minutes of the actor’s running scenes across various movies, actually has 2 million views garnered across the past six years.

With his relentless pursuit of excellence and love for daring stunts, Cruise has become a rare brand in modern-day Hollywood, often being called the last movie star. He knows what the audience expects of him, and seeks to deliver it to great satisfaction in every movie. And his unique run is simply indispensable in every movie he’s in — his chest blown-out, straight-backed, straight-palmed run that seems to model itself perfectly around the kind of role he’s doing. Ranking his running scenes across different movies makes pure cinematic sense. So, here are 10 of Tom Cruise’s best running scenes, ranked.

10 Making an Arrest — Minority Report

Minority Report has built a reputation as one of the classic sci-fi movies of the early-2000s . But as far as Cruise’s brand as an on-screen sprinter goes, the movie is also the best possible exhibit of this strange Hollywood phenomenon. The movie features Cruise as a futuristic police officer on the run from his own team. The very plot of the movie gives it an above-average potential for running scenes, and the movie utilizes much of it. But the best scene featuring Cruise running is near the beginning, when he runs across a street to the first-floor bedroom of a house in record time to stop a murder. Despite many cuts, the scene perfectly captures the unique kinetic energy of Cruise’s run.

9 Dream Run — Vanilla Sky

It is one thing to simply have good running form, but Cruise’s run is firmly established as a meme given that he tends to run even in non-action drama movies. Vanilla Sky has garnered a cult following as a psychological thriller , and stars Cruise as a wealthy socialite. But the movie still manages to start out with a scene of him running — the scene is famous for taking place in a fully deserted Times Square, and is set as a dream sequence in the movie. The great thing about this scene is that it makes complete sense, establishing a state of disoriented paranoia for Cruise’s character.

8 Samurai Assault — The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai is a rare achievement for Hollywood as a western-made samurai movie that stays true to the feel and themes of the original Japanese samurai movies. Cruise takes the role of a disillusioned war veteran in the movie, observing the final days of the samurai tradition during the Meiji Restoration of 19th Century. The movie’s climax involves a last stand by a group of samurai warriors against the modernized Imperial army. Dressed in full samurai garb, Cruise doesn’t get quite the opportunity to display his signature run during the assault. However, it is a fitting high point for the movie as the samurai warriors run towards the Imperial soldiers with a rousing battle cry.

Related: Every Time Tom Cruise Played Someone Different From His Usual Roles

7 The First Attack — War of the Worlds

Cruise’s running scenes aren’t just noted for their exceptional form — as noted by ESPN , they’re also a testament to his professionalism and skills as an actor. He has consistently proven that he can do everything that an actor is required to do while running at lightning speeds, take after take. Not just that, but based on his role, his run is also a versatile tool of expression. In War of the Worlds , Cruise’s character finds himself in the middle of a sudden attack by powerful aliens on earth. It’s a greatly involving scene that finds Cruise running helter-skelter for his life through the city streets as people are getting vaporized left and right. Given the nature of the scene, his gait appears quite topsy-turvy — and fittingly so.

6 Twilight Rooftop Run — Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

You simply can’t have a big-budget spy action movie without a rooftop chase. One wonders how much Cruise and the Mission Impossible franchise have to do with this mandatory genre convention. The popular movie series has altogether too many rooftop chase scenes for a single franchise. But nobody can dispute that Mission Impossible does it quite well. A memorable scene in this category takes place during Rogue Nation , featuring Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson running across a picturesque backdrop dressed in full James Bond uniform. The romantic undertones of this scene are undeniable, and it’s a point of praise that the movie manages to pull it off during a running scene.

5 Running Through Shanghai — Mission: Impossible III

This particular sprint by Cruise stands out with its abject velocity. It is commonly known among Tom Cruise fans that he regularly has to slow down when running alongside other co-stars. This scene in Mission: Impossible III sees him run full-tilt across a crowded market corridor in Shanghai, and it captures the utter ferocity of Cruise’s run — one of its important qualities! It starts off with a gorgeous tracking shot that follows Ethan Hunt nimbly step down from a series of brick-tiled roofs and shoot through the corridor while screaming in a foreign language. It’s an underrated moment that perfectly displays Cruise’s dedication to the craft.

Related: Mission: Impossible: Tom Cruise's 5 Best Stunts in the Franchise, Ranked

4 Overhead Bridge Run — Collateral

Collateral is one of Cruise’s most unique and memorable performances. Directed by Michael Mann, Cruise stars in the movie as a cold, highly proficient assassin who lands in Los Angeles for a night to do a job. The movie was praised for its neo-noir tones, and Cruise’s performance played a part in its overall success, even earning him an MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Villain. His signature running style, with the jutted-out chest and stiff palms, stands out as something anomalous to the movie’s urban context. But it adds a feeling of terrifying tenacity to the iconic character, a feeling of predatory determination that is best seen during the overhead bridge scene. As is the general rule, Cruise running doesn’t go to waste in this movie either, and subtly sets him apart as a fundamentally different sort of entity masquerading as a regular person.

3 Rooftop Chase — Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Mission Impossible: Fallout features perhaps the best rooftop chase scene in the entire franchise. Cruise famously broke his ankle while jumping across a building for this scene, and chose to finish the scene with the injury so that the shot would be complete. This rooftop chase features some of the best examples of the sweeping camera angles that are now common in blockbuster spy movies. Cruise starts the sprawling one-pan chase scene against the backdrop of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, giving viewers 360-degree views of gorgeous skylines as it progresses.

2 Vertical Skyscraper Run — Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

The Mission Impossible franchise was also the instrument for Cruise to pull off some of his most daring stunts. One of the iconic stunts from the entire franchise takes place at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in Ghost Protocol , and follows Ethan Hunt on a daring attempt to infiltrate one of the hotel rooms from the outside of the skyscraper. The scene gave audiences the unforgettable visual of Cruise running sideways across the Burj Khalifa. The run takes place at the tail end of a long stunt scene that is already fraught with tension, as Hunt navigates the glass walls of the building with hi-tech Spider-Man-style gloves. It is an all-around excellent stunt sequence that is designed with an entire structure of escalating tensions within it.

1 Running Away from a Sandstorm — Ghost Protocol

This is the scene that encompasses everything Cruise stands for, as an action star. Also taking place in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol , the scene captures Cruise’s signature running gait in a stunning low-angle shot as he runs out of the entrance of a skyscraper while a massive sandstorm begins to consume the building. It is a truly epic shot — the slow pan out revealing the sprawling architecture of the Dubai International Financial Center, with Cruise gradually moving in for a close-up that perfectly synchronizes with the backward movement of the camera.

The More Tom Cruise Runs, The Better His Movies Do, According To Science

Did you know that if Tom Cruise stops running, he dies? Well not exactly, but if he runs less, his movies do worse at the box office. Really. It's science.

A study from the folks at Rotten Tomatoes have figured out that the amount that Cruise runs in his movies correlate with how good the movies are — and how well they do at the box office.

It began as an internet meme pointing out, Tom Cruise sure does run in movies a lot , doesn't he? But then the actor went on to put it in his Twitter bio ("running in movies since 1981," it proclaims) and videos compiling all of the scenes of Tom Cruise running hit the web.

Now, following the release of Cruise's latest and most running-est movie yet,  Mission Impossible: Fallout , Rotten Tomatoes has released a totally legitimate study proving that the more Cruise runs, the better his movies do. And by their painstaking methodology, you'd have to believe it was true.

In the report, which you can find here , Rotten Tomatoes compiled "every instance of Cruise's running on screen, in seconds, and then calculated the distances ran by assuming he is clocking a six-minute mile (14.6 feet per second)." And what did they find? Well, movies featuring Cruise running more than 1,000 feet tended to have a higher Tomatometer average (71%) than the movies in which he runs less than that. And these statistics translate to box office revenue too — on average, these same movies had an average inflated international gross of $538 million.

This is compared to movies in which he doesn't run at all (which only consist of the four films  Magnolia, Lions for Lambs, Tropic Thunder , and  Valkyrie)  at an average of 63.5%, movies in which he runs 1 to 500 feet at 61.05%, and movies in which he runs 501 and 1,000 feet, which average out to 61.625%.

