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(Photo by DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection. Collateral.)

All Tom Cruise Movies, Ranked By Tomatometer

Collateral celebrates its 20th anniversary!

From his teen idol days in the early ’80s to his status as a marquee-lighting leading man today, Tom Cruise has consistently done it all for decades — he’s completed impossible missions, learned about Wapner time in Rain Man , driven the highway to the danger zone in Top Gun , and done wonders for Bob Seger’s royalty statements in Risky Business , to offer just a few examples. Mr. Cruise is one of the few honest-to-goodness film stars left in the Hollywood firmament, so whether you’re a hardcore fan or just interested in a refresher course on his filmography, we’re here to take a fond look back at a truly impressive career and rank all Tom Cruise movies.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) 97%

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) 96%

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) 96%

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) 94%

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) 93%

Risky Business (1983) 92%

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) 91%

Minority Report (2002) 89%

Rain Man (1988) 88%

The Color of Money (1986) 88%

Collateral (2004) 86%

Born on the Fourth of July (1989) 84%

American Made (2017) 85%

A Few Good Men (1992) 84%

Jerry Maguire (1996) 84%

Magnolia (1999) 82%

Tropic Thunder (2008) 82%

The Firm (1993) 76%

War of the Worlds (2005) 76%

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 76%

Mission: Impossible III (2006) 71%

The Outsiders (1983) 70%

Taps (1981) 68%

Mission: Impossible (1996) 65%

The Last Samurai (2003) 66%

Jack Reacher (2012) 64%

Interview With the Vampire (1994) 63%

All the Right Moves (1983) 61%

Valkyrie (2008) 62%

Top Gun (1986) 58%

Mission: Impossible II (2000) 56%

Oblivion (2013) 54%

Knight and Day (2010) 52%

Far and Away (1992) 50%

Vanilla Sky (2001) 43%

Rock of Ages (2012) 42%

Legend (1985) 41%

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) 38%

Days of Thunder (1990) 38%

Lions for Lambs (2007) 27%

Losin' It (1982) 18%

The Mummy (2017) 15%

Cocktail (1988) 9%

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All 44 Tom Cruise movies, ranked from worst to best

• Tom Cruise has done every type of movie you can think of over his nearly 40-year career.
• Here we rank every one from worst to best.
• See where his latest, "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One," ranks in his career filmography.

43. "Rock of Ages" (2012)

Somehow Cruise got roped into being part of this feature-film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. But leave it to him to lay it all out there.

Though the movie is unwatchable, Cruise provides its only memorable moments when his rock-star character belts out classic songs like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Wanted Dead or Alive."

42. "Endless Love" (1981)

Cruise's first appearance in a movie is this 1980s teen romance drama starring Brooke Shields that's best known for giving us the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie title song.

Cruise gets a brief bit of screen time as one of the male lead's friends. It's quite forgettable, but it's still better than "Rock of Ages."

41. "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" (2016)

Between "Mission: Impossible" movies, Cruise tried to kick off another action franchise by bringing the main character of the Lee Child novel series to the big screen.

Though the first movie just got over the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office, the performance (or lack thereof) by the sequel indicated no one wanted any more Mr. Reacher. It barely made $162 million worldwide.

40. "The Mummy" (2017)

Cruise was all set to be the Robert Downey Jr. of Universal's Dark Universe with the release of this movie and promises of more creature pictures to come. But playing a soldier of fortune who tries to stop an ancient Egyptian princess from taking over the world didn't grab audiences. It was another franchise not meant to be.

39. "Losin' It" (1983)

Still getting his legs under him in the movie biz, Cruise signed onto this teen comedy in which he's one of four friends who go on a hard-partying road trip to Tijuana in hopes of losing their virginity. Yes, even Cruise couldn't hide from the teen-sex-comedy genre when he started his career.

38. "Mission: Impossible II" (2000)

Man, John Woo deserved better than this. The legendary Hong Kong director took over the "Mission: Impossible" reins after Brian De Palma kicked things off with the first movie, but Woo didn't find the same success.

"Mission: Impossible II" did go on to become one of the highest-grossing movies of 2000, with over $546 million earned worldwide, but with its weak plot and character development, it has not aged anywhere near as well as the first movie (or the other movies in the franchise).

37. "Jack Reacher" (2012)

Though "Jack Reacher" was the first time Cruise worked with his longtime "Mission: Impossible" director, Christopher McQuarrie, and it features the legendary director Werner Herzog as the movie's villain, Cruise as Jack Reacher is a seen-it-before character who isn't exciting.

36. "Oblivion" (2013)

Here, Cruise attempted to go the sci-fi route in hopes of having a breakthrough "Minority Report"-like experience for the audience. But the story was nowhere as sharp, and its postapocalyptic vibe left us all feeling uninterested.

35. "Lions for Lambs" (2007)

Marking the first movie released by United Artists after Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner took over (the two left UA after a couple of years) was "Lions for Lambs," a tense drama set around the war in Afghanistan and directed by Robert Redford.

Cruise gave his all playing an agenda-pushing senator and has some strong scenes opposite Meryl Streep. But the movie is just dull.

34. "Far and Away" (1992)

Cruise and his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman, paired together in this 1890s-set epic directed by Ron Howard. The two play Irish immigrants seeking a fortune in America. Outside the lush photography, there isn't much to enjoy about this movie. And don't get me started on Cruise's awful Irish accent.

33. "Vanilla Sky" (2001)

At the tail end of Cruise's heartthrob phase, the director Cameron Crowe teamed with him again after their hugely successful collaboration on "Jerry Maguire" to make a very different love story.

Based on the Spanish movie "Open Your Eyes," Cruise plays a vain New York City media playboy who has a different outlook on life after being in a horrific car crash. Though Cruise, Cameron Diaz, and Penélope Cruz (who also starred in "Open Your Eyes") all give top performances, Crowe goes too weird with the story, leaving viewers out in the void by the time the movie gets into the home stretch.

32. "American Made" (2017)

Mixing action and dark comedy in telling the real-life story of the drug runner Barry Seal seemed like a nice pivot for Cruise, but at the end of the day, the director Doug Liman's movie is just too glossy to be taken seriously. (Accent update: Cruise delivers a tolerable Southern drawl.)

31. "The Last Samurai" (2003)

Cruise stars as an American soldier in 19th-century Japan who embraces the samurai culture. The movie went on to receive four Oscar nominations, but it's the kind of title in which one viewing is enough.

And on a side note: Wow, would this movie get hammered on social media if it came out today.

30. "Valkyrie" (2008)

Another release from the time Cruise was calling the shots at UA, "Valkyrie" sees him playing one of the rogue Nazi officers who attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

(Accent update: Cruise — and basically most of the other Nazi officers — decided to not even bother with a German accent. Good choice; the audience didn't even notice [ holds back giggles ].)

29. "Cocktail" (1988)

It's one of the movies in Cruise's career that ride fully on his good looks. Honestly, this movie should have just been titled "Sex." Cruise plays a hot New York City bartender who has dreams of making it big, and it's his hotness that's going to get him to the top. It's classic Hot Guy Cruise — who cares that the story is garbage.

28. "War of the Worlds" (2005)

Steven Spielberg teamed up with Cruise after "Minority Report" for this blockbuster remake of the classic sci-fi movie. Though it made a lot of money, it was dark in tone — maybe a little too dark. Be honest: Have you wanted to see this movie again?

27. "Knight and Day" (2010)

This is one of those movies that don't get enough credit. The director James Mangold cleverly takes all the common action-hero traits and has Cruise make fun of them. You might want to give this one another viewing.

26. "Taps" (1981)

Unlike in "Endless Love," Cruise really capitalized on this small role. As a military cadet who takes his responsibilities way too seriously, Cruise is a standout in the movie and showed audiences (and Hollywood executives) that he had leading-man potential.

25. "Mission: Impossible III" (2006)

J.J. Abrams takes over the franchise for this one and does an impressive job. It also helps that you have the talents of Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the villain. It's better than "Mission: Impossible II," so we're going in the right direction.

24. "The Outsiders" (1983)

Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the classic novel brought all the biggest names from young Hollywood together, and Cruise was right there in the mix. With Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, and Rob Lowe, the movie is pretty heavy-handed with the drama, but it's fun to watch all these amazing talents on the screen together.

23. "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" (2015)

Rebounding from the so-so performance of "Jack Reacher," McQuarrie jumps on the "Mission: Impossible" franchise and ups the action stakes. Yep, this is the one where Cruise hangs from the side of a giant plane taking off. The movie also got an extra jolt with the inclusion of Rebecca Ferguson in the supporting cast.

22. "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (2018)

This "Mission: Impossible" could go down as one of the best action movies ever — its stunts and action sequences are that amazing. This time, McQuarrie gives us a deeper look at what makes Ethan Hunt tick and the values he lives by. But it's really the action that stays with you.

21. "Minority Report" (2002)

With its breakthroughs in CGI and tech, the first teaming of Spielberg and Cruise lived up to the hype. This movie was so advanced in its execution and what it showcased that it had a "Jurassic Park"-style ripple effect, in the sense that it has influenced countless action and sci-fi movies since.

20. "Tropic Thunder" (2008)

Though Cruise doesn't have a lot of screen time, his presence in this movie cannot be ignored. Playing a despicable movie executive named Les Grossman, he brings that patented intensity to a role that for most actors would have been a mail-it-in cameo role. In Cruise's hands, it's one of the best comedic performances of the early 2000s.

19. "All the Right Moves" (1983)

Two months after Cruise hit theaters with his first lead movie, "Risky Business," he was back again with this very different movie about a Pennsylvania high-school football player who clashes with his coach.

"Risky Business" showed that Cruise had no problem being the face of a movie, but "All the Right Moves" proved he could be more than the charming lead with good looks. This one showed he could be a serious actor.

18. "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (2011)

It's the movie that breathed life back into the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. It came five years after "Mission: Impossible III," and in that time Cruise struggled with an image problem and a string of underperforming movies. He had a lot to prove with this one. And with the casting of Jeremy Renner, Cruise probably sensed he could lose his beloved franchise if the movie didn't work.

However, Brad Bird's direction and Cruise's disregard for common sense — in this one he climbs the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai — put him back on top, as the movie became a global hit.

17. "Top Gun" (1986)

Before "Days of Thunder," Cruise and Tony Scott teamed up for what would become one of the actor's most iconic roles: the fighter pilot Maverick. What Cruise doesn't pull off acting-wise he makes up for with brooding looks and shirtless volleyball skills.

16. "The Firm" (1993)

In "The Firm," based on the best-selling John Grisham novel, Cruise gives a fantastic performance as a hotshot lawyer who signs on with one of the most prestigious US law firms only to find it has quite a dark side. The era of "Tom Cruise runs" really launched with this movie.

15. "Legend" (1985)

Ridley Scott's beautiful fantasy movie is still a marvel of moviemaking. The practical effects and production design put into this movie, made back when CGI was scarce, are a treasure. And at the center is a fresh-faced Cruise who tries to get his girl back from the villain who gave me the most nightmares as a kid, Darkness (played perfectly by Tim Curry).

14. "Collateral" (2004)

We really don't talk enough about this one enough. Michael Mann's slow-burn crime movie stars Cruise as a hitman who forces a cab driver (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around Los Angeles as he goes on his "jobs." The acting by both Cruise and Foxx in this movie is some of their best work.

13. "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023)

There are many things to love about the "Mission: Impossible" franchise: Its James Bond-like gadgets. Cruise's disregard for his life and safety when it comes to pulling off amazing stunts . But the biggest thing to love is that the films just seem to get better and better.

The first "M:I," directed by Brian De Palma, set the bar very high. However, since McQuarrie took the reins in 2015 with "Rogue Nation," the franchise has gotten a jolt in the arm. It seems to always outdo itself, and "Dead Reckoning" makes good on that promise.

