tom cruise movies he directed

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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A Brief History of Tom Cruise’s Impressive Filmography

Tom Cruise is such a staple in American cinema that it’s easy to take him for granted. Since the early 1980s, he’s been cranking out hit after hit, becoming one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors and consistently making blockbusters that shatter box office records.

In the past five decades, Cruise’s movies have grossed more than $11.5 billion worldwide. Oh, and he also does all his own stunts! The man himself may be an enigma, but there’s no denying the role he’s played in cinematic history.

In 2022, his return to the Top Gun universe even managed to lure pandemic-wary moviegoers back to theaters. Top Gun: Maverick grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office and became one of the highest-grossing movies in history. As a result, according to Variety , Steven Spielberg told Cruise he “saved Hollywood’s a** and [ … ] might have saved theatrical distribution.”

Cruise began his career like so many others, journeying to New York City to bus tables while trying to become an actor, eventually moving to the West Coast and signing with a talent agency. He got attention on sets right away, landing small roles in both Endless Love and Taps in 1981. The Hollywood Reporter states that Cruise’s role in Taps was expanded after director Harold Becker noticed the actor was “out-marching the other cadets on the parade field,” which totally fits everything we know about Cruise now!

All of Tom Cruise’s films, in order

Below is a list of all of the movies Cruise has made since he first boarded that Greyhound to NYC back in the early ’80s. Our favorites are in bold.

– Endless Love (1981)

– Taps (1981)

The Outsiders  (1983)

Welcome to the Brat Pack! Cruise’s first big break came when he was selected to join the ensemble of The Outsiders , directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cruise joined fellow young rising stars C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane, yet he still managed to stand out on screen.

– Losin’ It (1983)

– Risky Business (1983)

This movie was transformative and really put Cruise on the map as a leading man. Who could forget the shirt-no-pants dance scene? Or the train scene with Rebecca De Mornay? Is it hot in here?

– All The Right Moves (1983)

– Legend (1985)

Tim Curry! A very young Mia Sara! David Bowie in a cod piece! This movie has it all.

Top Gun  (1986)

You might have an inkling of how huge this movie was when it came out, but you’re probably underestimating it. Seriously, it was massive ! Money-wise, it grossed $357 million globally and was the highest-grossing domestic film of the year. Anecdotally, everyone was buying Ray-Bans and bomber jackets and rewinding that love scene with Kelly McGinnis until we wore out the VHS tape.

– The Color of Money (1986)

Just when we thought he couldn’t get more popular, he made a movie about shooting pool with Hollywood legend Paul Newman.

– Cocktail (1986)

– Rain Man (1988)

Born on the Fourth of July  (1989)

Cruise won a Best Actor Golden Globe for his portrayal of Ron Kovic, a Vietnam veteran who co-wrote the biographical screenplay with director Oliver Stone. Cruise also received the first of four Academy Award nominations. His star was truly rising by now. People magazine named him 1990’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

– Days of Thunder (1990)

– Far and Away (1992)

– A Few Good Men (1992)

Cruise and Jack Nicholson proved to be a riveting pair to watch on screen. “You can’t handle the truth!”

– The Firm (1993)

– Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Audiences didn’t love him as Lestat, but the film was critically acclaimed nevertheless.

– Mission: Impossible (1996)

The movie that kicked off a billion dollar franchise!

– Jerry Maguire (1996)

“Show me the money!” Cruise received a second Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a second Academy Award nomination for this romantic comedy, which co-starred Renee Zellweger.

– Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

– Magnolia (1999)

Cruise earned a third Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a motivational speaker, but he missed out on an Academy Award for a third time.

– 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)

An unrecognizable Cruise plays a ribald studio executive producer who was reportedly modeled after Harvey Weinstein.