Hilariously, the 56-year-old star seems to be running more the older he gets — though  Fallout hasn't yet been factored into these results. Here are the 10 movies in which Cruise runs the most, according to Rotten Tomatoes:

• "Mission: Impossible III" — 3,212 feet
• "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" — 3,066 feet
• "War of the Worlds" — 1,752 feet
• "Minority Report" — 1,562 feet
• "The Firm" — 1,241 feet
• "Edge of Tomorrow" — 1,065 feet
• "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" — 1,051 feet
• "The Mummy" — 1,022 feet
• "Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation" — 1,007 feet
• "Vanilla Sky" — 832 feet

While there are a few outliers, this study seems to be pretty on the nose about what the audiences want: to see Tom Cruise run. His top three grossing movies with the most running and box office success include Mission: Impossible III (3,212 feet, $134 million), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (3,066 feet, $209 million) and War of the Worlds (1,752 feet, $234 million).

Now, without further ado, let's re-watch Tom Cruise run in all his movies.

Want to Make a Hit Movie? Show Tom Cruise Running On Screen

By hannah mcdonald | aug 1, 2018.

Take note, Hollywood: The farther Tom Cruise runs, the higher his movie ratings get, CNET reports .

To figure this out, the diligent folks over at Rotten Tomatoes timed every instance of Tom Cruise running on screen and assumed a 10 mph speed (about 14.7 feet per second). They then sorted the movies by Cruise's running distance to see if there were any patterns.

And, it turns out, there were. Movies where Tom Cruise runs more than 1000 feet have a higher average critical score (71 percent approval), and they also bring in more money at the box office, with an average international gross of $538 million. There are a few exceptions to that trend, though. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2012), The Mummy (2017), and Vanilla Sky (2001) were all among the top 10 Tom Cruise films in terms of running distance, but they failed to garner more than a 41 percent critic approval rating.

The film enthusiasts at Rotten Tomatoes also found that Cruise runs farthest in his more recent movies. Five of the films in the top 10 were made after 2010, and all but one of them were made after 2000. That's not shocking—consider the popularity of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

In terms of profits, at least, the results aren't too surprising: More running usually means more action, and action movies have a long history of earning big bucks at the box office. What is unexpected, however, is the critical success of Cruise's action films, as critics tend to rank action movies lower than any other genre. But if anything is capable of changing critics' minds about action movies, it's apparently Cruise's limber legs.

Here’s the list of the top 10 movies where Tom Cruise does the most running:

1. Mission: Impossible III (2006) — 3212 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 70 percent critic approval, 69 percent audience approval

2. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) — 3066 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 93 percent critic approval, 76 percent audience approval

3. War of the Worlds (2005) — 1752 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 74 percent critic approval, 42 percent audience approval

4. Minority Report (2002) — 1562 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 91 percent critic approval, 80 percent audience approval

5. The Firm (1993) — 1241 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 74 percent critic approval, 64 percent audience approval

6. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) — 1065 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 90 percent critic approval, 90 percent audience approval

7. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2012) — 1051 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 37 percent critic approval, 42 percent audience approval

8. The Mummy (2017) — 1022 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 15 percent critic approval, 35 percent audience approval

9. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) — 1007 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 93 percent critic approval, 87 percent audience approval

10. Vanilla Sky (2001) — 832 feet

Rotten Tomatoes approval scores: 41 percent critic approval, 72 percent audience approval

[h/t CNET ]

• Entertainment

Tom Cruise running on screen equals movie gold, math shows

According to Rotten Tomatoes, Cruise has run over 24,000 feet on screen, and that's translated to box office success.

The more Tom Cruise runs, the better a movie seems to do. Here he is in Mission Impossible III.

If Tom Cruise is starring in a movie, chances are his character will be running  at some point. 

Cruise has outrun an alien invasion in War of the Worlds , dashed across an empty Times Square in Vanilla Sky  and stormed through a magical forest in Legend . 

He runs most in his ongoing role as secret agent Ethan Hunt. So you can bet he'll be sprinting yet again as Hunt in his latest film  Mission: Impossible - Fallout . 

Movie review site Rotten Tomatoes crunched the numbers to determine whether Cruise running has meant big bucks for his films that span almost 40 years.

The data collected shows "movies featuring Cruise running more than 1,000 feet (abut 305 meters) have a higher Tomatometer average (a huge 71 percent) 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 $538 million," according to Rotten Tomatoes.

The site counted every running scene in seconds, then added into the equation that Cruise averaged a six-minute mile (or 14.6 feet per second).

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And even though Cruise is getting up there in years (he's 56), he seems to be running in movies more the older he gets. 

Rotten Tomatoes determined that Cruise ran 3,212 feet in Mission: Impossible III in 2006, which is impressive considering he ran 3,299 feet combined in his previous 12 movies during the '80s. 

And with more running means more money. His top three grossing movies with the most running and box office success include Mission: Impossible III (3,212 feet, making $133,400,000), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (3,066 feet, making $209,364,921) and War of the Worlds (1,752 feet, making $234,141,872).

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This Is Tom Cruise’s Best Running Sequence in the Mission: Impossible Franchise

The world turns, Tom Cruise runs.

With Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 hitting theaters, expectations are high for Tom Cruise 's next big stunt as agent Ethan Hunt. Still, some of the most thrilling action sequences in the franchise show him doing one of the most basic things a person can do: running. He has turned this into an art, and every Mission: Impossible movie has at least one sequence of him just running — long or short, they're there.

For Dead Reckoning Part 1 , we know he jumps off a cliff on a motorbike , yes, but what about his signature stunt of simply running? Paramount Pictures recently released a compilation of Cruise's best running stunts in order to assure us that, yes, he will have plenty of running bits in the next movie. To prepare for it, let's have a look at some past great ones, see what makes a running scene great, and, of course, settle on what's the best one, shall we?

RELATED: Here's How Much Is Left to Film for ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 2’

The Running Sequence Across Shanghai in 'Mission: Impossible 3'

Mission: Impossible III saw the epic return of Tom Cruise to the role of Ethan Hunt after six years, this time directed by J.J. Abrams . His mission is to stop arms dealer Owen Davian ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ), but things quickly take a very personal turn. The movie begins with Hunt coming out of retirement to rescue a protégé of his in Berlin and sets him on a globetrotting adventure that culminates in the rescue of his wife Julia ( Michelle Monaghan ) in Shanghai.

The whole sequence starts with Hunt being betrayed by fellow IMF agent John Musgrave ( Billy Crudup ), who was helping Davian the whole time. The bad guys inserted in Ethan's skull an explosive micro-pellet similar to the one that killed his protégé, meaning he has a mere seven minutes to save Julia. Ethan knocks Musgrave unconscious and uses his phone to call Benji Dunn ( Simon Pegg ), who guides him a little over a mile in Shanghai to the building where Julia is being held captive. The set piece lasts around 2 minutes, including a 15-second single-take shot of Cruise running along a Shanghai river at top speed while yelling for the locals to get out of the way. He then navigates narrow streets and is almost run over by a truck until finally finds the building Julia is at.

This may not be the most elaborate set piece in the franchise, but it's certainly among the most exhilarating. J.J. Abrams was still known for his work in Alias and Lost back then, so filming people running in crowded spaces such as a jungle was among his specialties, and it worked perfectly for Mission: Impossible III .

The Running Sequence Across London in ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout'

Twelve years and three movies later, Cruise is once again running through a city in Mission: Impossible - Fallout . This time, though, the running action scene happens halfway through the movie, as Ethan Hunt needs to catch rogue CIA agent August Walker ( Henry Cavill ) before he flees London with Solomon Lane ( Sean Harris ), the leader of the Apostles. Fallout is not only one of the best entries of Mission: Impossible , it's also one of the best action movies ever and has a number of insane set pieces, like the skydiving in Paris scene and the helicopter chase towards the end. But, once again, it's the simplicity of Tom Cruise running across London that stands out as the best action sequence.

The whole piece goes on for around seven minutes as Ethan runs and jumps through the rooftops, interrupts a wake happening at a church, and disrupts the whole workflow of a company, doing everything to catch Walker by the time he arrives at Tate Modern. Cruise is famous for doing his own stunts, but this is one of his most extreme ones because it consists of non-stop physical effort.This is also one of the most celebrated of Cruise's stunts due to the fact that he actually broke his ankle while filming it . While jumping from one rooftop to another, he slammed his right leg into the building exterior, and you can even hear his actual scream of pain in the film. Nevertheless, he limped on for our entertainment, but principal photography had to shut down for a few weeks so that he could recover and continue running.

So, Which One Is Tom Cruise’s Best Running Sequence in the Mission: Impossible Franchise?