The high stakes, the timely villain being AI, and, of course, Tom Cruise in the middle of some amazing thrills makes this film one of the best in the franchise.

13. "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999)

Cruise and Kidman teamed up again, this time under the watch of Stanley Kubrick in what would be his final movie. Both actors are pushed to the limits as the movie explores a marriage at a crossroads. Though "Eyes Wide Shut" is not close to Kubrick's best work, Cruise and Kidman are riveting.

12. "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022)

Thirty-six years after playing Pete "Maverick" Mitchell he returns to the role in the rare legacy sequel that's better than the original movie.

Though Tony Scott's landmark "Top Gun" made Cruise a superstar and became an instant 1980s classic, the director Joseph Kosinski has elevated the story with more death-defying dogfight jet stunts and a more compelling story.

This time Maverick returns to the Top Gun school to be a teacher of the new hot-shot pilots. But he must deal with his own demons as one of the students is the son of his best friend, Goose, who died in his arms in the first movie.

Cruise delivers one of his best performances in years.

11. "Days of Thunder" (1990)

It's pretty much everything you would think would be in a Tony Scott movie: lots of fast cars and big egos. Cruise is in his glory in every scene playing the hot-shot Nascar driver Cole Trickle (and Kidman appears as his love interest).

10. "Risky Business" (1983)

It's the movie that made Cruise a star. The coming-of-age story doesn't shy away from its mature storyline, and Cruise delivers a playful performance but also shows sparks of his dramatic chops that he'll showcase in the decade to come.

9. "Mission: Impossible" (1996)

Boy have things changed since the first "Mission: Impossible." With De Palma at the helm, the movie had its action, but it was encased in a tense whodunit thriller. Since then the action has only gotten bigger (and the story, well, less of a concern), but Cruise has always been fantastic as Hunt.

The first movie is his best acting work of the franchise. (Accent update: Cruise delivers another Southern accent while disguised at the beginning of the movie — one of those classic face-rip-off disguises. It's brief but effective in the scene.)

8. "Interview with the Vampire" (1994)

Cruise gives one of his best performances as Lestat, a vampire from the 1700s who finds a lot of drama in his undead life once he recruits Louis (Brad Pitt). (Accent update: His little hint of a French accent to stay true to the character's portrayal in the classic Anne Rice book is perfectly subtle.)

7. "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014)

Whether you want to call it "Edge of Tomorrow" or "Live. Die. Repeat.," it's just a really great action movie. With Liman directing and McQuarrie as a screenwriter, Cruise is surrounded by people he trusts to make a risky project: a soldier who relives the same day. But the MVP of the movie is Emily Blunt, who delivers a performance that makes Cruise kick it up a few notches.

6. "Rain Man" (1988)

Always at his best when he's playing a character with major conflict, Cruise plays a guy always looking to capitalize on the angles until he's finally in a situation in which he has to be on the level: building a relationship with his autistic savant brother (Dustin Hoffman).

5. "Jerry Maguire" (1996)

Receiving a best-actor nomination for his performance as a slick sports agent whose life turns upside down after having a moment of clarity, Cruise was, thanks to this movie, at his height of stardom and power in Hollywood.

4. "A Few Good Men" (1992)

Rob Reiner's courtroom drama has Cruise going up against Jack Nicholson, and it's pure magic. Yes, there's the "can't handle the truth" scene, but for us, it starts earlier in the movie when the two characters meet for the first time.

Thanks to the incredible dialogue by Aaron Sorkin, both actors subtly trade off with each other, but it's the fire being held back that makes the ending when they are face-to-face again so memorable.

3. "Magnolia" (1999)

No matter what you think of Paul Thomas Anderson's epic look at family, love, and forgiveness, it's hard to dispute that it has the most powerful performance of Cruise's career.

Playing a pickup artist who uses his talents to build a public-speaking career, Cruise appears as we've never seen him before. Anderson and Cruise connected over dealing with the loss of their fathers and use that darkness to create the character of Frank T. J. Mackey.

2. "The Color of Money" (1986)

Paul Newman won only one Oscar in his iconic career, and it was for this movie. But you have to give a big assist to Cruise.

Playing the protégé to the pool player "Fast Eddie" Felson — the role Newman first played in 1961's "The Hustler" — Cruise is a cocky player, and you can never tell whether he's on the level with Felson. Cruise proved once again that he's more than just a pretty face.

1. "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989)

Cruise got an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the veteran and activist Ron Kovic, who was paralyzed fighting in Vietnam. Oliver Stone traces Kovic's journey from being a wide-eyed soldier thinking he's doing what's right for America to coming home from the war to find everything has changed. Including the way he views his own country.

Cruise has never been better as he delivers a tour de force performance that still gives us chills.

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Highest Rated: 97% Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Lowest Rated: 9% Cocktail (1988)

Birthday: Jul 3, 1962

Birthplace: Syracuse, New York, USA

Tom Cruise rose quickly to become one of the best-known American actors in the world. Born in Syracuse, New York, he moved around throughout his childhood, including a period in Canada. After graduating from high school in New Jersey, he moved first to New York and then to Los Angeles to pursue acting. He made his film debut in the Brooke Shields vehicle "Endless Love" (1981). His next role as an aggressive military cadet opposite Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn in "Taps" (1981) caught people's attention. He joined another group of young stars, including Patrick Swayze and Rob Lowe, in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel "The Outsiders" (1983). His starring role as schoolboy-turned-pimp Joel in "Risky Business" broke him as one of Hollywood's newest celebrities. The long shoot schedule of Ridley Scott's fantasy epic "Legend" (1985) briefly took him out of the public eye, but he bounced back with one of the iconic roles of the 1980s. Playing Navy fighter pilot Maverick in Tony Scott's "Top Gun" (1986) turned Cruise into a superstar. He began branching into roles with more heft at the same time when he joined Paul Newman for "The Color of Money" (1986). He continued in that vein during the next several years, working with high profile directors and co-stars in prestige projects. He partnered with Dustin Hoffman for "Rain Man" (1988), Oliver Stone for "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), and Jack Nicholson for "A Few Good Men" (1993), the first two of which were Oscar-winners for Best Picture. The actor picked up his first Academy Award nomination for "Born on the Fourth of July." While it didn't garner the same level of critical acclaim, his role as Anne Rice's vampire Lestat opposite a young Brad Pitt in "Interview with a Vampire" (1994) became as well-remembered as any of the actor's roles. His 11-year marriage to Nicole Kidman saw the couple partner on three films including Ron Howard's "Far and Away" (1992) and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999). By the '90s, he had his pick of roles and began mixing in big-budget populist fare like "Mission: Impossible" (1996), based on the '60s television show of the same name. His role as secret agent Ethan Hunt proved popular enough for a series of sequels that would extend for more than two decades. Cruise also notched a second Oscar nomination for his role as a sports agent gaining a conscious in Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" (1996). He worked with another rising filmmaker when he played motivational speaker Frank Mackey in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (1999), a role that earned him another Academy Award nomination. After the turn of the century, Cruise bounced between effects-heavy fare like "Minority Report" (2002) and "War of the Worlds" (2005) to dramas such as "Lions for Lambs" (2007) with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. He also proved himself willing to puncture his own inflated image, with comedic cameos in "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002) and "Tropic Thunder" (2008), and his musical turn in "Rock of Ages" (2012). He similarly adopted a self-effacing posture when fans began noticing that there was a scene of the actor running in nearly all his films. Over the years, he found himself a magnet for the tabloids thanks to his close ties to the Church of Scientology and his celebrity marriages to Kidman and Katie Holmes. Cruise added another action franchise to his resume when he jumped into the role of Lee Child's literary tough guy "Jack Reacher" (2012). He would reprise the role in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" (2016). After starring in the big-budget reboot of "The Mummy" (2017) and the drama "American Made" (2017), he returned to the role that once cemented his superstar status. More than 20 years after the original, Cruise climbed back into the cockpit to revive Maverick for a sequel to his 1986 hit "Top Gun: Maverick" (2020).

Highest rated movies

Filmography.

The 32 greatest Tom Cruise movies

The Mission: Impossible and Top Gun star has had us all at "Hello"

For decades, the name Tom Cruise has been synonymous with Hollywood movies. With so many classic movies under his belt, it's not hard to understand why.

Though his career has had its share of controversies, Cruise has maintained high altitude as one of Hollywood's most bankable movie stars in its history. Raised in near poverty under an abusive father, Cruise took up acting in high school after he was cut from the varsity football team when he was caught drinking beers before a game. 

After starring in his school's production of Guys and Dolls, Cruise caught the acting bug and moved away - first to New York, then to Los Angeles - to pursue a career in TV and movies. He made his movie debut in the 1981 movie Endless Love, and then had a supporting role in the film Taps. After several more small parts, he starred in Paul Brickman's Risky Business, where Cruise won over audiences everywhere with a killer lip-sync routine.

With numerous accolades and just as many controversies to his name, Tom Cruise is the definition of a Hollywood superstar whose presence alone can move mountains. With a career still going strong, we rank the 32 greatest Tom Cruise movies of all time. 

32. Oblivion (2013)

Well into his career as a top-tier Hollywood star, Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski aimed to prove that the old ways of original, star-driven spectacles could still draw audiences without attaching a known superhero IP. Enter: Oblivion. Based on Kosinski's own unpublished graphic novel (which Kosinski said was always just a pitch for a movie anyway), Tom Cruise stars as a maintenance technician in the far future who, on the brink of retirement, is drawn into the mystery of both himself and the true nature of the war that destroyed Earth. Oblivion was a modest success at the box office and drew mixed reviews from critics. But it has aged very well, being an expansive original sci-fi epic with breathtaking imagination. 

31. Knight and Day (2010)

From director James Mangold comes Knight and Day, a satirical action romp that set fire to romantic comedy conventions. Tom Cruise leads the movie as a spy on the run from the CIA who bumps into, and then whisks away, a beautiful vintage car dealer played by Cameron Diaz. (The two previously starred together in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky.) Although Knight and Day was just the first of many Hollywood rom-coms that felt obligated to double as action movies to attract a wide demographic, the movie succeeds with legitimately impressive set-pieces that violently whip Tom Cruise across the screen.

30. Tropic Thunder (2008)

Tom Cruise being unrecognizable in heavy makeup and prosthetics, all while playing a sleazy Scott Rudin-type caricature, is like only the fourth or fifth funniest thing about the R-rated comic blockbuster Tropic Thunder. In Ben Stiller's napalm-coated parody of Vietnam War films and the pampered lives of Hollywood stars, Cruise features in a minor supporting role as Les Grossman, a truly gross man and ruthless studio executive. Cruise's role was meant to be a secret, though leaked paparazzi photos and internet blogs ruined that fun by spoiling it ahead of time. Nevertheless, Cruise's sharp and venomous performance was and still is hailed by critics and audiences as one of Cruise's all-time best movie roles.

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29. The Firm (1993)

In 1993, two movies were based on John Grisham novels. The first was The Pelican Brief, a legal thriller starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. The other was Sydney Pollack's The Firm, with Tom Cruise leading in an adaptation of Grisham's 1991 novel. Cruises plays a young, talented Harvard Law grad who is recruited by a prestigious Tennessee firm who specialize in mob clients. Soon enough, Cruise finds himself in the crossfire between the FBI, the mob, and his own colleagues ready to sell him out. Although The Firm is one of Cruise's more overlooked movies in his career, it makes a solid case for being one of his greatest.