– Valkyrie (2008)

– Knight and Day (2010)

– Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2001)

– 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)

Top Gun: Maverick  (2021)

Maverick is back to fight unnamed U.S. enemies, romance an age-appropriate new love interest (Jennifer Connelly), and oh yeah, save Hollywood! With a cast full of easy-on-the-eyes new fly boys and girls, it’s easy to see why Top Gun: Maverick was such a smash hit .

– Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023)

What’s next?

-Untitled eighth Mission: Impossible film (2025)

More Mission: Impossible movies … yay? Oh well, it’s not like we don’t have a ton of other movies in the Tom Cruise catalog to occupy our time. This guy sure has been busy for these past few decades!

(featured image: Paramount Pictures)

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Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski: ‘Of all Tom Cruise’s characters, Maverick might be closest to his real personality’

The belated sequel to Top Gun is easily the highest-grossing film of 2022 – as well as Tom Cruise’s most successful movie ever. Its director explains how hard it was to make the film and why its star never, ever gives up

In 1990, Tom Cruise told Playboy he wouldn’t make Top Gun 2, for fear it might glorify or gamify war. What changed? It’s a film about competition and friendship and sacrifice. It was never a film about war. We wanted to give people insight into a world and to experience what it’s like to ride in one of these machines. But the desire was to tell an emotive story about a guy in his 50s. The push was: what’s the audience feeling about that? We were pretty ruthless in making sure that we were always pushing that story, even in an action scene.

Does it feel strange to still be discussing something you shot in 2018? It is a little weird. The pandemic is a strange, two-year gap we all have. I’m just relieved the movie worked out and was released in the way we wanted. There was a lot of pressure on Tom [Cruise] and Jerry [Bruckheimer, the producer] to put it out on streaming. I’m glad we waited because we made it for the big screen and I think it was the movie that a lot of people came back to cinemas to see.

Maverick is a mortal person, if quite an unusual and resilient one. Do you think there’s waning interest in superheroes? I do feel like the movie probably hits differently post-Covid. We are all in a different headspace. Every sequence in this movie was flown by real navy pilots: real people doing extraordinary things. People tell me that they’re gripping on to the edge of their seat in the third act. That’s exactly what we hoped for.

It’s also quite an earnest film. There’s not a lot of sarcasm. It wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s OK to show some genuine emotion. Men crying in the movie is a good thing. We approached it in a very honest, straightforward way. What Tom does dramatically in a film that also requires such incredible action skills – you just can’t take that for granted. I can’t think of anyone else who would be able to do both things and produce the film.

You’ve spoken about how Cruise mentored the younger stars on the film. Yet his charisma is so singular it’s hard to see how they could ape him. Of all the characters he’s played, I think Maverick might be kind of the closest to his real personality. He’s always pushing the envelope. The young actors were so curious to just pick his brain. Here’s a guy who has the career that they all dream about and he’s willing to talk about how he got there.

Glen [Powell] read for the part of Rooster and didn’t get it; Miles Teller did. He didn’t want the part of Hangman; he wanted the lead. Then Tom explained to him that as a young actor, you have to choose great movies, not great roles. It totally changed Glen’s approach.

What do people fail to appreciate about Cruise? Everyone knows he gives 110% every day. But the amount of work it takes to make movies like this requires a level of commitment that’s pretty astonishing. He just never gives up.

What do you think he sees in you? What’s the kinship? He knows I’ll work as hard as I can on every frame. I’m always willing to have the conversation and be open to the best idea. We like fast cars, fast planes, you know, all that kind of kinetic movement. Two of the five films I’ve made have been with him.

Is there still snobbery around mainstream action hits? No, the critics embraced it, the audience embraced it, the industry embraced it. I got emails from the heads of every studio congratulating us on the film. Everyone’s rooting for us. And it played overseas bigger than it played domestically. The themes are very universal. We’re not pointing at a specific enemy. We’re not making a political statement. We’re just trying to tell this very honest story about a guy struggling with some things in his life set against the backdrop of this incredibly demanding, exciting job.