Those two are, of course, not the only running sequences in the franchise. Cruise has been running and pulling crazy stunts since the mid-1990s, so there are countless moments that deserve recognition. For example, the sandstorm chase in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is even more complex than the two previously mentioned, but, while it does combine a lot of elements that further complicate Ethan Hunt's life, what makes a good Tom Cruise running set piece is simplicity. The beauty and the whole point of it is to just see the greatest movie star alive doing what he does best.

With all this in mind, we can safely state that Cruise's best running scene in the franchise is the one in Mission: Impossible III . Although short, what captures the viewers' attention is how natural it feels for Tom Cruise to hop from a rooftop to a bridge in the middle of a traditional Chinese neighborhood in Shanghai, while yelling at the passers-by and at Benji for instructions. His physical effort is palpable, as proven by his posture and breathing for a quarter of a minute non-stop as he runs in a single take. There's no visible external element pressing him, the sense of urgency built mostly by J.J. Abrams' quick transitions and close-following camera and by Michael Giacchino 's intense soundtrack. The two of them had already worked together on Lost , and the scene is so reminiscent of that, we can all but imagine a smoke monster running after Cruise, too.

This doesn't take away the merit of all the other running sequences in the Mission: Impossible franchise, quite the contrary. The constant effort to pull out crazier and more elaborate stunts is what makes these movies great, as well as Cruise's willingness to keep taking things to the next level. He has run through rooftops, up walls, down buildings, jumped across gaps between buildings... We can only thank him and his crew for all they have given us, and hope they don't stop anytime soon.

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

10 Greatest Ever Tom Cruise Running Scenes

He feels the need. The need for speed.

'Running in movies since 1981'.

Even Tom Cruise's social media bios are in on it. Now long past being an ongoing joke, running is now as much an expected part of the star's big-screen output as performing a death-defying stunt. Audiences have now been conditioned to expect at least one scene in each one of his movies where Cruise does his signature run, all upwards-pointing arms and bolt-upright posture, and some people get upset when it doesn't happen.

Basically, Tom Cruise is to 'running really fast, often for no reason' what Nicolas Cage is to 'losing his sh*t and acting crazy, often for no reason'.

As you would expect from somebody who has been gracing our screens for the last 37 years, Tom Cruise has done a lot of running on the big screen. In fact, recent news articles actually proved that his movies perform better at the the more he runs.

Now it has been proven as an indisputable fact of science that the Tom Cruise Run equals success, expect the action star to keep sprinting across multiplex screens for as long as humanly possible.

10. Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible II may have marked the critical nadir for the franchise, but it was still the highest-grossing movie of 2000, racking up an impressive $546.4m. It remains one hell of a stylish movie, as you would expect from action maestro John Woo, but has dated badly and now serves as a time capsule of where the genre was around the turn of the millennium.

The movie features plenty of the action movie cliches that had taken over the genre post-Matrix and all of its director's well-known artistic flourishes, encapsulated in the fact that Tom Cruise ticks virtually all of the early-2000's boxes while running .

Slow motion? Sparks flying? Martial arts? Wire fu? Doves (well, pigeons in this case)? A leather jacket? Cruise does it all without breaking his stride, becoming a running advertisement for what action movies essentially were at the time in the process.

I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then   View saved stories .

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Every Tom Cruise Running Scene, Mapped

Released on 03/20/2019

Well, you could always start running.

[upbeat electronic music]

[upbeat jazz music]

[sirens blaring]

[exhilarating music]

[electronic chime]

[somber music]

[upbeat tempo]

[soldier yelling]

[upbeat music]

[computer chimes]

[crowd cheering]

[football players cheering]

[Stephen] No!

Nickerson, you are not God!

[slow music]

[energetic music]

[building crashing]

[screaming]

[tires squealing]

[dramatic music]

[shouting and screams]

[dramatic chime]

[mumbling over radio]

Bollocks! [screaming]

[glass shattering]

Stay down, stay down!

Get down, get down!

[suspenseful music]

[Woman] Oh my god!

[exploding bang]

[electronic chiming]

Come on, Joel!

You gotta take advantage of this!

They come right to your house!

Countess Angelique seeks young submissive with large ankles!

Joel, how can you miss it?

[intense music]

[techno music]

May I see your pass, please?

Don't say anything, don't say anything,

don't tell me you anymore!

[upbeat piano music]

No talk about racing.

Come on, come on.

All right, no talk about racing.

Come on, Buck.

Race your ass.

[intense rock music]

They made us.

Restaurant.

[Hostess] Hello.

[suspenseful techno music]

[all yelling]

[rock music]

You stupid freak!

Hey you, hey dip shit, move it!

You ain't gonna move, I'll move ya.

You're gonna get

run over out here. Whoa, whoa, hey!

Move it, move it!

Hey, hey, no it's all right,

it's all right, it's all right sir,

I'm sorry.

Raymond, come on.

[rain lashing]

[gentle tempo]

[intense tempo]

[Announcer] He's not getting up.

And boy, look at the faces of these Cardinal fans.

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

[electrical chime]

[alarm ringing]

Ray, Ray, Ray,

Ray, Ray, Ray!

[horn blaring]

Don't!

Sally, where's Julia?

Where's Julia?

I think she left.

[siren blaring]

Get Winston!

Inside, inside!

She was drinking champagne in the sun.

[exploding]

My sister and it was just [mumbles], you know?

He stole them from me!

Joseph, that dead man, he stole my spoons!

They're taking everything!

Who's this man, the ward boss?

[Boy] Let's have another boxin' match then.

We need another challenger.

This man has not been defeated tonight.

Will anyone box him?

Yah! [bang]

No, no, no!

Suspenseful music)

Open the door when I tell you!

[Mission Impossible theme music]

Luther, stay with her!

She's gone, I lost her.

[screeching]

You can't go in there!

I am terribly sorry.

[guns firing]

[dramatic tempo]

47. I don't see it!

[Robotic Voiceover] Enter your code.

Retinal scan required.

[opera music]

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

[bell chime]

I'm going in.

I'll be out in five minutes.

[Man On Phone] What the hell are you doing in Shanghai?

I'll tall ya when I see ya.

[Man on Phone] You need to go North

and there's a bridge.

Go three quarters of a mile along the river.

It's okay, it's okay!

[gun firing]

[engine revving]

[screaming in agony]

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Rank of Tom Cruise's movies by Box office performance

Worldwide performance.

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

PG-13 | 147 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

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

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Henry Cavill , Ving Rhames , Simon Pegg

Votes: 378,185 | Gross: $220.16M

$727 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

2. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

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.

Director: Brad Bird | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeremy Renner , Simon Pegg , Paula Patton

Votes: 528,475 | Gross: $209.40M

$695 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

3. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

PG-13 | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

Ethan and his team take on their most impossible mission yet when they have to eradicate an international rogue organization as highly skilled as they are and committed to destroying the IMF.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rebecca Ferguson , Jeremy Renner , Simon Pegg

Votes: 410,984 | Gross: $195.04M

$682 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

4. War of the Worlds (2005)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

An alien invasion threatens the future of humanity. The catastrophic nightmare is depicted through the eyes of one American family fighting for survival.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dakota Fanning , Tim Robbins , Miranda Otto

Votes: 475,300 | Gross: $234.28M

$592 M. Role - Ray Ferrier

5. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

PG-13 | 123 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt is sent to Sydney to find and destroy a genetically modified disease called "Chimera".

Director: John Woo | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dougray Scott , Thandiwe Newton , Ving Rhames

Votes: 377,739 | Gross: $215.41M

$546 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

6. Mission: Impossible (1996)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

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

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jon Voight , Emmanuelle Béart , Henry Czerny

Votes: 470,353 | Gross: $180.98M

$458 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

7. The Last Samurai (2003)

R | 154 min | Action, Drama

Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Ken Watanabe , Billy Connolly , William Atherton

Votes: 471,170 | Gross: $111.11M

$457 M. Role - Nathan Algren

8. The Mummy (2017)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

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.