28. Valkyrie (2008)

In this solid World War II thriller from Bryan Singer, Tom Cruise leads as one of several German Nazi Army officers, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who seek to enact Operation Valkyrie – a national emergency plan to take control away from Adolf Hitler. In preparation for the role, Cruise spent months devouring history books and even interviewing members of the real von Stauffenberg's family. Because von Stauffenberg had several physical disabilities including a lost left eye and a missing right hand, Cruise spent a lot of time affecting those ailments while doing things like dressing himself and writing letters. The results speak for itself, with Cruise dependably engaging as a soldier loyal to his country and not a political ideal.

27. Days of Thunder (1990)

While Tony Scott's Days of Thunder was criticized during its 1990 release as a derivative copycat of his own box office smash Top Gun, Days of Thunder still burns rubber like few movies can. Set in the world of professional NASCAR, Tom Cruise plays hotshot rookie driver Cole who clashes with veteran driver Rowdy (Michael Rooker). Eventually these rivals become brothers on the track, with Cole driving Rowdy's car against their common enemy, a cheat named Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes). Even if Cruise is basically playing Maverick again, Days of Thunder easily satisfies anyone with a need for speed.

26. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

After Hong Kong director John Woo made his way to Hollywood in the '90s, the legendary action filmmaker collaborated with Tom Cruise on the first sequel to Cruise's 1995 mega-hit Mission: Impossible. The follow-up sees Cruise return as daredevil agent Ethan Hunt, who teams up with a beautiful thief (Thandiwe Newton) to secure a modified disease held by her ex-lover and rogue IMF agent (Dougray Scott). While a box office hit, Mission: Impossible 2 remains divisive among M:I aficionados, being one of the more elaborately designed and even melodramatic entries in the otherwise stone cold sober series. 

25. Legend (1985)

Mystifying but magnetic in equal measure, Legend is basically a dark Disney fairy tale through the eyes of master filmmaker Ridley Scott. Tom Cruise stars as Jack, a free-spirited forest dweller who must stop the demonic Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry in the illest devil makeup you've ever seen) from plunging a fantastical world into eternal night. Although Legend was praised for its gorgeous production design, critics complained the movie was nothing more than a pretty storybook in motion. Honestly they are kind of right, as Legend severely lacks forward movement and meaty action. Still, the movie is drop-dead gorgeous to look at, with a score by Tangerine Dream that feels otherworldly. 

24. Jack Reacher (2012)

While it's true that Lee Child's literary antihero Jack Reacher is a walking, talking slab of meat and that Tom Cruise is decidedly not that, Cruise still kills it in the role. In the first Jack Reacher movie from director Christopher McQuarrie, which adapts the ninth Reacher novel One Shot from 2005, Cruise plays the title hero, an ex-U.S. Army Major and military police investigator who is mysteriously named by a mass shooting suspect in custody. Never mind that Cruise is several shirt sizes smaller than what Reacher is supposed to be. His movie has all the muscle and swagger to make up for it. 

23. Magnolia (1999)

In Paul Thomas Anderson's celebrated (and quite long) ensemble drama inspired by the music of Aimee Mann, a number of interrelated characters look for happiness in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. While the movie features a number of actors like Jeremy Blackman, Philip Seymour Hoffmann, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, and John C. Reilly, a standout among them all is Tom Cruise, a misogynist motivational speaker who lectures rooms full of men how to pick up women. While Cruise's character Frank lacks humanity on paper, Cruise's performance imbues rare pathos into the role that you might find yourself pitying him instead of spitting at him. The Oscars seemingly agreed and nominated Cruise for Best Supporting Actor at the 72nd Academy Awards. In a 2015 interview on Marc Maron's WTF Podcast, Anderson revealed that the inspiration for Cruise's role was pickup artist Ross Jeffries.

22. Risky Business (1983)

You only need a pair of white socks, a white button-up shirt, and Ray-Bans to dress as one of Tom Cruise's most memorable movie characters for Halloween. In 1983, a young Tom Cruise became a movie star overnight with the release of Paul Brickman's Risky Business, which is about an overachieving high school senior who parties up with a sex worker while his parents are on vacation. Often compared to The Graduate in its timeless portrayal of promising youth indulging in self-destructive vices, Risky Business launched Tom Cruise to Hollywood stardom, and for good reason. He's simply sensational, an instant star in the making who makes it impossible to hate him while he's kicking his feet up to some old time rock 'n roll.

21. Minority Report (2002)

In Steven Spielberg's blockbuster adaptation of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi novella from 1956, Tom Cruise plays a psychic cop in the future year of 2054. While his department of "Precrime" use the power of foreknowledge to apprehend criminals before they actually commit a crime, Cruise's John Anderton winds up being accused of a crime yet to happen and races to prove his innocence. A dizzying mix of crime noir, speculative science fiction, and whodunit mysteries, Minority Report entertains as a strange hybrid of Total Recall and The Fugitive, made sublime simply because of a master like Spielberg present on directing duties. Eerily and quite fittingly, a lot of the movie's speculative future technology like multi-touch interfaces, eye scanners, and autonomous cars have come to fruition in our real world.

20. Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)

Before J.J. Abrams took on both Star Trek and Star Wars, he made his directing debut with the third Mission: Impossible installment. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, now retired from the IMF, who is forced back into action to hunt down a sinister arms dealer played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. While Mission: Impossible 3 was a hit when it opened in 2006 and considered by many much better than John Woo's previous film, Mission: Impossible 3 struggles to stand out in the shadow of other sequels like Ghost Protocol and Fallout. Still, M:I 3 is solid popcorn fare with Cruise doing what he does best.

19. The Last Samurai (2003)

Despite its awkward optics of Tom Cruise in samurai armor, The Last Samurai is a majestic period drama that teeters between prestige war epic and pulpy action movie. (When a film stages Tom Cruise in a fist fight with ninjas, you know you're dealing with something that's hard to pin down.) Directed by Edward Zwick and following in the tradition of stories like Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai sees Cruise play an American captain who bears witness to the last generation of samurai amid the Meiji Restoration of 19th century Japan. An elaborate metaphor about modernization and adaptation, The Last Samurai is one of Cruise's most dad-core movies of his career, a high-grossing blockbuster that also earned several Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, including a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for Cruise.

18. Vanilla Sky (2001)

In Cameron Crowe's sci-fi psychological drama Vanilla Sky, itself a remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 movie Open Your Eyes, Tom Cruise stars as the playboy owner of a major publishing company in New York City who becomes disfigured in a vehicular crash caused by an obsessive lover (Cameron Diaz). In the aftermath, Cruise becomes smitten by a beautiful woman (played by Penélope Cruz) as his sense of reality starts to fracture. With a memorable plot twist and ambiguous ending, Vanilla Sky blew moviegoers away to become a massive box office hit despite being unpopular with most critics. In the years since its 2001 release, Vanilla Sky has become a must-see cult movie.

17. A Few Good Men (1992)

You can't handle the truth, but Tom Cruise can. In Rob Reiner's acclaimed film version of Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play, Cruise stars alongside other acting heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kiefer Sutherland. Cruise plays a Navy lawyer who must defend two Marines accused of killing another soldier. Memorably explosive and gripping with nary a single bullet fired, A Few Good Men culminates in an iconic courtroom confrontation that reveals the difference between following orders and fighting for justice.

16. The Color of Money (1986)

You can almost feel Paul Newman hand the torch of Hollywood heartthrob to Tom Cruise in Martin Scorsese's smoky and cool 1986 picture The Color of Money. A sequel to The Hustler, Newman returns as Fast Eddie Felson, who partners with an up-and-coming pool shark (Cruise), and his tough girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) as they play their way to an Atlantic City tournament. While The Color of Money was compared unfavorably to The Hustler at the time of its release, it has earned greater appreciation as yet another showcase of Scorsese's talent - not to mention longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker's - and the pairing of Newman and Cruise representing the changing of the guard between two generations of Hollywood.

15. Rain Man (1988)

In this acclaimed drama directed by Barry Levinson, Tom Cruise plays a selfish and arrogant Lamborghini dealer who learns, after his estranged father's death, that he has a grown autistic savant brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman, in an Oscar-winning performance). As the two embark on a cross-country roadtrip in their late father's 1949 Buick convertible, they develop a bond long past due. Rain Man was a massive critical and commercial success in 1988, and it's a movie that still holds power to thaw even the most cynical hearts.

14. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

In 2014, Doug Liman helmed a cult classic sci-fi that paired Tom Cruise with Emily Blunt, making a real movie star out of her in the process. Essentially Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers, Tom Cruise plays a public affairs military officer, Major William Cage, who is forced to the frontlines of humanity's war against a violent alien race. Somehow, Cage ends up in a time loop, forced to repeat his first day on the battlefield until he teams up with a war hero (Blunt) to break the cycle. Despite mismanaged marketing including a clunky title, Edge of Tomorrow impressed a lot of critics and performed well enough at the box office. But its high production budget meant it wasn't the heroic success it could have been. In the end, Edge of Tomorrow maintains appealing status as a muscular, one-and-done sci-fi.

13. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

With J.J. Abrams lost in the final frontier with 2009's Star Trek, the job of directing the next Mission: Impossible was accepted by Brad Bird. Previously a director of animated family movies like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Bird revived the Mission: Impossible series with a clear eye and sharp sense of spectacle, helming an installment that saw Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt climb the Burj Khalifa and ingeniously sneak past guards at the Kremlin. The fourth Mission: Impossible was no reboot, but it was without question a rebirth that kicked off a new era for the aging franchise.

12. War of the Worlds (2005)

In a 2005 interview with Empire magazine, Steven Spielberg said that for the first time in his movie career, he was making "an alien picture where there is no love and no attempt at communication." We don't dare correct Spielberg, but he's wrong about one thing. In his magnificent and harrowing remake of War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise plays an estranged father who tries to get his children to safely reunite with their mom (and his ex-wife) in Boston. Only love can make a father go to the extreme lengths that Cruise does in War of the Worlds, which is still one of the darkest and finely crafted movies ever by Spielberg.

11. Mission: Impossible (1995)

The original movie that lit the fuse to one of the most dominant movie franchises in Hollywood history is still a mighty sight to behold. In the first Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian De Palma, Tom Cruise makes his first appearance as Ethan Hunt, an agent for the Impossible Missions Force who tries to figure out who framed him for the murder of his team. Being an adaptation of the popular 1960s television show (which is where the franchise's iconic theme song came from), the '95 Mission: Impossible established the formula and standards for all of its subsequent sequels. Throughout the 1990s, you couldn't throw a rock without seeing a parody of the memorable "wire scene." It can still make audiences sweat even now.

10. Interview with the Vampire (1994)

In one of a handful of movies where Tom Cruise plays the antagonist, Neil Jordan's 1994 film version of Anne Rice's 1976 novel features Cruise as the sinful vampire Lestat, who bites and transforms a Louisiana plantation owner named Louis (Brad Pitt). Together the two spend hundreds of years drinking human blood, eventually adding a little girl named Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) to their circle. Moody and atmospheric, Interview with the Vampire is a mid-'90s gem that feels most effective around autumn time. While the picture mostly belongs to Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise is unavoidably handsome and haunting as a seductive vamp who can really sink his teeth into all who look at him.

9. Collateral (2004)

With an off-putting blonde dye job and a steel gray suit that never wrinkles, Tom Cruise inhabits the part of a disturbing and charismatic hitman who hires an unsuspecting L.A. cab driver (Jamie Foxx) to take him up and down the City of Angels for one violent night. Arresting and unstoppable, Collateral is a fine demonstration for both Michael Mann as a filmmaker and Cruise as an actor, the latter keenly locked in as a man so skilled at his deadly job that he seems inhuman. Collateral is simply one of the coolest movies ever made. It makes a complimentary double-bill with Mann's own Miami Vice, both being emotionally-charged neo-noir action thrillers whose digital camera lenses harness an abstract uncertainty of the new millennium.

8. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

It may be the lowest grossing entry in the Mission: Impossible series, but that doesn't mean Dead Reckoning doesn't soar. While being so late into his career, Tom Cruise proves he can still hang - or ride off cliffs - with the best of the industry in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the first of a two-part installment. With a plot centered around Cruise's Ethan Hunt and the IMF fighting against a rogue artificial intelligence, Mission: Impossible existentially wrestles with the precipice of Hollywood cinema's imminent evolution (or extinction) as an artform. With a diverse cast of exceptionally beautiful people, including Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, and Pom Klementieff, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One feels like an old school action epic in spirit that executes with cutting-edge style.

7. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

In Stanley Kubrick's last movie as a director and released posthumously after his heart attack, Tom Cruise plays an affluent New York doctor who infiltrates a masked orgy hosted by a dark and secret society. And it's all because his wife, played by Cruise's then-real spouse Nicole Kidman, admitted she almost cheated on him. With loads of sexually explicit imagery that really tested the boundaries of the MPAA's R rating, Eyes Wide Shut was initially divisive among critics and audiences before earning retrospective praise as a sterling classic of the 1990s. Its reputation still precedes it, being one of the most provoking and captivating movies Kubrick ever made.

6. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

The second installment of movies that illustrate Oliver Stone's artistic interest in the Vietnam War (of which Stone himself is a veteran), Born on the Fourth of July sees Tom Cruise play an eager volunteer for the U.S. Marine Corps who changes his tune during his deployment and physical paralysis in Vietnam; returning home, he becomes a vocal anti-war activist. Revered by critics and a smash hit at the box office when it opened in December 1989, Born on the Fourth of July earned Cruise's first Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Stone was initially dismissive of Cruise, finding his appearance in Top Gun "fascist." In an L.A. Times interview from 1989, Stone said he changed his mind when he thought Cruise's "golden boy" image would be interesting to see shatter. Said Stone: "I thought it was an interesting proposition: What would happen to Tom Cruise if something goes wrong?"

5. Jerry Maguire (1996)

When Tom Cruise yelled "Show me the money," audiences responded with a massive $273 million box office gross for a modest movie about a sports agent in love. In one of Cruise's all-time greatest movies, the star plays a hotshot sports agent whose crisis of conscience leads him to swing for the fences with just himself, a loyal accountant and single mother (Renée Zellweger), and a middling player for the Arizona Cardinals (Cuba Gooding Jr.). A warm time capsule of mid-'90s era professional sports and Hollywood romances, Jerry Maguire made us all learn how to say: "You complete me." Honestly, it had us at hello.

4. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

When movie theaters were struggling in the era of COVID-19, Tom Cruise flew to the skies and saved the industry for all. With $1.4 billion gross in ticket sales, Cruise's return to the cockpits made sonic booms to keep theaters open, all while delivering an effective and emotional story about legacy and personal limits. Set over 35 years after the original Top Gun, Cruise's "Maverick" is assigned to oversee Top Gun at NAS North Island, where he must train a new generation of students for a very dangerous mission. As close to dying and seeing heaven as cinema can get, Top Gun: Maverick takes all our breaths away.

3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

When Tom Cruise hung on to the side of a moving airplane in the first 10 minutes of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, we knew instantly this is a sequel that was built different. In the first of several M:I films helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, the IMF reunite after their disbandment to fight The Syndicate, an international black ops group made up of rogue agents from around the world. Not only is Rogue Nation just a fist-pumping great time, it also introduces franchise favorite Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, a disavowed MI6 agent working undercover. 2015 was a crowded year for tent poles, with blockbusters like Mad Max: Fury Road, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens all vying for attention. Rogue Nation didn't sell the most tickets, but there's no arguing it wasn't one of the year's best.

2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) 

Man, even just its trailer can get the adrenaline going. In Christopher McQuarrie's second Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt and the IMF race against time after a job in Berlin to obtain dangerous plutonium cores away from terrorists goes belly-up. Forced to pay for saving his team over saving the world, Ethan must stop a terrorist mastermind, played by Sean Harris, from blowing everything up. Among the people standing in his way: August Walker (Henry Cavill), a muscular CIA assassin. Featuring some of the most intricately designed set-pieces in the entire franchise, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the platonic ideal for all M:I sequels by doing one thing and one thing well: Letting Tom Cruise run wild.

1. Top Gun (1986)

Sometimes, a movie comes along and changes everything. Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise, isn't just a perfect summer movie only Hollywood could deliver; it's a movie that understands what moves people, what draws them into dark rooms and casts spells to make them feel like they can fly. Set at the U.S. Navy's Fighter Weapons School - aka, Top Gun - in San Diego, the movie stars Cruise as a young pilot who sets out to prove himself among the best of the best. While critics in 1986 didn't heap universal and unanimous praise on Top Gun, the movie soared to become one of the biggest commercial hits of all time. Mirroring its own story, Top Gun permanently cemented Tom Cruise's status as a Hollywood titan. At the time Cruise was a rising talent, but through Top Gun, he brandished a killer smile and scorching charisma that made him find his place among the stars. 

Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he's your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.

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All Tom Cruise movies, in order

It’s difficult to pinpoint what Tom Cruise really means to the history of blockbuster cinema, not just for his astounding body of work, but also for the range he puts on display, whether it be historical epics, action blockbusters, or even sci-fi spectacles.

With four Academy Award nominations, a career spanning five decades, and movies grossing over $11.5 billion worldwide, Tom Cruise is a titan of Hollywood and all it stands for . In fact, one could go so far as to suggest that as far as movie stars go, they don’t make them like this anymore. Cruise has the charisma and looks that would make any actor a commercial darling, but his acting chops and infamously crazy stunts also make him stand out.

The legendary thespian can be an action hero in a Mission: Impossible movie and then follow it up with a heart-wrenching performance like Born on the Fourth of July . He can be the lovable Jerry Maguire and then be as chilling as Vincent is in 2004’s Collateral . You name the role, and the chameleon that he is, Tom Cruise will be there to give his 100% and make it work.

But how many movies has he been in, and how many of them have you seen? Let’s take a look at Tom Cruise’s filmography to get a better understanding of his enviable career.

All the movies Tom Cruise has starred in, broken up by decade

The beloved Hollywood icon began his work with Endless Love and Taps , both released in 1981, but his most significant role from that era undoubtedly goes to Maverick in Top Gun .

• Endless Love (1981)
• Taps (1981)
• The Outsiders (1983)
• Losin’ It (1983)
• Risky Business (1983)
• All the Right Moves (1983)
• Legend (1985)
• Top Gun (1986)
• The Color of Money (1986)
• Cocktail (1986)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Now a genuine movie star, Tom Cruise had his pick of projects, which led to possibly the best decade of his career and the main reason he is now a household name all over the world. Outstanding performances from A Few Good Men , Jerry Maguire , and Eyes Wide Shut alongside the start of his Mission: Impossible saga make the Tom Cruise movies from the 1990s the most enjoyable ones to watch.

• Days of Thunder (1990)
• Far and Away (1992)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• The Firm (1993)
• Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Jerry Maguire (1996)
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
• Magnolia (1999)

Tom Cruise continued his 90s success into the 2000s with the critically acclaimed Vanilla Sky , the blockbuster sci-fi hit Minority Report, and the brilliant historical epic The Last Samurai .

• Mission: Impossible II (2000)
• Vanilla Sky (2001)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• Collateral (2004)
• War of the Worlds (2005)
• Mission: Impossible III (2006)
• Lions for Lambs (2007)
• Tropic Thunder (2008)
• Valkyrie (2008)

As Hollywood moved away from the idea of a global movie star and into the age of franchises like Marvel, actors like Tom Cruise became a rare commodity in the industry. Cruise still had the pull to rope in audiences, which he combined with his vast experience in producing, turning Mission: Impossible into a top-tier action franchise once again. He also starred in the now-cult classic Edge of Tomorrow . Duds like 2017’s The Mummy and two Jack Reacher movies were inevitable, of course, but he still ended the decade on a high note.

• Knight and Day (2010)
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
• Rock of Ages (2012)
• Jack Reacher (2012)
• Oblivion (2013)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
• The Mummy (2017)
• American Made (2017)
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Well into his fifth decade as a professional actor, Tom Cruise is still going strong. His one-man mission to make a Top Gun sequel was a massive success, grossing nearly $1.5 billion worldwide and garnering a host of new fans, not to mention thawing the industry out of a Covid-induced daze.

These are Tom Cruise’s movies in the ongoing decade so far, discernibly lacking variety as well as multitude:

• Top Gun: Maverick (2021)
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
• Untitled eighth Mission: Impossible film (2025)

That’s going to be it for Tom Cruise’s filmography, but since the star is showing no sign of slowing down, this list is only bound to get longer.

Every Tom Cruise Movie from the '80s, Ranked

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In an era where most actors can no longer sell movies by their name alone, only a few Hollywood personas have enough charisma and on-screen presence to draw in an audience by themselves. Though there's still a handful, none have stood the test of time like Tom Cruise . Of course, stars don't happen overnight. There is a certain formula to becoming a Hollywood Icon. Cruise spent most of the 80s perfecting it; going from small thankless roles in Endless Love to supporting roles in quality films like The Outsiders and finally leading hit films like Top Gun .

While it's easy to write him off as another pretty-faced actor, Cruise is far more calculated than some notice. In the 80s he gained audience trust, making a point of being in crowd-pleasing four-quadrant films while still working with respected directors like Martin Scorsese , Oliver Stone , and Francis Ford Coppola . This cemented Cruise as a serious Thespian and box office draw. By the end of the 80s, there were no longer merely movies with Tom Cruise but Tom Cruise movies. Audiences knew any movie starring Mr. Top Gun himself would be good whether that was true or not. That's the true testament to Cruise's '80s legacy.

12 'Losing It' (1982)

Directed by curtis hanson.

Cruise's reluctant first leading role as a teen who goes to Tiawana with his friends to lose his virginity was so lackluster even he didn't want to star in it, only agreeing to participate after being convinced by his agent.

This underwhelming movie fails to deliver on the Porkies -like raunch or the outrageous comedy delivered in its first fifteen minutes. That said, it does highlight Cruise and Cheers alumni Shelly Long's immense talent with their surprising ability to emote depth and have fun chemistry, even in a movie as bare as this.

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11 'Cocktails' (1988)

Directed by: roger donaldson.

In what's essentially Top Gun with a bartender, a selfish hot-shot bartender changes after being humbled by life. While not remembered fondly these days, this hit was the eighth highest-grossing film of 1988 and helped introduce Middle America to the rise in trendy bar culture.

As strange as it sounds, some films are entertaining purely for their nostalgic nature. Cocktail features lots of 80s hits, big hair, greed, and cheesy dialogue that Cruise and the rest of the cast committed to no matter how mellow dramatic making this a fun time capsule. While fans may have fun laughing at this film, there are exciting moments between Brian and his frienemy Doug where fans can see the smart and edgy drama it was aiming to be.

Cocktail (1988)

Not available

10 'Legend' (1982)

Directed by ridley scott.

Ridley Scott's dream-like fantasy about a vagabond who attempts to rescue a princess was a box office failure and one of Cruises' rare badly reviewed performances. However, it's recently been lauded for Ridly's breathtaking cinematography with many confused about how something filmed in a studio in the 80s can look so good.

While having the campiness of a 80s kids' movie, Legend did what most fantasy films of the day would not: take fantasy seriously. There are a lot of subtexts about the duality of people; nightmarishly creepy creatures including Tim Curry as Satan, and an uncharistically imperfect fair maiden. The set design and costuming are also taken seriously, feeling more like Lord of the Rings than the typical 80s childs-fair. This has led some to call Legend an imperfect masterpiece.