How delicate a dance was that depoliticisation? I actually enjoyed the creative challenge of saying: how can I make this enemy so unidentifiable that no matter how hard someone tries, they’ll never be able to pick them out?

Did the Pentagon involvement ever feel compromising? I know on the first film Jerry had to work hard to persuade them to participate. This time that wasn’t the case, because so many of the decision-makers joined the navy because of the first film. We lived on an aircraft carrier for a couple of weeks. That’s tough: 5,000 people on a ship operating 24/7. You get in your bunk exhausted at the end of a 15-hour day and there’s aircraft taking off 5ft above your head all night long. A constant din of activity: very loud and very busy. It’s intense.

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Is flying safe with sleep deprivation? I hear that if you live on the ship for a while, you have trouble sleeping when you come back home and there’s no sound.

Will it be hard to top this success? Yes. But this is Top Gun. It’s like such a special thing: 35 years of love and pent-up excitement. I don’t know if there are many other films out there so beloved and untouched. For me, box-office success is not how I gauge the films I work on. Your films are like your kids: you love them each the same.

Is culture today more nostalgic than 10 years ago? There’s this sense of pining for the way things were. The 80s seem like a simpler time. A nice naivety to life pre-internet. We weren’t bombarded with as much information. The film intentionally has a throwback sensibility. There’s very little in it that ties it to 2022. Maverick has a BlackBerry, but that’s about the only real piece of modern technology in the film. All the real emotional drama occurs in face-to-face conversations. It is a little bit of a fantasy world. Maverick can ride around without a helmet and the sun’s always setting.

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Top Gun : Maverick ’s Cannes Film Festival premiere marks another high point in the movie star career of Tom Cruise . The actor turns 60 on July 3, and unlike most leading men of that age who become quicker to call for the stunt double, Cruise shows little evidence of slowing down after 43 films. If anything, his Mission: Impossible stunts seem to grow more ambitiously dangerous, not to mention the fact that he and director Doug Liman will become the first to actually shoot a space film in space for real—aboard one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX crafts with the cooperation of NASA.

So how does Cruise continue to carve such a path?

“I’ve gotten to work with a number of actors who’ve had great success and long careers, Tom being at the top of the heap,” says Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. “He approaches every day with the enthusiasm that it’s his first movie, and at the same time puts the effort into it like it’s his last movie. That’s a good attitude to have; never take it for granted, give 110 percent every single day. Constantly push the crew and yourself to achieve excellence. I’m amazed by that, that he’s 40 years in and still loves what he does and isn’t slowing down at all. It seems like he’s accelerating, which is pretty amazing.”

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Here, a group of directors, producers and actors look back on their Cruise experience and why Hollywood won’t see another global superstar quite like this one.

Top Gun & Top Gun: Maverick

“Tom was our first and only choice for Top Gun , that’s who Tony Scott liked, and Don and I really pursued him,” recalls Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original hit with late partner Don Simpson. “I don’t think he was a pilot back then, but he just had the charisma and we loved what we saw in his film career. You could tell he was a terrific actor and that is so much of what it is all about.”

It was to become Cruise’s signature immersion into the process of preparation. “He went down to Miramar in advance and hung out with a lot of the pilots, found out what they liked and why they did what they did. He just cares so much, and not only about his character but the whole movie. A lot of actors walk into a role and just worry about themselves and how they’re perceived. Never Tom. That was the way he was back in ’85 when we made the first one, and he showed it again this time.”

On the first film, Cruise was the only cast member who didn’t lose his lunch while filming dialogue scenes inside those roaring jets. Mindful of that unpleasant experience, he made it his mission to make sure the new crop of actors playing Top Gun pilots in the sequel fared better.

“We learned on the first one,” Bruckheimer says. “He was the only one we got good footage on; we couldn’t use the footage on the other actors because he was the only one who didn’t throw up. So, Tom designed a flying program for all the actors this time. It took months to do this. First, they went up in a single engine prop plane, just to get a feel for flying. Then, an aerobatic prop plane, and then a jet, and once they were comfortable in that jet, he put them in the F-18. Tom designed [the process] himself to acclimate the actors to the G forces they would experience.”