Director: Alex Kurtzman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Sofia Boutella , Annabelle Wallis , Russell Crowe

Votes: 206,257 | Gross: $80.10M

$409 M. Role - Nick Morton

9. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fiancée in response.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Tom Cruise , Michelle Monaghan , Ving Rhames , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 390,775 | Gross: $134.03M

$398 M. Role - Ethan Hunt

10. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

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

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Emily Blunt , Bill Paxton , Brendan Gleeson

Votes: 736,997 | Gross: $100.21M

$364 M. Role - Major William Cage

11. Minority Report (2002)

PG-13 | 145 min | Action, Crime, Mystery

John works with the PreCrime police which stop crimes before they take place, with the help of three 'PreCogs' who can foresee crimes. Events ensue when John finds himself framed for a future murder.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Colin Farrell , Samantha Morton , Max von Sydow

Votes: 584,413 | Gross: $132.07M

$358 M. Role - John Anderton

12. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Dustin Hoffman , Tom Cruise , Valeria Golino , Gerald R. Molen

Votes: 546,672 | Gross: $178.80M

$355 M. Role - Charlie Babbitt

13. Top Gun (1986)

PG | 109 min | Action, Drama

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.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Tim Robbins , Kelly McGillis , Val Kilmer

Votes: 502,674 | Gross: $179.80M

$354 M. Role - Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell

14. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

PG-13 | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin Powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly named villain Goldmember, who is working with Dr. Evil.

Director: Jay Roach | Stars: Mike Myers , Beyoncé , Seth Green , Michael York

Votes: 222,926 | Gross: $213.31M

$297 M. Role - Himself

15. Oblivion (I) (2013)

PG-13 | 124 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

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

Director: Joseph Kosinski | Stars: Tom Cruise , Morgan Freeman , Andrea Riseborough , Olga Kurylenko

Votes: 553,215 | Gross: $89.02M

$286 M. Role - Jack Harper

16. Jerry Maguire (1996)

R | 139 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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 colleague.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cuba Gooding Jr. , Renée Zellweger , Kelly Preston

Votes: 287,058 | Gross: $153.95M

$274 M. Role - Jerry Maguire

17. The Firm (1993)

R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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

Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeanne Tripplehorn , Gene Hackman , Hal Holbrook

Votes: 147,717 | Gross: $158.35M

$270 M. Role - Mitch McDeere

18. Knight and Day (2010)

PG-13 | 109 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

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

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cameron Diaz , Peter Sarsgaard , Jordi Mollà

Votes: 210,334 | Gross: $76.42M

$262 M. Role - Roy Miller

19. A Few Good Men (1992)

R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller

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

Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jack Nicholson , Demi Moore , Kevin Bacon

Votes: 287,376 | Gross: $141.34M

$243 M. Role - Lt. Daniel Kaffee

20. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

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

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Brad Pitt , Tom Cruise , Antonio Banderas , Kirsten Dunst

Votes: 347,522 | Gross: $105.26M

$224 M. Role - Lestat de Lioncourt

21. Jack Reacher (2012)

PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller

A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper responsible for a mass shooting.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rosamund Pike , Richard Jenkins , Werner Herzog

Votes: 365,081 | Gross: $80.07M

$218 M. Role - Jack Reacher

22. Collateral (2004)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

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.

Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jamie Foxx , Jada Pinkett Smith , Mark Ruffalo

Votes: 433,187 | Gross: $101.01M

$218 M. Role - Vincent

23. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

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

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Penélope Cruz , Cameron Diaz , Kurt Russell

Votes: 285,720 | Gross: $100.61M

$203 M. Role - David Aames

24. Valkyrie (2008)

PG-13 | 121 min | Drama, History, Thriller

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.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bill Nighy , Carice van Houten , Kenneth Branagh

Votes: 259,285 | Gross: $83.08M

$200 M. Role - Claus von Stauffenberg

25. Tropic Thunder (2008)

R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War

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.

Director: Ben Stiller | Stars: Ben Stiller , Jack Black , Robert Downey Jr. , Jeff Kahn

Votes: 448,124 | Gross: $110.52M

$188 M. Role - Les Grossman

26. Cocktail (1988)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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

Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Brown , Elisabeth Shue , Lisa Banes

Votes: 91,878 | Gross: $78.22M

$172 M. Role - Brian Flanagan

27. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Todd Field , Sydney Pollack

Votes: 375,156 | Gross: $55.69M

$162 M. Role - Bill Harford

28. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

PG-13 | 118 min | Action, Crime, Drama

Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name while on the run as a fugitive from the law.

Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cobie Smulders , Aldis Hodge , Robert Knepper

Votes: 175,324 | Gross: $58.70M

$161 M. Role - Jack Reacher

29. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War

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 for which he fought.

Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Larkin , Raymond J. Barry , Caroline Kava

Votes: 115,968 | Gross: $70.00M

$161 M. Role - Ron Kovic

30. Days of Thunder (1990)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Drama, Sport

A young hot-shot stock car driver gets his chance to compete at the top level.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Robert Duvall , Randy Quaid

Votes: 96,420 | Gross: $82.67M

$158 M. Role - Cole Trickle

31. Far and Away (1992)

PG-13 | 140 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

A young Irish couple flee to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely.

Director: Ron Howard | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Thomas Gibson , Robert Prosky

Votes: 68,331 | Gross: $58.88M

$138 M. Role - Joseph Donnelly

32. American Made (2017)

R | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Crime

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.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Domhnall Gleeson , Sarah Wright , Jesse Plemons

Votes: 208,226 | Gross: $51.34M

$133 M. Role - Barry Seal

33. Risky Business (1983)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

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

Director: Paul Brickman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rebecca De Mornay , Joe Pantoliano , Richard Masur

Votes: 99,857 | Gross: $63.50M

$64 M. Role - Joel Goodson

34. Lions for Lambs (2007)

R | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

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.

Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Tom Cruise , Meryl Streep , Robert Redford , Michael Peña

Votes: 52,708 | Gross: $15.00M

$63 M. Role - Senator Jasper Irving

35. Rock of Ages (2012)

PG-13 | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical

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

Director: Adam Shankman | Stars: Julianne Hough , Diego Boneta , Tom Cruise , Alec Baldwin

Votes: 81,675 | Gross: $38.52M

$59 M. Role - Stacee Jaxx

36. The Color of Money (1986)

R | 119 min | Drama, Sport

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.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Paul Newman , Tom Cruise , Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio , Helen Shaver

Votes: 93,270 | Gross: $52.29M

$52 M. Role - Vincent Lauria

37. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

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

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jason Robards , Julianne Moore , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 328,523 | Gross: $22.46M

$49 M. Role - Frank T.J. Mackey

38. Taps (I) (1981)

PG | 126 min | Drama

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

Director: Harold Becker | Stars: George C. Scott , Timothy Hutton , Ronny Cox , Sean Penn

Votes: 20,095 | Gross: $35.86M

$36 M. Role - Cadet Captain David Shawn

39. The Outsiders (1983)

PG | 91 min | Crime, Drama

In a small Oklahoma town in 1964, the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: C. Thomas Howell , Matt Dillon , Ralph Macchio , Patrick Swayze

Votes: 97,550 | Gross: $25.60M

$26 M. Role - Steve Randle

40. All the Right Moves (1983)

R | 91 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

An ambitious young football star is trapped in a dying mill town--unless his gridiron skills can win him a way out.

Director: Michael Chapman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Lea Thompson , Craig T. Nelson , Charles Cioffi

Votes: 20,396 | Gross: $17.23M

$17 M. Role - Stefen "Stef" Djordjevic

41. Legend (1985)

PG | 94 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

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

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Mia Sara , Tim Curry , David Bennent

Votes: 72,491 | Gross: $15.50M

$16 M. Role - Jack O' The Green

42. Losin' It (1982)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

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.

Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jackie Earle Haley , John Stockwell , John P. Navin Jr.

Votes: 5,230 | Gross: $1.25M

$1 M. Role - Woody

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Top run: does Tom Cruise ban co-stars from sprinting alongside him on screen?

Is the gritted-jaw, arms-pumping greatest runner in film only impressive because he has a no-run rule for fellow actors?

T om Cruise is the big screen’s greatest runner. It doesn’t matter what films he makes any more; so long as there’s a scene where he grits his jaw and pumps his arms while he tears along at an improbable speed, people will buy tickets. This is why nobody seemed to be too cut up when Top Gun 2 was yanked from summer schedules. There isn’t enough space inside the cockpit of a cutting edge fighter jet to let him run around, so what’s the point in even watching it?

However there are now whispers about the secrets of Cruise’s screen running. Namely, it only looks so impressive because he bans everyone else from running on screen at the same time as him. Think about it. In Vanilla Sky he ran alone. In Minority Report he ran alone. In the Mission: Impossible films he runs alone. In War of the Worlds people tried to run with him, but the aliens vaporised them for their insubordination. In Collateral he chases after people a lot and always catches them because he is Tom Cruise, and therefore essentially two big pistons perched on top of a human torso.