9 'Endless Love' (1981)

Directed by: franco zeffirelli.

Tom Cruises' first feature , about a teen girl whose parents forced her to break up with her boyfriend, was controversial because it depicted real teens having sex as well as the director twisting a teenage Brook Shields toe during a sex scene to get the reaction he wanted.

This movie starts like a sweet teen romance , but the tone dramatically shifts as the mother gains a crush on her daughter's boyfriend and these teen's unceremonious split causes him to become obsessed. What's interesting is the film views this as youthful love instead of disturbing like the novel and critics of the time. This makes this film and its protagonist unintentionally creepy and fascinating.

Endless Love

8 'all the right moves' (1983), directed by michael chapman.

Tom Cruise's first leading dramatic role may have come and gone, but fans cite this gem as being the first sign that Cruise had bigger aspirations than being another Hollywood pretty boy. It also shows how Cruise would be instrumental behind the scenes of his films, with him convincing the director to remove one of the nude scenes after Lea Thompson threatened to quit.

This hidden gem looks at the grim outlook of teens from small mining towns in the 80s. The setting and characters suck the audience into this dreary small town, so audiences can feel their angst or fear about escaping. Cruise gives a heartbreaking performance as an aspiring football player who desires more from life than working in the coal mine. While the movie is not perfect, Cruise's acting prowess and the movie's surprisingly realistic look at small town life make this film a diamond in the ruff.

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7 'The Outsiders'

Directed by francis ford coppola.

Believe it or not, this cult hit would never exist without a school librarian writing Francis Ford Coppola with a signed petition by the children in her school asking him to make a movie out of the classic novel. Coppola's film adaptation, about a gang of greasers, also stars up-and-comers like Cruise, Matt Dillon , Emilio Estevez , and Diane Lane , with many considering it the first Brat-Pack film.

The Outsiders could have been and probably should have been a standard teen drama. However, in typical Coppola fashion, he tries to make an art film with odd pacing, interesting camera shots, and quiet, reflective moments. To his credit, this makes the movie stand out all these years later and brings depth to these characters and the film.

The Outsiders

6 'the color of money', directed by martin scorsese.

It's Ironic, this movie is about a pool hustler going back to pick up what he left behind in life since acting legend Paul Newman developed this sequel, even picking Cruise and Martin Scorsese so he could play a character he left behind and finally nab that elusive Best Actor Oscar.

Similar to The Hustler before it the layered and complicated characters are what make this film so interesting. Everyone is morally gray as Scorsese slowly reveals what motivates and drives these personalities. This leads to an interesting power shift between the exploitive Eddie and the naive Vincent, who goes from being hustled to the hustler.

The Color of Money

5 'taps' (1981), directed by harold becker.

Apparently, Tom Cruises' onscreen intensity is nothing new with him showing it in spades as a crazed machine gun-wielding cadet who helps his classmates take over their military school.

It's safe to say Taps makes Lord Of The Flies look like child's play. The cast may be younger, but they have an intense presence and delivery of actors twice their age as their characters are forced to grow up overnight. The film has children wielding machine guns and grenades like water guns, warning of the dangers of military schools preparing kids for war over making good decisions.

Taps (1981)

WATCH ON HULU

4 'Top Gun' (1987)

Directed by tony scott.

If Risky Business put Cruise on the map, then this film about an arrogant pilot in a prestigious naval academy made him a full-blown star. His maverick is so admirably arrogant that 40 years later, fans would rush to theaters to see him back on the big screen in Top Gun Maverick resuscitating a sluggish post-pandemic box office.

This quintessential 80s action flick took Cruise to new heights with its crowd-pleasing nature. From real-life plane sequences for action junkies to comedy, even Romance, this film has something for everyone, making it hard for anyone to feel left out. While Valkilmers hesitancy to make the film because of its silly dialogue is understandable, Top Gun wouldn't be the same without it. More importantly, it has Cruise being the magnetic action star fans would come to love.

3 'Born On The Fourth Of July' (1989)

Directed by oliver stone.

Despite Cruise starring mostly in action flicks these days, he was once known for searching for challenging roles to prove himself, like in this drama film about a disillusioned Vietnam War vet. Ironically, Oliver Stone originally could not see the clean-cut Top Gun playing a gritty dramatic role. However, the idea of seeing America's golden-boy morph into a wild-shelved veteran helping drive the point of the movie home convinced him otherwise.

Cruise proves he's more than just a pretty face and stunts in his transformative and career-changing performance from Suburban Boy next door to an angry handicapped war veteran. While most films focus on the insanity of the Vietnam War, this film focuses on its aftermath and how many veterans felt lost and unappreciated. While in most hero journeys, the protagonist finds himself, by the end of the movie, neither the viewer nor the hero recognizes who he is, leaving the audience shaken.

Born on the Fourth of July

WATCH ON NETFLIX

2 'Risky Business' (1983)

Directed by: paul brickman.

Every Hollywood icon has that first film and performance that puts them on the map. For Cruise, it was this teen comedy about a high school virgin who starts a brothel while his parents are away. Believe it or not, Cruise's stellar performance helped this movie become the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1983 stateside.

It's easy to see why this film turned Cruise into a star , with his character being the avatar for what every teenage boy wishes he could do when his parents are away. Relatable scenes like a school-weary Joel dancing in the house alone in his underwear endeared him to fans because of how relatable it was. However, this is no average teen flick. It aims to be high art. The director has several unconventional story beats and stylistic choices that make everything feel surreal and meaningful, elevating it far above the other raunchy 80s teen comedies.

Risky Business

1 rain man (1988), directed by barry levinson.

Most films can't make a scene of two men silently on an escalator a classic scene in cinema. However, this drama about a selfish businessman reuniting with his older brother he didn't know existed is just that immersive.

If one person can play lovable and arrogant , it's Cruise. He turns a movie about a selfish man kidnapping, mistreating, and exploiting his brother into hilarious and heartwarming. While Dustin Hoffman gives a career-high performance as an autistic shut-in, it's Cruise's self-absorbed and money-hungry character, Charlie, learning to care for someone else that goes through the most growth in one of his more underrated performances.

NEXT: The 10 Most Rewatchable Tom Cruise Movies, Ranked

7 best Tom Cruise movies to stream on Netflix, Prime Video and more

Where to stream these iconic movies starring Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. For good reason, too. With jaw-dropping stunts, a gleaming smile and an intense gaze unmatched by many, Tom Cruise is a household name in Hollywood. He's had the lead actor role in at least 39 films and counting and has a box office total that has grossed over 10 billion. He has also produced some of his own films, including the hit Mission: Impossible franchise.

While Cruise may be known as an invincible action star, he has also played numerous characters with incredible depth and range. He has been the charming yet competitive romantic lead, the cold, calculating killer, and the greedy but misguided younger brother. Cruise has worked alongside some of the most famous actors and directors of our time. While it's hard to narrow down his greatest roles in such a short list, we've put together a few of the best Tom Cruise movies. 

In the Oscar award-winning film, Rain Main, Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, the selfish brother of Raymond as played by Dustin Hoffman. Charlie finds out that his brother Raymond has inherited a great deal of money. Determined to get hold of what he believes is rightfully his, Charlie absconds Ray away from his residential home, sending the two on a memorable road trip neither will forget.

Hoffman took home an Academy Award for his role. So did the director, the screenwriter, and the picture as a whole. While Tom Cruise may not have received an Oscar nomination for his role in the film, he is the perfect actor to play alongside Hoffman. You have the reward of watching him shed his character's shallow, flashy demeanor and embrace a subtle maturity as he learns why his brother was sent away. A must-watch film that is one of Tom Cruise's best.

Watch on Prime Video

No one but Cruise could have played the part of Mitch McDeere in The Firm, an adaptation of the book by John Grisham. It could be why the 2012 television series of the book was canceled after only a single season. In the film, Cruise's McDeere is hired by a "small" firm from Memphis right out of law school. Although everything seems on the up-and-up, it isn't long before he realizes that he is surrounded by crooks.

It's the transformation of McDeere's smugness over landing such a top-notch job into an intensity over uncovering the truth and protecting his career — and life — that makes this such a powerful Tom Cruise film. However, what may surprise many is that Holly Hunter took home the Oscar for her role as Tammy Hemphill, the secretary of the private detective that McDeere hires. Despite Cruise's lack of Oscar recognition, this is one of his best movies.

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A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men is a movie best known by many for its famous line spoken by Jack Nicholson who retorts, "You can't handle the truth!" However, it wouldn't be the same without Cruise playing the cocky Military lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee. 

When defense lawyer Kaffee gets to defend two Marines accused of killing one of their colleagues, many expect him to simply settle the case out of court. Cruise's natural overconfidence as portrayed in his character, Kaffee, becomes a quality that people plan to manipulate to keep the truth a secret. When he realizes this raw reality, Cruise's stone-cold determination to take the case to court shocks many. Nicholson, who plays Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, was nominated for the Oscar. However, Cruise wows the audience when he plays opposite Nicholson in the famous court scene that prompted the line we all know so well.

Watch on AMC Plus

Going against his typical role, Tom Cruise plays a ruthless killer in the movie, Collateral. Vincent, as played by Cruise, is visiting Los Angeles to finish off a few people who are supposed to testify in court against a drug lord as well as a couple of other lawyers involved in the case. When he gets into the cab of Max, played by Jamie Foxx, not everything goes according to plan.

Cruise takes out all the charm in his personality to depict a heartless killer — although what remains is a certain reasonableness to his personality as he almost convinces Foxx's Max to stick with him for the long haul. However, Foxx's Max becomes braver by the moment. In yet another film where another actor was Oscar-nominated over Cruise — this time it was Jamie Foxx — it still remains one of Cruise's most complex characters, making it one of his best movies.

Watch on Paramount Plus

Jerry Maguire

This time an Oscar nominee, Cruise plays the part of Jerry Maguire, a sports agent at the top of his game. However, Cruise's Maguire gets a crisis of conscience when one of his clients gets seriously hurt. Confronted by the client's son, Cruise realizes he has no heart for those he is supposed to represent. 

When Cruise's Maguire writes a mission statement, encouraging his agency to change their ways, he loses it all. However, despite the falling out, he connects with potential love interest, Dorothy Boyd, played by Renee Zellweger. He also manages to keep a single client, Rod Tidwell, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. It's a perfect blend of excellent acting, a strong script, and superb directing that makes this one of the most memorable romantic comedies. It also happens to include the famous Tom Cruise line that gives us all the feels, "You complete me."

Rent/buy on Amazon or Apple  

Top Gun: Maverick

Timing is everything, as the old adage says. That is possibly why the movie Top Gun: Maverick was such a success. Cruise starred in and produced the film, a sequel to his career-making film, Top Gun. While it was ready to go in 2020, he delayed its release for when people could actually see it in theaters. And for good reason. With incredible stunts and minimal usage of CGI, the movie is an experience as much as it is entertainment.

Playing a character many became familiar with in the '80s, Cruise adds a level of maturity to his role as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Cruise's Maverick returns to the school that molded him to train younger pilots, one of whom is the son of his now-deceased best friend. The emotional depth Cruise brings to the film makes it almost better than the original, a feat that's near impossible for sequels. 

Watch on Prime Video or Paramount Plus

Risky Business

How can any of us forget that famous scene when Cruise dances in his underwear to the Bob Seger song, "Old Time Rock & Roll"? One of the movies that made him who he is today, Cruise plays Joel Goodsen, a college-bound high school senior who itches to cut loose from his parents' ties. Finally having the opportunity to live a little when his parents go on vacation, things for Goodsen go from bad to worse as each rule is broken.

Acting alongside Rebecca De Mornay who plays the elusive and appealing call girl, Cruise's Goodsen learns about life, love, and consequences in this iconic film. Coupled with a strong script and excellent music from the 80s, this is one of Tom Cruise's best and most memorable movies.

Rent/buy on Amazon or Apple

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Nicole Pyles is a writer in Portland, Oregon. She loves movies, especially Lifetime movies, obscure TV movies, and disaster flicks. Her writing has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Mental Floss, WOW! Women on Writing, Ripley's Believe it or Not, and more. When she isn't watching movies, she's spending time with family, reading, and writing short stories. Say hi on Twitter @BeingTheWriter.

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Tom Cruise: All New Movies Coming Out in 2023 and 2024

After his breakthrough with leading roles in ‘Risky Business’ and ‘ Top Gun ‘ in the 1980s, Thomas “Tom” Cruise Mapother IV started bagging pivotal roles in several dramas, including ‘ Born on the Fourth of July ,’ for which he even won a Golden Globe Award and got nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the 1990s, he rose to newer heights of stardom by featuring in various commercially successful films, such as ‘ A Few Good Men ,’ ‘ Interview with the Vampire ,’ ‘The Firm,’ and ‘ Jerry Maguire .’

Once he impacted dramas, he started traversing the action and sci-fi genres. By landing some iconic roles in the ‘ Mission: Impossible ‘ film series, ‘ Collateral ,’ ‘ Edge of Tomorrow ,’ and ‘ Top Gun: Maverick ,’ he established himself as an action star, performing most of the risky stunts on his own. The winner of three Golden Globe Awards, four nominations for the Oscars, and an Honorary Palme d’Or, Tom Cruise is known to be one of the world’s highest-paid actors. Given his immense popularity and fandom, most of our readers are looking forward to his future projects. Here is a list of all the upcoming movies and TV shows of Tom Cruise!

1. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two (2024)

Tom Cruise recently jumped off a cliff on a motorbike for ‘ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ‘ and he will be in action soon enough in its sequel, ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.’ Helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, the spy action movie is the eighth installment in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ film series with Cruise reprising his role as Ethan Hunt for the eighth time running.

Although the plot details are kept under wraps, the action-adventure film is most likely to resume Ethan’s hunt for The Entity as he meets some new friends and foes along the way. The production for the sequel began in March 2022 but is yet to be finished due to the delay caused by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Having gone through several postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to its release date, it is now officially set to be released on June 28, 2024. But it is very much possible that it will get postponed again due to the pause in production.

2. Untitled Tom Cruise/SpaceX Project (TBA)

Tom Cruise is set to take his status as an action star to the next level by traveling out of Earth to film the first ever Hollywood motion picture in outer space. In May 2020, it was reported that Elon Musk’s Space X and Cruise were working on an action-adventure project with NASA. Not only is Cruise expected to be blasted into space alongside filmmaker Doug Liman, with whom he has previously worked in ‘ American Made ‘ and ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ for the upcoming film, but he will also live up to his reputation by attempting to do a space walk outside of the International Space Station. In this movie, Cruise is set to essay the role of a down-on-his-luck man who is the sole person in the position to save Earth. Apart from starring in the film, he is attached to the project as a writer as well as a producer.

3. Live Die Repeat and Repeat (TBA)

A sequel to the 2014 movie ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat’ is an upcoming science fiction film that will reportedly reunite Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman, with the former set to reprise his role as Major William Cage. Moreover, Emily Blunt is also rumored to portray Rita again, alongside Cruise. Ever since the release of the hit original film, talks of a sequel have been flying around. However, in 2019, it was finally set in motion when Matthew Robinson was brought on to write the script.

Fast forward to a couple of years later, in a May 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly , Emily Blunt revealed, “That was an amazing script, but I just don’t know what the future holds for it. I did read a script that was in really great shape, but it’s just a matter of if that can even happen now. I don’t have the straight answer on that one.” With the project still lingering in the development stage, it is hard to expect it to be brought to life in at least a couple of years.

Read More: Best Movies of Tom Cruise

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Guest Appearances

The Ayrton Senna film is not included in this episode of Top Gear. Hollywood A-listers Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are in town and they head out onto the test track as the Stars in a Reasonably Priced Car. Plus, Richard Hammond is in Sweden for a race against some hardcore snowmobilers and James May attempts to break his personal speed record in a brand new, even more powerful version of the amazing Bugatti Veyron.

Guests include Hollywood star Tom Cruise and his `Mission: Impossible 6' co-stars Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson and British actor and writer Simon Pegg; music and chat from Paloma Faith, who performs "Til I'm Done".

On tonight's episode, Graham is joined by stars Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis who chat about their new movie The Mummy, Zac Efron who promotes the movie revival of Baywatch and singer-songwriter Beth Ditto who performs her single, Fire.

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1. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

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9. Jack Reacher

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Actor, Producer, Director, Writer

Born July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA

In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history. Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise. In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.

In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.

Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.

With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.

In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.

Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Magnolia ( 2000 )

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Here’s Why the Tom Cruise ‘Jack Reacher’ Movies Are Better Than the TV Show Everyone Loves

Where to stream:.

• Jack Reacher

How To Watch Tom Cruise’s Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony Stunt: Time, Livestream And More

Gina gershon thought she “broke tom cruise’s nose” while filming their ‘cocktail’ love scene, new shows & movies to watch this weekend: netflix’s ‘the decameron’ + more, manny jacinto wasn’t as upset as his fans that he only appeared in seconds of ‘top gun: maverick’: “tom cruise writes stories for tom cruise”.

There aren’t many instances where Tom Cruise ’s version of a character gets overshadowed by someone else’s. Frankly, there aren’t that many instances of Tom Cruise playing a role also inhabited by another actor; even on a more symbolic level, his Ethan Hunt, created for the Mission: Impossible film series, is now far more synonymous than anyone to do with the classic TV show that inspired it. Does Cruise (eventually) playing a mummy in The Mummy count? Probably not; no one really thinks of that as Cruise playing a mummy, or Cruise replacing Brendan Fraser. They think of it as Cruise in a Mummy movie that didn’t work. Such is the power of one of the most globally recognizable movie stars of the past half-century.

Alan Ritchson , like most of the rest of the world, is not on Tom Cruise’s level. He’d be easy to spot in a crowd, to be sure; he’s tall and muscle-y to be believable as Jack Reacher, the signature part he’s played on the Amazon streaming hit Reacher for two seasons now. But surely some people who did recognize Ritchson would shout for him as that character – hey, man, it’s Reacher! – rather than his actual name. It’s harder to imagine anyone calling out “Maverick!” or “Ethan!” for Tom Cruise (except, of course, Ving Rhames).

And they certainly wouldn’t call out “Reacher” for him, either, because it’s easy enough to forget that Cruise did, in fact, play Jack Reacher first, in an abbreviated two-film franchise that predates the Amazon show. It’s a savvy move for Netflix to license these titles, and makes sense that they jumped into the Netflix Top 10 ; we’re between Reacher seasons, and while Cruise’s version of the character was moderately successful in theaters, there are probably plenty of newly minted Reacher fans who haven’t seen the movies (especially the ill-regarded second installment, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ). The popular consensus among those who have seen both, especially those who are also familiar with the Lee Childs books that form their source material, is that Ritchson is the better, or at least more accurate version, of the man described as 6’5 and 250 pounds. Cruise, by contrast, is a below-average 5’7 and has to choose his camera angles carefully in order to appear of normal height.

It’s true that Ritchson more clearly embodies the Lee Child’s vision of Jack Reacher , an unstoppable force for chivalry and self-sufficiency who will politely tear off his own zipties in a way that makes you realize he could have done so all along. It’s also true that Reacher is enjoyable, easy-to-binge, airport-novel-on-TV stuff, like a comfort-watch CBS procedural with a memorable character already built in. Still, a part of me mourns for the curtailing of Cruise’s Jack Reacher franchise, because in a lot of ways, it’s better than the show – especially the first movie .

Though Reacher is a former military man, Christopher McQuarrie’s Jack Reacher plays up the noirish angle of a drifter rolling into town on the bus with only the clothes on his back and the cash in his pocket; by comparison, the unmissable Ritchson version looks more like a guy who got separated from his tour group. Cruise, admittedly, reads as more of a weirdo as we learn more about his spare, no-frills, no-change-of-pants lifestyle – another in his post-2000 line of warrior monks . Yet this weirdness also sells the character’s mystique with more grace, just as having a skinny, semi-short guy issue beatings to groups of thugs is more pleasing and faux-surprising than having a mountain of a man turn out to be, indeed, a mountain of a man. (The funnier twist with an appropriately gigantic Reacher would have him be not that great at fighting, just using brute force – but the Childs faithful would never allow such heresy.) By comparison, Ritchson plays Reacher as more of a smug superman, waiting for the lesser beings in his wake to screw up.

Beyond my personal preference for Cruise, a man of considerably skill and movie-star charisma, over the more workmanlike Ritchson, Jack Reacher itself has a great nighttime vibe, with a seedier, creepier feel than the show wants to evoke. This is aided immeasurably by the delightfully inexplicable presence of Werner Herzog as the bad guy of the piece, lending some standard conspiracies – Reacher is investigating a soldier accused of a mass shooting, has every reason to think the man guilty, but becomes convinced this isn’t the case – an unknowable menace not often seen in mainstream movie adaptations of airport novels. McQuarrie turned out to be an accomplished director of Cruise Action in the Mission: Impossible movies that followed (he helped write the fourth , then has directed every entry since), and it’s fun to see him practice on a smaller, grubbier scale here.

That Mission: Impossible connection means that Jack Reacher turned out to be a crucial movie in Cruise’s 2010s, which focused so heavily on reclaiming his brand, sometimes at the expense of his formidable talent. He struck the strongest balance between the two in the McQuarrie-scripted Edge of Tomorrow , a year and a half after Reacher , but this movie put him on the right path in between middling simulations of the Cruise Thing that came with Knight and Day and Oblivion . He may have been grasping at straws, but this was a particularly good straw.

By the time Never Go Back rolled around, Cruise had another Mission under his belt, and a four-years-later Reacher sequel felt like an afterthought. Yet that movie is also pivotal to Cruise’s trajectory, in that its middling box office results, preceding the underperformance of The Mummy , seems to have helped to convince Cruise to put all his chips into finally making Top Gun 2 and (maybe) finishing out the Mission: Impossible series. On the basis of the movie itself, this was not a bad decision. The Mission: Impossible movies are world-class, Cruise-branded spectacle; he’s made them into his second-act life’s work. Top Gun: Maverick , of course, beat long odds to become a beloved all-time smash. In all the hullabaloo, nobody much missed Jack Reacher beating up guys in parking lots. But even Never Go Back – an all together squarer, less atmospheric Reacher adventure – is highly watchable, maybe the closest thing Cruise could ever make to a streaming movie. Look, Denzel Washington makes stuff like this all the time.

Maybe that’s why Cruise’s Reacher resonates more than Ritchson’s. This is probably the role of a lifetime for Ritchson, and by all accounts he seems like a cool guy, not nearly as meatheaded as you might stereotype him. At the same time, watching his Reacher is like watching an uneven, vaguely juvenile comic book adaptation that all of the hardcore fans swear up and down is more “accurate.” Tom Cruise and Jack Reacher aren’t a perfect match: This isn’t one of his signature characters, and he’s not the obvious choice to play a burly, courtly super-detective. Even when the character involve self-flattery, Cruise has to work at it. Reacher is a frictionless experience; that’s why watching Ritchson easily avoid various scrapes makes such an easy comfort watch. Jack Reacher , however, has just as much Sunday-afternoon comfort, while scraping harder.

Jesse Hassenger ( @rockmarooned ) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com , too.