We know about Cruise’s no-run rule because Annabelle Wallis, Cruise’s co-star in The Mummy, has claimed in an interview that she alone possessed the moral fortitude and skills of persuasion necessary to break him down.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Wallis said : “I got to run on screen with him, but he told me no at first. He said, ‘Nobody runs on screen [with me],’ and I said, ‘But I’m a really good runner. So, I would time my treadmill so that he’d walk in and see me run. And then he added all these running scenes.”

So that’s it. The answer isn’t that Cruise won’t run with anybody on screen because they might make him look bad. It’s that he can run at such an alarmingly speedy rate that most other mere mortal actors would simply look like puffy old globs of cholesterol next to him.

Either way, it’s good to know that lockdown has given us the opportunity to learn all the weird things that people in the film industry hate on their sets. Anne Hathaway claimed that Christopher Nolan hates chairs . Wallis claims that Cruise hates other runners. There’s no end to Covid in sight, so who knows what we’ll learn next. Does Martin Scorsese possess an irrational fear of moustaches? Could Daniel Day-Lewis be enraged to the point of apoplexy by geese? Does Vince Vaughn hate ham? At this stage it’s essentially a waiting game.

But I’m afraid that I have to pour cold water on the Cruise no-run hypothesis. Because although Wallis ran with him on-screen in 2017, you only need to look back one year earlier to see a scene where Cruise runs with another person.

Remember Jack Reacher: Never Go Back? Remember that scene 28 minutes in? You know, the one scene in the entire movie where Jack doesn’t tell people how he’s going to beat them up right before beating them up, or peripheral characters explain in hugely unnecessary detail how good Jack is at everything? That’s right, it’s the scene where Cruise and his co-star Cobie Smulders inexplicably sprint for a taxi past the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool because they both want to go to an internet cafe.

So there. Unfortunately this is fake news. The truth is that Cruise does run with other people on camera. But he only does it in really bad films.

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Tom Cruise Movie Success Linked To Tom Cruise Running, According To Science

Correlation does not imply causation.

By Steve Watts on August 1, 2018 at 7:42AM PDT

Tom Cruise pulls off some wild stunts in Mission Impossible films , including the recent Mission Impossible Fallout . But it's another kind of physical feat that may be the strongest indicator of success. A very serious study from Rotten Tomatoes concludes that box office success correlates directly with how much Tom Cruise runs.

The study tabulated all of Tom Cruise's on-screen sprints, then calculated them into distances as measured against a six-minute mile. Then the films were split into four categories, based on how much distance he covered per film: zero feet, 1-500 feet, 501-1,000 feet, and 1,000+ feet. Once all the numbers were crunched and the steps counted, a pattern emerged: movies where Cruise spent more time cruising made more money at the box office and scored a higher critical review average to boot.

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The zero feet category is populated by dramas like Magnolia and Valkyrie , whereas short-distance running is largely made up of older movies like Risky Business , Days of Thunder , and Rain Man . The longer-distance running category has some of the older Mission Impossible movies mixed with recent action films, and the longest-distance is composed almost entirely of recent action movies. It turns out Cruise is running a lot more on film as he gets older.

The top ten for distance traveled has three Mission Impossible films on it-- Mission Impossible 3 , Ghost Protocol , and Rogue Nation --along with recent action movies like Edge of Tomorrow and The Mummy . So chalk it up to his star power increasing with age or big-budget action movies having more reason to spur on an exciting on-foot chase sequence. Whatever the cause, the data is clear. Tom Cruise running makes bank. It's science .

Check out GameSpot's own Mission Impossible Fallout review for more on his latest daring-do.

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An Ode to Running in the Movies

What makes Harrison Ford such a great cinematic sprinter, and why does Tom Cruise always pump his arms like that?

D ash into the flames . Come windmilling, widemouthed, out of the collapsing ice palace. Fling yourself at the spiky green shins of the monster. Outpace the avalanche. Running in movies is always toward danger or away from it. No one in movies is ever just running .

And like ballet dancers, the great runners in movies express character through movement, through the whirling and thumping of their limbs. Matt Damon, as Jason Bourne, is a brain-wiped super-soldier having an identity crisis, so he runs like a frightened washing machine. Carrie-Anne Moss, as Trinity in The Matrix , runs like an equation from the future—which is what she is. Harrison Ford in his prime had a distinctive bowled-over running style: Look at him in The Fugitive , blundering and floundering and grimacing and reeling, an everyman dislodged—as if by an explosion—from the everyday, knocked out of his life, and frowningly, head-buttingly determined to get back in there.

(Tom Cruise is different. Whatever part he’s playing, Jerry Maguire or Jack Reacher, he runs like Tom Cruise, with piston knees and piston elbows and the face of an angry Christ. And that’s okay.)

Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook , pounding around the burbs with a garbage bag sort of medievally layered over his hoodie, is jogging. People do jog in movies, for fitness—but interiorly , as they jog along, they’re still firmly located on that into-trouble/​out-of-trouble axis. They’re still going one way or the other. Cooper is running—so he hopes—away from madness.

We are especially close to the joggers in movies, perhaps because jogging is something we can do. We can each of us—knees and hearts allowing—dramatize our personal character arc with jogging. And right now, jogging is about all we’ve got. Up the hill, round the pond, down the quiet street … We’re keeping fit. Boosting our immunity. Regulating our brain waves, flattening the curve—the other one, the one that bellies downward into dissolution and despair.

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But there’s a creeping pointlessness to it, and a creeping smallness: the privately pulsing heart, the tiny agenda of betterment. It’s so pre-pandemic. What to do, then? You can’t run at a virus, and you can’t run away from one. You can neither storm to victory nor find an entirely safe place. So give yourself a break—let the couch exhale, like a prizefighter taking one to the kidneys, as you land on it—and enjoy a session watching your favorite runner-in-movies. It could be Franka Potente in Run Lola Run ; it could be Sylvester Stallone, heaving piously up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For me, it’s got to be Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans .

If you’ve seen the movie, he’s in your head right now—a swooping, swerving, low-shouldered, soft-footed runner, moving through the woods, moving through his element. He is fluid; he is fierce; sometimes he has a loaded musket in each hand. An enemy rears up, he drops him without pausing, and he doesn’t look back.

Tom Cruise runs. But is he any good at it?

IN 2018 , TOM CRUISE finally joined Instagram, and fans sure felt the need for speed: He picked up 550,000 followers in less than an hour. Now he's up to 6.5 million followers, and they're greeted by the actor's self-assessment of his own career in his bio. He could have gone with "Three-time Oscar nominee," or "Sold $10 billion worth of movie tickets."

But instead, he picked: "Actor, producer, running in movies since 1981."

It's a winking, self-aware nod to this much-memed chapter of his Hollywood career. He always gets the rogue bad guy with the rogue nuclear codes from the rogue country, and he does it in a sprint. By one running blog's count , he's run in 44 of his 52 movies, and that includes two running scenes in his newest movie, "Top Gun: Maverick," which opens this week nationwide. A quick reminder: Tom Cruise is 59 years old, the same age as Wilford Brimley when he was chasing Mitch McDeere in "The Firm."

But that raises the question... Is Tom Cruise actually a good runner? We convened an elite panel of Olympians, film critics and former coaches and set out on a mission to analyze Cruise's running -- and might have stumbled onto a never-before-told origin story of his first theatrical running moment.

The evolution

The official start of Tom Cruise, the running actor, was in 1981 when he ran in his first movie, "Endless Love."

But perhaps the most formative run of Tom Cruise's life came in 1980, during his senior year at Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey. His old wrestling coach, Angelo Corbo, says Cruise -- then going by his legal name, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV -- was a decent 122-pounder.

But Cruise came in one day on crutches right before the 1980 wrestling postseason and said he'd slipped coming down the steps at his house. Since he was done with wrestling, Cruise wondered if it'd be OK to go out for his first play, "Guys and Dolls." Corbo said yes.

A few weeks later, though, Cruise came to Corbo and asked if he could come along to the state tournament to support his teammates. Corbo gladly welcomed him into the team van for the trip, and on the way to states in Princeton that March, they decided to get some lunch at a Mexican restaurant. His ankle had healed up enough to lose the crutches, so he walked in and sat down at the table with his teammates.