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24 of Tom Cruise's greatest movie moments

Posted: August 10, 2024 | Last updated: August 10, 2024

The undisputed action legend boasts an incredible decades-spanning career

Whether he’s scaling a building or producing Oscar-nominated performances, there’s no denying that Tom Cruise is a Hollywood legend. It’s been that way since his early work in Risky Business and Top Gun cemented him as a leading man, before his performance as everyone’s favorite IMF agent in the Mission: Impossible movies confirmed him as the go-to action man.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Cruise first started acting at the age of 18, landing bit parts in Endless Love and Taps before making it big time in The Outsiders. Over the years since, he’s broken countless box office records for his leading roles, as well as earning his fair share of acting accolades from his peers. It doesn’t matter what the movie is, if Cruise is making an appearance, it’s sure to be memorable.

While he’s often known for his risky stunts that have seen him defying gravity and the laws of physics, there have also been countless powerful performances in his filmography too. As you might imagine with such a lengthy and impressive career, he's also had his fair share of iconic scenes as well. So in celebration of a Hollywood career like no other, here are some of the greatest Tom Cruise movie moments.

Magnolia: "Tame It" speech

Tom Cruise played a memorable part in Paul Thomas Anderson’s kaleidoscopic Magnolia as Frank T.J. Mackey, a crass motivational speaker. He’s in his element as the misogynistic pick-up artist, which we see glimpses of throughout the movie. The best of these is his "tame it" speech to a group of like-minded misanthropists as he tells them to take what they feel they deserve. In a cast filled with stars like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore, Cruise gives it all in a performance that really asks him to  go there .

Austin Powers cameo

For someone who’s had a lot of serious roles, Tom Cruise isn’t afraid of a little silliness on screen either. A great example of this is his cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember, where he plays the British agent in a biopic of himself. His cameo in the movie-within-the-movie may only be brief, but Cruise nails his mannerisms and looks pretty spot-on in the iconic get-up. Skydiving into a moving car is a pretty Cruise-level move too, making this parody even more perfect. "Yeah, baby," indeed.

Jack Reacher: "Two things are going to happen"

Marking the classic book-based action hero’s on-screen debut, Tom Cruise played the brutally effective Jack Reacher in two movies. The second, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, contains the perfect encapsulation of why Cruise was the right man to play the nomad killing machine, despite their physical differences. This comes in the diner scene. "Two things are gonna happen in the next 90 seconds," he warns the sheriff who’s arrested him, "First, that phone over there is going to ring; second, you’re going to be wearing these cuffs on your way to prison." Reacher is a man of few words, but when Cruise delivers these taciturn and furious ones, he looms way beyond his stature to put the naysayers of his casting to rest.

Rain Man: The bathroom scene

While Rain Man contains a lot of incredible moments, it’s the scene when Tom Cruise’s Charlie Babbitt finds out the truth of how his brother left that secures itself as one of the actor’s best on-screen moments. "You’re the rain man," he says to Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond "Ray" Babbitt in the bathroom as he discovers that someone he thought was his imaginary childhood friend was actually his brother all along. Hoffman deservedly received a lot of acclaim for his performance in Rain Man, but watching Cruise work through his emotions as he discovers Ray actually lived with him before being sent away is hugely emotional, and marks one of the most nuanced performances of his career.

War of the Worlds: The aliens arrive

Tom Cruise has starred in plenty of sci-fi movies, but War of the Worlds contains one of his most chilling on-screen moments. The Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation takes Cruise’s character Ray Ferrier’s perspective as the chaos of an alien invasion begins. Playing with ominous sounds and smoke as Ray tries desperately to find safety as destruction happens around him, the audience is thrown right into the chaos. This all makes the moment when the towering Martian tripods emerge from the surface of the Earth all the more terrifying and sets the stakes for the rest of the film.

Knight and Day: Motorcycle chase

Tom Cruise’s career has been marked by several motorcycle scenes, but one of the best actually comes in the romantic action comedy Knight and Day. The tongue-in-cheek satire sees Cruise playing a secret agent called Roy Miller, who is on the run from the CIA when he meets Cameron Diaz’s June Havens. After becoming caught up in each other's lives, towards the third act of the film, the pair ride through Seville during a bullfighting ceremony. Navigating bulls storming the streets and bad guys in pursuit, it’s one of the most impressive chase scenes of Cruise’s career.

Eyes Wide Shut: Ritual scene

Tom Cruise has worked with plenty of incredible directors over his career, and Eyes Wide Shut is no different as he collaborates with Stanley Kubrick. The most memorable moment comes during the ritual scene as Cruise’s Dr. Bill infiltrates a cabal of New York’s elite, all wearing masks. It’s deeply unsettling, takes several chillingly dark turns, and is considered by some to be one of the most disturbing scenes of Cruise’s career.

Born on the Fourth of July: "I love America"

Tom Cruise’s performance as Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July is one for the ages. He plays the real-life anti-war activist over decades of his life through his military service and paralysis in the Vietnam War. It’s a portrayal full of great nuance, but it’s the "I love America" speech that stands out as one of its most powerful moments. At a rally against the war, as Richard Nixon accepts the presidential nomination, Ron is cornered by a reporter asking what he wants to say to these people. "People say if you don’t love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America," he says as he criticizes the government’s decision to continue the war before he’s dragged away by Nixon’s supporters. The performance landed Cruise a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards too.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: The plane

Tom Cruise's stunts don’t get much bigger than his plane scene in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Playing IMF agent Ethan Hunt, the sequence sees him hanging onto the side of an Airbus A400M as it takes off, before flying to 1,000 feet at high speed. And yes, of course, Cruise actually did the stunt himself with just a wire attached to the side of the plane and special contacts to protect his eyes. Another amazing fact about this moment too is that Cruise didn’t just perform the stunt once, he did it eight times.

Tropic Thunder: The call

It’s always fun to see Tom Cruise not taking himself too seriously, and his role in the satire Tropic Thunder is just that. He plays ill-tempered studio executive Les Grossman who’s financing the war film. Sporting prosthetics that make him almost unrecognizable, his best moment is the profanity-filled call to the Flaming Dragon. It all ends with a mic-drop moment as he chucks the mobile over his shoulder to Matthew McConaughey’s Rick, who has watched the whole exchange in awe. Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in the film may have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, but Cruise’s performance remains one of the most memorable parts of the 2008 comedy.

The Last Samurai: "Tell me how he died"

Tom Cruise’s period epic The Last Samurai sees him play military veteran Nathan Algren who befriends samurai Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) after he decides to spare him. Over the course of the film, the pair develop a bond as Algren is trained in the ways of Japanese swordsmanship. This all leads to the movie’s most poignant moment after Katsumoto has been killed, as Algren presents his sword to Emperor Meiji. "Tell me how he died," the ruler asks, to which Algren emotionally replies, "I will tell you how he lived." The subtext here is pretty clear: do not forget the ways of traditions of the samurai as Japan modernizes.

A Few Good Men: "Truth" speech

A Few Good Men’s 'truth' speech contains one of the most quotable lines in movie history, and while it’s not Tom Cruise himself who utters those iconic words, he’s a central part of what makes the scene so electric. The 1992 Rob Reiner-directed drama follows a trial of two U.S. Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine. Cruise’s Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is the scrappy lawyer defending them as the situation comes to a head when he faces off against Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan R. Jessep in the courtroom, pushing him on his involvement in the crime.

"I want the truth," Kaffee bellows, before Jessep erupts, "You can’t handle the truth." Scripted by none other than Aaron Sorkin, it’s considered one of the best scenes in cinematic history, and for good reason too, as it marks one of Cruise’s most powerful performances as he goes toe-to-toe with Nicholson.

Top Gun: The volleyball scene

If you think of Top Gun, probably the first scene you’ll think of is the volleyball scene. Yes, the drama features some epic action set pieces and plenty of romance too, but who are we kidding? Tom Cruise’s Pete "Maverick" Mitchell playing volleyball in the scorching sun to Kenny Loggins’ "Playing With the Boys" is one of the most memorable moments of 1980s cinema, and has been parodied endlessly. In fact, it’s so iconic that Cruise even included an homage in the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick too.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: The Burj Khalifa

Tom Cruise doesn’t do anything by half, and the Burj Khalifa scene in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a great example of that. The stunt, which sees Ethan Hunt scaling the skyscraper in pursuit of Cobalt, saw Cruise really climb the tallest building in the world. All done with just a harness and no stunt double, the actor did it all himself, from running along the outside of the building to jumping between sections while helicopters filmed around him. The crew only broke 35 windows during the shoot too, which is nothing short of miraculous.

Jerry Maguire: "Show me the money"

Tom Cruise plays a sports agent with a conscience in the 1996 romantic comedy Jerry Maguire. After being fired for gaining some moral integrity, his character Jerry Maguire starts his own sports agency, which proves to be a little harder than he first thought. Still, he lands one superstar client in Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Rod Tidwell who he’ll do anything to keep, even shouting, "Show me the money" in a crowded office. As Tidwell urges him on, Maguire gets louder and louder until everyone is looking on. It’s one of the most quotable moments from Cruise’s career, and the actor’s whole performance was considered so iconic that he landed an Oscar nomination too.

Top Gun: "You’ve lost that loving feeling"

Tom Cruise has had his fair share of great needle-drop moments throughout his career, as well as never shying away from a performance. But his rendition of "You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling" in Top Gun is up there with the best. Performing off-key with his best friend Goose (Anthony Edwards), Pete "Maverick" Mitchell does his best to win over Kelly McGillis’ Charlie at the bar in this charming scene. Try and stop from beaming when the whole bar erupts into the chorus.

Interview With The Vampire: Lestat's final scene

"I assume I need no introduction," Tom Cruise’s vampire Lestat drawls in the final scene of Anne Rice adaptation, Interview With The Vampire. Subduing Christian Slater’s reporter before he can release Louis’ story to the world, this is the first time we meet the louche Lestat and he certainly makes his (fang-shaped) mark. The ending is the perfect twist to the chilling drama directed by Neil Jordan, and Cruise nails his character’s menace right up to the credits crawl. It’s the small details that sell it too, from Lestat’s straightening of his shirt sleeves as he takes the wheel to his cackle as the needle drops to The Rolling Stones’ "Sympathy for the Devil." It marks a fitting curtain call to one of Cruise’s most iconic characters.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1: Motorcycle jump

Never one to be topped in a stunt, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’s motorcycle stunt is one of the most brutal of Tom Cruise’s career. During the movie’s climactic final sequence, Ethan Hunt has to work out a way to get on a moving train. Naturally, his solution is riding his motorcycle off a cliff before parachuting down onto the top of one of the carriages. It wouldn't be a Cruise stunt if the actor didn’t do it himself either so, of course, the action man rode off a real ramp with a harness attached. Would you expect anything less?

Top Gun: Maverick: Flight sequence

Ever the action man, Tom Cruise made sure his return to the skies in Top Gun: Maverick came with its fair share of epic flight sequences. The most heart-stopping comes in the final sequence as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell leads the team through their near-impossible mission. Full of moments requiring incredible precision, it leaves audiences on the edge of their seats at every turn. Add to this the fact that Cruise was really up in that aircraft, and it’s undoubtedly secured its place as one of the most impressive action sequences in cinematic history.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: Underwater scene

For Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Tom Cruise couldn’t just perform a death-defying underwater scene as Ethan Hunt, he had to break a few records too. If you’ll recall, the IMF agent had to access an underwater secure vault through a vertical tunnel in his team’s battle against the Syndicate. Things don’t quite go to plan though (this is a Mission: Impossible movie after all) and Hunt is trapped in the currents for six minutes, rather than the planned three. However, what’s more amazing than his miraculous escape is that Cruise actually did the dive himself after learning to breathe underwater from a freediver.