Almost immediately, Corbo says an assistant coach pointed at Cruise, then at a jar of hot peppers. "I'll bet you $5 you can't eat one of those peppers without drinking anything," the coach said.

Cruise quickly said yes -- "Tom always accepted any challenge, no matter what," Corbo says -- and chomped into it. Within seconds, everybody at the table thought smoke was going to start pouring out of his ears. Cruise leaped up and ran out of the restaurant with the rest of the team unable to keep up. "He ran real fast that day," Corbo says.

When they caught up to him, his teammates and coaches found him on the ground in the parking lot, face buried in a snowbank, stuffing snow into his mouth to cool it down.

"Well, he didn't technically drink anything in the restaurant," one kid said.

The assistant shrugged his shoulders and pulled a $5 bill out of his pocket. "Here, you win, Tom," he said.

With snow all over his mouth, Cruise gave a wide-eyed, toothy smile, similar to the one that would eventually sell somewhere around $10 billion worth of movie tickets. As Corbo describes the scene, he notes that Cruise had a look on his face of a satisfied performer who just captivated an audience for the first time. If there's a pre-Hollywood moment when Thomas Mapother turned into Tom Cruise, that might have been it.

That messy restaurant run sure sounds a lot like the version we see in Cruise's early movies. In "The Outsiders" and "Taps," Cruise runs quite a bit, and it's a sloppy, under-developed run. It's not until toward the end of "Risky Business" in 1983 when Cruise vaults up his high school's steps and jets through the hallways that the beginnings of a steady, faster form begins to emerge.

Caryl Smith Gilbert, a four-time NCAA champion coach who now leads the Georgia men's and women's programs, watched a reel of every Tom Cruise movie run and did a deep-dive analysis. She says she thinks Cruise steadily got better from 1981 until around the early 2000s, then had a breakthrough. Ever since, she says, you can see a clear desire to keep improving.

"It's right around the time he's in 'Collateral' that I could really see it," she says. "His technique got better, and I was like, 'Hmmm, he has to be getting real coaching.' And I also think you can tell that he must do this in his free time now. Like, he really is trying to get better."

Happy Birthday to @TomCruise , who wrestled at Glen Ridge (NJ) High School @NJSIAA shared that wrestling "helped him fit in after moving to the town from Kentucky. When an injury cut short his senior season, he tried out for the school musical. You know the rest ..." pic.twitter.com/goFrJYIwzn — NWHOF (@NWHOF) July 3, 2021

There is a common misconception that most great sprinters must be tall, and the success of Usain Bolt (6-foot-5) certainly has played a part in pouring concrete around that idea. But the truth is, most great male sprinters are in the 5-foot-6 to 6-foot-3 range, according to a study published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine.

And breaking news, Tom Cruise is, uh, not tall. He's often listed at 5-foot-7, but it's always felt like the way college football SIDs decide to round up all incoming freshmen by one inch and 20 pounds. Whatever his actual height, let's just say he won't exactly be playing Jack Reacher any time soon. (Checks IMDb, stands corrected.)

But Cruise's size shouldn't -- and doesn't -- matter much. "A lot of powerful runners are 5-foot-6 or below," says three-time Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. "It's all about the turnover of your legs and generating velocity. I don't think his height is a disadvantage."

In "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol," Cruise comes barreling out of a building as a massive sandstorm descends in the background. It's a long, striking visual because of the way Cruise's open hands slice through the air, over and over again, like he's in the middle of a round of Fruit Ninja.

It's one of the most glaring differences between his early film running and what he has done for the past 20 years or so. When Smith Gilbert says she thinks Cruise must have gotten some running coaching, she zeroes in on the major alteration to his hand movement -- he's gone from sporadically balled up, like many untrained amateurs, to remarkably straight in recent years. In many scenes from the past decade, Cruise's parallel flat palms are almost comical, as if a robot learned how to run from watching another robot.

That must be bad then, right? Not necessarily. People often associate running with balled-up fists, but quite a few great sprinters -- Carl Lewis, for example -- look an awful lot like Tom Cruise when they run, with their palms open. Many high-level runners say that the open versus closed hands debate is entirely a personal choice, that there's really no right answer.

In fact, coaches occasionally recommend that some runners consider a Tom Cruise-ish open-handed technique because, as strange as it might sound, great sprinters work hard to be as relaxed as possible. Smith Gilbert says clenching up hands can be the first sign that a runner is pressing, which affects the rhythm of their breath, which drains their speed and endurance.

"You can be open hand or close hand, as long as the shoulders are rather relaxed," she says. "The goal is good form and being as relaxed as possible. Tom Cruise knows what he's doing."

Cruise's technique can appear incredibly stiff at times, with his chest upright as though he's getting buckled into a roller coaster, flat palms churning, chin high with his face tensed up. Both Smith Gilbert and Joyner-Kersee independently flagged Cruise's running as being slightly too upright and recommended a little more forward lean. But only a little -- and neither was sure that that would be how he'd run without the cameras on.

"I bet that's something they make him do because it looks good on film," Joyner-Kersee says. "In real life, I could get his speed up by just angling him a little bit forward."

But they also both applauded Cruise's technical prowess, saying it's easy for a layperson to mistake stiffness for a good, consistent style.

"At the end of the day," Smith Gilbert says, "running is one foot in front of the other, as fast as possible. Running velocity is stride length times stride frequency. And he's pretty good in that regard."

Believe it or not, Tom Cruise might actually be fast. Like, really fast. A few years ago, a Quora user attempted to analyze Cruise's speed in several movies and estimated that Cruise hit about 15.3 mph at times, usually while wearing non-running shoes and full pants, no less. Cruise himself said he's been clocked at 17 mph.

Last year, marathoner Will Blase wrote a story for a running blog, The Harrier, in which he wanted to explore the idea that Cruise might be the fastest actor ever captured on screen. He pitted Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" runs against four other iconic movie sprints -- Tom Hanks from "Forrest Gump," Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky II," Harrison Ford running from a boulder in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Marcus Henderson's terrifying nighttime sprint toward Daniel Kaluuya in "Get Out."

After poring over footage for days, Blase reached a verdict that surprised even him: Cruise edged out Henderson for the gold medal in his unofficial movie Olympics, with Hanks and Ford at third and fourth, respectively. Stallone finished last. "That dude is a robot," Blase says of Cruise. "It's incredible. He has it boiled down to science."

But would Cruise be better suited for sprints or slightly longer races? Smith Gilbert thinks Cruise would be great at the 800 meters or even the mile because she thinks he could sustain his top-end speed.

But Joyner-Kersee thinks Cruise could be a good 100-meter runner, and she says he looks like he might be in the 12-second range right now. "That's really fast for people who don't train to race," she says.

And what would happen if Cruise did train? Well, first of all, Cruise should know that he has an open invitation to come work with Joyner-Kersee and her husband, former U.S. track coach Bob Kersee. "I believe we could work with him, see what he's got," Joyner-Kersee says. "We could probably get him to 11.5 with ease."

For the record, 11.5 is very fast ... and definitely fast enough to catch up to Robert Duvall on pit row if they ever have a "Days of Thunder" rematch.

Mental toughness

In "Mission: Impossible Fallout," Cruise has a scene where he runs and leaps from one building to another. It's a long jump that the script called for him to not quite make, slamming into the side of the other building and pulling himself up.

Even with cables attached to his back, it was a brutally violent scene. On an early take, Cruise lands exactly where he is supposed to, a few feet short of making it onto the other roof. But Cruise's right foot bends at a gruesome angle -- he'd broken it on impact.

Yet Cruise claws his way onto the roof, climbs to his feet and limps past the camera with a broken ankle. That take is actually in the movie. Cruise took two weeks off but then returned to shooting, even though his ankle wasn't healed.

When he discussed it on "The Graham Norton Show" in 2018 alongside castmates Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill and Simon Pegg, Cruise looks so proud when they roll bonus footage of the gruesome break. Pegg blurts out that he can't watch multiple times, and Norton tells Cruise he's nuts.

But Cruise took it as a challenge -- that word comes up over and over again when people talk about Tom Cruise.

"I knew I broke it instantly," Cruise says. "We have a release date, so we have to keep going."

Cruise has gotten only more aggressive about doing all of his own stunts, including the runs. He once told Men's Journal that he likes to spend as much time as possible training for his stunts -- and likes to oversee training for the rest of the cast, too. "If he wasn't an actor, he'd be a great stunt man," says legendary stunt coordinator Greg Powell, who worked with Cruise on the first "Mission: Impossible."

One aspect of Cruise's running that came up repeatedly with experts was the fact that so many of Cruise's runs are in suits or regular clothes. Sprinters are notoriously fickle about wardrobe, wanting as little as possible, Joyner-Kersee says. She specifically marveled at the amount of running Cruise does in "The Firm" where he has on a suit and a long coat and is carrying a briefcase, and he's soaked in sweat.

"I never even liked running if I got a few drops of rain on me," she says, shaking her head. "To do something over and over again like he does, that's good mental capability. He has the physical stamina, but to not get bored with it, doing it repeatedly and stay in character and still be able to produce what the scene requires. Even with breaks, it's impressive."

She laughs and looks back at a mural on her wall. It shows her running in her last Olympics. "I know toward the end of my career, I could always get up to 100% speed," she says. "But I could only do it once. I'm not sure how Tom Cruise is doing what he does."

Theatricality

There's not much debate about this fact: Cruise is the Meryl Streep of running, and it's virtually unfathomable to imagine anybody ever being able to put together both the body of work and the body to be running into their 60s.

And it's not just that he does a lot of running in movies; it's also that his running does a lot in his movies.

"His running always conveys something important in the movie," says Christy Lemire, a film critic at RogerEbert.com and cohost of the "Breakfast All Day" movie podcast. "He's running toward something and he is going to get there -- whether it's freedom or the truth or his wife is in danger. It's not just running as a crucial part of an action set piece. It is a physical manifestation of his ethos."

When author and film critic Amy Nicholson set out to write her book, "Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor," she felt compelled to dedicate an entire page just to Cruise's running. As she worked her way through all of his movie runs, she picked out a few that stick with her.

For instance, she likes Cruise's transformational running in "Knight and Day," the oft-forgotten rom-com thriller with Cruise and Cameron Diaz. In that movie, Cruise is a covert operative pretending to be a schlub. So some of his runs are a little clunky ... until he needs to be Ethan Hunt-like again later in the movie. "Some of his characters are better runners than others," she says. "Watch that movie, because it's an example of him having a goofy run. He allowed himself to be sloppy."

She also thinks his range of runs in "War of the Worlds" is a key entry in the Tom Cruise running library. Before the movie began shooting, director Steven Spielberg and Cruise huddled about what kind of hero Cruise would be. Spielberg told Cruise that alien invasion movies always feature people who are standing up and fighting.

But he wanted to do something different -- he envisioned Cruise's Ray Ferrier as a scared dad, running away and running to survive, not to defeat the evil aliens. And the style of Ray's actual runs needed to convey that, that he was terrified and just trying to survive the world for once, not save it single-handedly.

"He is charged in that movie to do nothing but run in fear and convince other people to run in fear with him -- even when his own children want to stand up and fight back," Nicholson says.

Lemire is a runner herself and says she can't imagine having to combine the amount of physicality with whatever mood Cruise is trying to portray for audiences.

"He has to do so much with his eyes and his face and his gait," she says. "He's never going for a leisurely jog along the beach and enjoying the scenery. He's trying to convey to us whatever his character is going through in that moment. And we underestimate that skill, that ability to make running a physical and emotional experience."

So ... is Tom Cruise good at running?

When he was Glen Ridge's wrestling coach, Corbo would have his group of 20 or so wrestlers do a circuit around the high school. They'd run past the cafeteria, up the stairs to the second floor, all the way to the end of the school, down the stairs to the first floor, then all the way back to the cafeteria. "The loop," he calls it.

Cruise often got roughed up in the room by more experienced wrestlers -- by Corbo's count, Cruise was 7-12 as a varsity starter. But when it was time to do the loop, he would morph into that kid who couldn't back down from a challenge. He'd run the loop hard, getting competitive with some of the same teammates who'd squash him every day on the mat.

One time, Cruise had been hurtling through the hallways and sheepishly approached Corbo at the end of the run. He wanted his coach to come look at one of the big metal doors in the stairwell.

Corbo went with him and found that the small rectangular sliver of glass in one of the doors was cracked. Cruise had been trying to outsprint a teammate and plowed through the door so hard that he broke it. Corbo said thanks for telling him, and when he was asked later by a school administrator whether he had any idea how one of the thick glass windows had a long crack in it, Corbo covered for Cruise.

"I have no idea," he said. "Those are pretty hard to break."

So Corbo's answer to the billion-dollar question of Tom Cruise's running prowess is yes, he's a good runner.

And the running experts agree.

"I've been to the Olympics," Joyner-Kersee says. "And he has pulled me in: Tom Cruise is good at running."

Before Smith Gilbert will answer that question on a recent Zoom call, she tilts her chin up to the sky.

"I think he is good at running -- for Hollywood," she finally says. "By that, I mean, I think that is him actually running in the scenes. But if he came out to race us at Georgia, we would demolish him."

She drops her chin down and stares right into the camera then, and says, "But I bet he would love to challenge me on that."

Tom Cruise Doesn't Really Do Sequels Very Often, But There's Apparently One Movie His Co-Star Was Shocked Didn't Get A Follow-up

"He did bite me at the end..."

Unless we are talking about Mission: Impossible – M:I 8 is currently filming or the long-delayed Top Gun : Maverick – Tom Cruise isn’t known for making very many sequels to his flicks. But, according to one former cast member, there is one film in his oeuvre that he is shocked never got a follow-up. The former cast member in question is Christian Slater , who co-starred along with Cruise and Brad Pitt in one of the best films of the 90s , the film adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel Interview With The Vampire . According to the Heathers alum, he’s shocked that he and the Risky Business star never got a second bite at the neck, playing a vampire in a sequel.

Christian Slater Reflects on The Missed Sequel Opportunity

It's hard to believe it's been nearly three decades–the movie turns 30 this year–since we were first mesmerized by one of the most iconic vampire performances on screen. In an interview shared on Comicbook.com’s Chris Killian’s Instagram , Christian Slater discussed how he and Cruise were reflecting on the project. The pair expressed a mutual astonishment over the movie's lack of a sequel despite their roles becoming fan favorites. He recounted:

Tom Cruise and I were both surprised that Interview With The Vampire didn’t get a sequel. You know, that would have been fun. Uh, I mean, he did bite me at the end of that thing.

For my money, even three decades since its release, Interview With The Vampire is still one of the best vampire movies ever committed to celluloid. Upon release, it was a critical and financial success, becoming one of the highest-grossing R-rated horror films of 1994, and grew to become a goth cult favorite. Not to mention, it introduced the broader world to actress Kirsten Dunst , a role Cruise helped the young actress secure thanks to some very practical advice.

The Enduring Legacy of 'Interview With the Vampire'

Tom Cruise's electrifying turn as the vampire Lestat was central to the film’s success. Initially, Anne Rice, the source material's author, hated Cruise’s casting in the role. However, his performance won her over and helped cement the film's place in cinematic history. Despite this success and the buzz around it, plans to continue Lestat's story with Cruise in a sequel never came to fruition. While the potential for a direct follow-up to this beloved film sparked plenty of discussions, ultimately, those plans remained just out of reach, leaving fans to wonder what might have been.

There was anticipation over a sequel starring the Top Gun A-lister, yet various factors, including rights issues, changes in production companies, and creative decisions, led to a different path for the book to screen adaptations of Rice's novels.

The next film in the series, Queen of the Damned, starring the late singer and actress Aaliyah , was released in 2002, but it did not involve Tom Cruise. Instead, Stuart Townsend took over the role of Lestat. The film combined elements from the second and third books of Rice's series, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned . Still, it diverged significantly from the source material and did not continue directly from where Interview left off.

Interview With The Vampire is enjoying a second adaptation and return to screens as a television series, which is gearing up for its second season on AMC .

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The Possibility Of A Sequel With Cruise

The ending of Interview with the Vampire set the stage perfectly for a sequel. It left audiences reeling from its final twist and introduced a new narrative thread with Daniel, the San Francisco reporter who becomes enthralled with Louis's tale of the undead. As Christian Slater hinted in the recent interview, the setup was ideal for a follow-up. Yet, despite the ripe storytelling potential, a direct continuation wasn't in the cards. Could a sequel with Cruise still happen? As the interviewers and Slater point out, Tom Cruise barely looks like he's aged since the last time he put on the Vampire Lestat's fangs. So, never say never.