Risky Business dance

Despite being one of Tom Cruise’s earliest films, 1983’s Risky Business looms large in the actor’s filmography. And there’s one scene in particular that stands out: Joel Goodsen’s living room dance to "Old Time Rock and Roll." Seeing the overachiever letting loose and enjoying himself, and cracking out some memorable dance moves (the slide, come on), is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. Then there’s the outfit. Spawning countless spoofs - and becoming a Halloween staple - the shirt, boxers, and socks combo is iconic. It’s no wonder Risky Business marked Cruise’s breakout Hollywood role.

Top Gun: Maverick: Reunited with Iceman

As well as plenty of top-notch action, Tom Cruise's big return to the screen as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell was also hugely emotional. Throughout the movie, he is still grappling with the guilt of losing his best friend all those years ago as he tries to rebuild the relationship with Goose’s son. Struggling, he turns to his old friend Tom "Iceman" Kazansky in a powerful on-screen reunion with Val Kilmer. "It’s time to let go," his former rival tells him in the powerful scene. Good luck keeping a dry eye during this one.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout: HALO jump scene

The Mission Impossible – Fallout HALO jump was one that was on Tom Cruise’s bucket list for a while, and he finally pulled it off in the sixth movie. Standing for High Altitude Low Open, the jump is used by military personnel to jump at 25,000 feet before opening their shoot at less than 2,000 feet. This allows them to, as Ethan Hunt does in the film, sneak into another country undetected. Cruise is actually the first actor to perform it on-screen as well, making it another record-breaking movie moment to add to his list.

Mission: Impossible: Langley Heist

It’s an iconic image that any action fan will know well: Tom Cruise hanging from wires to complete the Langley heist in Mission: Impossible. The nearly 20-minute-long scene sees Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt infiltrating a secure terminal in the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Navigating a pressure-sensitive floor, a temperature-controlled environment, and an alarm that will go off if a sound louder than a whisper echoes, the tension ratchets as Hunt tries to break into the computer. While it’s not as loud and death-defying as most of the stunts in Cruise’s films, it’s no less iconic, and it cemented Mission: Impossible as the actor’s first franchise.

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This Tom Cruise action sequel is No. 1 on Netflix right now. Is it worth watching?

After a few decades in which he took on a more varied lineup of roles, Tom Cruise has settled into mainly appearing in action movies as his career has progressed. This era of his career has been incredibly fruitful as Cruise has performed some of the most elaborate stunts in movie history for the Mission: Impossible franchise, but those are not the only movies he’s made during his action era.

In addition to that franchise, Cruise also made two  Jack Reacher  movies in 2012 and 2016. The movies, which are adapted from a series of novels about the character that also inspired the hit Amazon Prime Video action show Reacher , are a little more grounded than his movies about the Impossible Mission Force. Now, one of those movies, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , is on Netflix and is already the streamer’s most popular movie right now. The action sequel follows Reacher, an ex-Army investigator, as he looks into the case of an Army major who has been accused of treason before he goes on the lam himself. Here are four reasons you should check it out.

It features Cruise at his low-key best

Part of the reason Cruise has been so focused on making action movies throughout his career to date is that there are few actors who are better at it than he is, and that talent is on full display in  Never Go Back . It’s not just that Cruise knows exactly how to handle the movie’s action beats, it’s also that he has a firm handle on the character.

He’s a brilliant investigator with a strong sense of right and wrong, but he can also be totally charming. Few actors can pull off that combination as well as Cruise is able to here, and he proves to be the anchor that makes everything else in this movie work.

The sterling supporting cast does great work

It certainly helps that Cruise is surrounded by great supporting actors. Secret Invasion ‘s Cobie Smulders is the second star, proving that she has been underserved throughout her career. Aside from Smulders, the cast also includes great work from Aldis Hodge (Hawkman from Black Adam ), Holt McCallany ( The Iron Claw ), and Robert Knepper, among others.

A great  Jack Reacher  movie should be, among other things, filled with people who can credibly play army and police officers, and  Never Go Back  is filled with precisely that kind of character actor. What’s more, a number of the actors in this movie went on to even bigger success in the years after it was released.

It tells an involving story

If you make an action movie with Tom Cruise, you have to understand that, at least to some extent, Cruise is going to be involved in the way the story is told. Few actors are better at understanding both how to tell a good story and how they read on the screen. Never Go Back  has the kind of propulsive momentum that drives many of Cruise’s best movies.

Even though it’s telling a relatively simple and and familiar story,  Never Go Back  is nonetheless a brilliant example of how to tell stories in a way that keeps driving toward the next scene, and that’s in large part because of Cruise’s immense talents in front of and behind the camera.

Its formulaic nature is comforting

The Jack Reachernovels are popular for a relatively simple reason: They’re comforting and formulaic. Reacher may find himself on the wrong side of the law, but there’s never any real doubt that he’s going to set everything straight in the end.

That kind of formula can be boring and repetitive if you’ve seen it hundreds of times, but there’s a reason these tropes endure. The formula for  Jack Reacher  and its sequel is not something new, but it really doesn’t need to be. It’s exactly what many people need it to be.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is streaming on Netflix .

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Sometimes, there are months when Netflix barely loses anything of note. Unfortunately, August is not one of those months. Everything Everywhere All At Once, the first five Spider-Man live-action films, Paddington, The Woman King, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, and more will be heading out the door by the time August 31 rolls around.

Most of these films have been on loan to Netflix by Sony as part of a larger agreement between the streamer and the movie studio. But even acclaimed indie movies like Marcel the Shell with Shoes On are running out of time on Netflix this month. As a subscriber, there's only one thing to do if you want to catch these films before they depart: Make your viewing plans now. August is one of the longest months of the year, so use that extra day to your advantage. In the meantime, check out our roundup of everything leaving Netflix in August 2024. As always, our picks for the month are in bold.

Tom Cruise is ready to defy the odds again with another jaw-dropping stunt. The Hollywood daredevil is lending his talents to the International Olympic Committee to perform a stunt at the Closing Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Per TMZ, Cruise is preparing to complete a stunt during the Closing Ceremony that signals the transition from the 2024 Paris Olympics to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The plan is for Cruise to rappel down from the top of Stade de France onto the field with the official Olympic flag. Then, the broadcast will cut to a prerecorded tape of Cruise flying with the Olympic flag from Paris to Los Angeles.

In a nice change of pace, there are actually two new sci-fi movies on Max this month. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has made its streaming debut on Max, while the 1997 sci-fi classic Gattaca has also arrived. Considering that Max's sci-fi lineup has been stagnant for months, those are welcome additions. They just come in a month where Max has already lost all of the Star Trek films, Escape From L.A., and Source Code. So the number of available science fiction films on Max has actually dropped despite the new additions.

Regardless, there are still a number of great films on our list of the best sci-fi movies on Max right now. The streamer just needs to give this category more attention. There's only so many times we can rewatch the classics before we look for something new. And in 2024, new sci-fi films on Max have been few and far between.

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Birth Name: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

Birth Place: Syracuse, New York, United States

Profession Actor, producer

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Tom Cruise wraps Olympics closing ceremony by jumping from the stadium roof

The 2024 Paris Olympics are ending with a last hurrah from Mr. "Mission: Impossible."

Tom Cruise brought his A-game to the Games' closing ceremony on Aug. 11 held at Stade de France, the country's largest stadium that held some of the Olympics' top events.

After H.E.R. concluded singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," the camera panned to Cruise, who was s tanding at the top of the stadium .

The action star then jumped off the roof and descended to the stadium floor. He walked through the sea of athletes to take the Olympic flag from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, representing the passing of the torch from the Paris Games to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Turning the closing ceremony into a film, Cruise hopped on his motorcycle and drove out of the stadium. He cruised down the streets of Paris before taking a mysterious phone call.

Suddenly, the ceremony cut to footage of Cruise skydiving into Los Angeles to usher in the next Summer Games. He passed on the flag before the camera zoomed out for the next big reveal. Cruise stood in front of the iconic Hollywood Sign that was altered to include the famous five Olympic rings.

Thomas Jolly, artistic director for the 2024 Paris Olympic ceremonies, told Olympics.com in July that the closing ceremony, titled "Records," will pay homage to how the Games once "disappeared," but were later restarted. The exact year of the Olympics' inception is not known but is often cited in written sources as 776 BC, according to Olympics.com . They were revived in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin, with the first Games of the modern era occurring in 1896 in Athens.

"We want to celebrate, but consciously," Jolly told Olympics.com. "This moment of celebration will also be an opportunity to reflect on the importance of the Olympic Games in our society. So I’ve designed a show in which the Olympic Games disappear once again, and someone comes along and founds them."

Team USA rounded out the Paris Olympics with the most medals of any nation , with 126 in total. China finished second with 91, followed by Great Britain with 65.

Among USA's Olympic champions are gymnast Simone Biles, who brought home three gold medals and a silver, swimmer Katie Ledecky, who took home four medals in total — and became America's most decorated female Olympian of all time — and sprinter Noah Lyles, who won gold in the men’s 100 meter dash in a dramatic photo finish.

Ledecky and rower Nick Mead were tapped as Team USA's flag bearers for the closing ceremony.

Randi Richardson is a reporter for NBC News' TODAY.com based in Brooklyn.

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Tom Cruise Jumps Off Stadium Roof to Pass Baton to Los Angeles

Cruise, one of Hollywood’s most well-known movie stars, rappelled down into the Stade de France, and the crowd of Olympians went wild as Paris handed over to the next Summer Games, in Los Angeles.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

• Aug. 11, 2024, 5:44 p.m. ET

No, it wasn’t a scene from “Mission: Impossible.” Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood’s most well-known movie stars, rappelled down into the Stade de France as H.E.R. played guitar, and the crowd of Olympians went wild as Paris handed over to the next Summer Games, in Los Angeles. He accepted the Olympic flag, shook a lot of hands, jumped on a motorcycle, and drove right out of the stadium and into prerecorded footage.

It’s hard to imagine a more apt melding of the Olympics’ awe-inducing athleticism and Hollywood’s showy sensibility than Cruise, who, at 62, still famously loves to perform as many of his own “Mission: Impossible” stunts as feasible in the film series. At the 2022 Cannes Film Festival , ahead of the release of “Top Gun: Maverick,” he was asked about his penchant for death-defying feats, which he might reasonably be expected to delegate to a stunt person. “No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance?’” he quipped.

Cruise’s carefully choreographed acrobatics (and selfies with athletes) were fit for this closing ceremony’s vibes — especially the showmanship behind them. The details of what exactly was going to happen had been kept quiet, although People reported that back in March he had filmed the segment in which he sky-dives to the iconic Hollywood sign. Nobody quite knew until now what he’d do on live television in Paris. But it’s Tom Cruise: He lives, and occasionally defies death, to give us a good time.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

Our Coverage of the Paris Olympics

Go inside the games with the new york times and the athletic..

A Triumph of Ambition:  Away from the Olympics, France may be mired in political problems, but its pride in staging a remarkable Games appears likely to endure for a long time .

Stephen Curry’s Moment:  Playing in his first Olympics, Curry sank a series of late 3-pointers  — each more preposterous than the last — to lead the United States over France in the men’s basketball gold medal game.

Back to the Top:  Led by a new coach and a largely refreshed roster after a disappointing World Cup performance in 2023, the U.S. women’s soccer team beat Brazil to win gold .

The Biggest Little Runs:  Relive the greatest performances on the track in Paris with these miniature running visualizations .

Balancing Sports and Politics:  The Olympics have long been a stage for political expression for athletes who take the opportunity. Some do, while others choose to focus strictly on their sport.

L.A.’s Bold Promise:  In their winning bid to host the next Summer Olympics, Los Angeles leaders pledged to make the 2028 Games “car-free.” Can the city do it?