Christian Slater's most recent work, another book adaptation, the series The Spiderwick Chronicles , is available now for free on The Roku Channel . Be sure to check out our 2024 movie schedule to see what upcoming horror movies are heading to a screen near you.

Ryan graduated from Missouri State University with a BA in English/Creative Writing. An expert in all things horror, Ryan enjoys covering a wide variety of topics. He's also a lifelong comic book fan and an avid watcher of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. 

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Screen Rant

This 20-year-old tom cruise movie can lay the blueprint for his future after mission: impossible.

Tom Cruise won’t be able to do Mission: Impossible movies forever, but one of his old movies may have paved the way for his acting future.

• Tom Cruise's action star status faces a challenge as he ages, so exploring villain roles could be the key to his future success after Mission: Impossible .
• A return to the character depth of his role in Collateral could provide Cruise with exciting new opportunities in his career.
• Practical stunt work sets Cruise apart in action films, but taking on antagonistic roles could help him stay relevant in the industry.

Tom Cruise has been a movie star for over forty years, and one of his most underrated films could be the key to the next phase of his career after Mission: Impossible . Cruise, in his most recent star era, has become synonymous with daring stunt work and large action set pieces in his blockbuster films. The two most notable examples are his long-running Mission: Impossible franchise, which is currently filming its eighth installment, and Top Gun: Maverick , which was the highest-grossing film of 2022 .

In many ways, Cruise is as popular as he's ever been and remains one of the last examples of a true movie star. There's just one issue he faces, and it's one that will only get worse with time: he's now in his 60s. He's still in amazing shape for his age and can still perform all the stunts his action roles require of him. Yet, at a certain point, Cruise just won't be able to physically accomplish these feats anymore , and the question will arise of what he will do to define the next era of his career.

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Tom cruise should follow collateral's blueprint after mission: impossible.

The answer regarding a future after Mission: Impossible lies with one of Cruise's most memorable roles as the cold-blooded hitman Vincent in Michael Mann's Collateral . Collateral follows a single night in the life of cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx), who is forced to transport Vincent around L.A. as he crosses off targets on his hit list. The film doesn't just feature excellent action scenes but also a fascinating back-and-forth between the two leads. Many long exchanges of dialogue happen within Max's cab, and the audience sees him and Vincent argue philosophically about the value of human life and their differing ideologies.

Cruise's movie star charisma brought layers of charm to Vincent's sociopathic demeanor

Cruise had to train for Collateral since it was an unexpected role, as the actor had never played the main villain of a film before, and to this day hasn't done it again since. The uniqueness of this notion paid off, as Collateral proved to be a healthy hit. It grossed $220 million worldwide from an estimated $65 million budget (via Box Office Mojo ). Cruise's movie star charisma brought layers of charm to Vincent's sociopathic demeanor, and it is still widely considered one of the best performances of Cruise's long and illustrious career. A return to this type of role would be an exciting prospect for the actor.

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Villain roles can help tom cruise stay relevant.

As Cruise gets older, it'll become more challenging for him to remain at the center of these action franchises. Unlike films like Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny , which heavily relied on CGI to assist 81-year-old Harrison Ford with the action scenes, Cruise's movies use their practical stunt work as a selling point. Top Gun: Maverick had Cruise flying real jets , and Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One had him jumping off a massive cliff on a motorcycle. Too much CGI would cheapen the impact of these stunts, which have become a big part of Cruise's brand.

However, if Cruise takes on more antagonistic parts in movies like Collateral going forward, h e could not only avoid putting his body at risk in as many huge stunts but also access an untapped well of potential film roles . Cruise would still be a selling point in whatever franchise he chooses to be a part of, and he'd be able to explore the darkness he displayed as Vincent all those years ago. It'd be an exciting development for fans to witness, full of possibilities, and could prove to be the key to Tom Cruise staying relevant through the 2020s and beyond.

Source: Box Office Mojo

How the 10 Highest-Paid Actors of 2023 Boosted Their Paychecks

S tarring in a hit movie at the box office has always been an actor’s golden opportunity for long-term success. The stars with the biggest names continue to dominate the payrolls as the highest-paid actors each year. Let’s dive into the top 10 highest-paid actors of 2023 and explore how they continue to boost their paychecks in an ever-changing industry. 

Learn More: Top 10 Richest Actors in the World

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10. Denzel Washington — $24 Million

Denzel Washington, with an estimated $24 million in earnings, is a testament to the enduring appeal of established actors. The third installment of “The Equalizer” franchise, released in 2023, hit over $190 million at the box office. With two Oscar awards in his back pocket, Washington’s 40-year portfolio continues to generate some extra cash, ensuring him a consistent income stream.

9. Ben Affleck — $38 Million

Ben Affleck’s estimated $38 million earnings in 2023 reflect his role as an actor and a studio executive. As CEO of Artists Equity, Affleck directed and co-starred in “Air,” which grossed $90 million at the box office before moving to Amazon Prime Video. His diversified approach, which includes directing, acting and running a studio, sets him up for long-term financial stability.

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8. Jason Statham — $41 Million

Jason Statham, with an estimated $41 million in earnings, continues to be a major action star in Hollywood. In 2023, he starred in “Fast X,” “Meg 2: The Trench,” and “Expend4bles,” ensuring a strong box office presence. Statham’s consistent work in major franchises and his appeal to action film audiences contribute to his ongoing success.

7. Leonardo DiCaprio — $41 Million

Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in “Killers of the Flower Moon” contributed to his estimated $41 million earnings in 2023. Although he missed out on an Oscar nomination, his work with Martin Scorsese ensured a substantial salary and additional revenue from theatrical profit participation. DiCaprio’s long-standing success in Hollywood and his strategic choices in projects maintain his position among the industry’s elite.

6. Jennifer Aniston — $42 Million

Jennifer Aniston’s estimated earnings of $42 million in 2023 are rooted in a diverse portfolio. Her residuals from “Friends,” combined with her role on Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and various endorsement deals, provide a steady income stream. Aniston’s ability to maintain a high profile through television and film, along with her business ventures promoting brands like UberEays, Vital Proteins and her haircare line, LolaVie, ensures her continued presence among Hollywood’s top earners.

5. Matt Damon — $43 Million

Matt Damon also earned an estimated $43 million in 2023, thanks in part to his role in “Oppenheimer” and his work on “Air.” Damon took a smaller upfront salary for his role in “Oppenheimer” in exchange for a share of the film’s profits, demonstrating a savvy approach to contract negotiations. His partnership with Ben Affleck through Artists Equity, a studio that shares profits with below-the-line talent, underscores his commitment to a more equitable industry while boosting his long-term earning potential.

4. Ryan Gosling — $43 Million

Ryan Gosling’s role as Ken in “Barbie” earned him an estimated $43 million. Despite being a supporting character, his association with the year’s biggest movie provided him with substantial financial rewards. Additionally, the popularity of his song “I’m Just Ken,” which has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify, added to his earnings. Gosling’s adaptability and unique appeal position him well for continued success.

3. Tom Cruise — $45 Million

Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood’s most iconic action stars, earned an estimated $45 million in 2023. Cruise’s “first-dollar gross” deal structure means he receives a percentage of box office revenues from day one, giving him a significant financial advantage. His work on “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and residuals from “Top Gun: Maverick” ensured a consistent income stream. Cruise’s star power and ability to command high salaries will keep him at the forefront of Hollywood’s elite earners.

2. Margot Robbie — $59 Million

Margot Robbie’s role as both star and producer of “Barbie” earned her an estimated $59 million. The film’s phenomenal success not only led to significant box office revenue but also opened doors for various licensing and partnership deals. Robbie’s production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, was instrumental in the film’s success, allowing her to secure a share of the back-end profits. This dual role as actor and producer ensures Robbie will continue to earn from “Barbie” and other projects in the years to come.

1. Adam Sandler — $73 Million

Adam Sandler leads the list, earning an estimated $73 million in 2023. Since signing a $250 million four-picture deal with Netflix in 2014, Sandler has become a key player for the streaming platform. In 2023, he starred in “Murder Mystery 2,” released the animated film “Leo,” and produced “You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.” Sandler’s vast catalog of comedies, along with his Happy Madison production company, continues to attract Netflix audiences, providing a steady stream of revenue. His 44-stop stand-up comedy tour also contributed to his robust earnings, demonstrating his diversified approach to the entertainment industry.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : How the 10 Highest-Paid Actors of 2023 Boosted Their Paychecks