Kosinski previously directed Cruise in the 2013 sci-fi film Oblivion . In the Top Gun sequel, the director says Cruise put so much into mentoring the young actors on set who were in awe of him. “Tom is an actor that, if you can get him interested in your project, then you can do almost anything,” Kosinski says. “When you combine that with something beloved like Top Gun , it becomes an unstoppable force when you go to make it. We needed that on this movie because what we were doing was very intense and there were a lot of things that hadn’t been done before. Having Tom there to push through the ideas and techniques we were going to use was really helpful. Tom knew just how difficult capturing those images would be, just how physically grueling it would be for the actors.

“I remember one day on the carrier, when Tom was sitting with these young actors, most of them just starting their careers,” Kosinski adds. “Miles Teller has a lot under his belt, but the rest were new. For them, every day was like a master class, and he would make time for them every day. He would sit down and have these impromptu sessions with the actors, either to talk about the scenes we were shooting that day, the technical aspects of shooting an aerial sequence, or broader advice, like how to build a career. I remember Tom asked Glen (Powell), what kind of career do you want? Glen said, ‘I want your career, Tom.’ So, Tom said, ‘How do you think I got that?’ Glen said, ‘By choosing great roles.’ And Tom said, ‘No. That’s not how I did it. I did it by choosing great films. Then, I took the roles and made them the best I could.’ That advice blew Glen’s mind. If you look at Tom’s career, that’s exactly what he did. He chose great films and directors he admired. Regardless of the size of the role, especially on a movie like Taps . And then he created something with it, made the role his own. That’s something these younger actors hadn’t thought about and can only get from someone who spent 30 years as a movie star. I thought it was really interesting to watch.”

Jerry Maguire

Cruise’s turn as the star sports agent who loses his throne after an existential crisis would mark his second Oscar nomination and one of his best-remembered performances.

Cruise shows a different side in the romantic comedy. Writer-director Cameron Crowe wrote many lines that were execution-dependent, that would be the difference between heartwarming and cringe-worthy, and Cruise embraced all of them. That includes the climactic scene, when Maguire pleads with his estranged wife (Renée Zellweger) to give him another chance, a plea delivered in a crowd of pessimistic women who’ve all had their hearts broken by cads.

“Oh, Tom couldn’t wait for that scene,” Crowe says. “I was a little nervous about some of the lines, like, ‘You complete me.’ It’s a slippery slope; if you lean wrong into a line like that, it’d probably be the first thing you cut. But he said, ‘I want to say I love you in this movie, and I want to say it with that line.’ And by the time he got to it, it was two in the morning, at the end of a long week.

“Tom surprised the women because we didn’t tell them that he would be there to do the scene with them that day. In he comes, and in the most loving way, this heavyweight was ready for the knockout. He gently crushed it. The ladies were crying. The crew members were crying. And Renée was a mess. He just took great pleasure in being able to deliver a line that he knew I was on the fence about. He’d said, ‘Just give me a shot, man. You’ll see if I got it, or if I didn’t.’ And, you know, I’m still just so proud of it.”

Crowe recalls other ways that Cruise endeared himself to those around him, from one late night when an In-N-Out Burger truck showed up, courtesy of the actor, or the way he handled the first young actor who pulled out of the precocious child part that eventually went to Jonathan Lipnicki.

“Tom stayed in touch with the mother of the kid who had asked to be replaced,” Crowe says. “Tom wrote him and called and sent him stuff. I only knew this because his mother called to say, ‘Thank you for everything Tom Cruise has done to make my son feel good about even being in the movie and working with him as much as he did.’ I went to Tom on the set and said I couldn’t believe what he’d done, spending the last few weeks making sure his spirits were high. Tom just said, ‘Well, I just don’t want that guy growing up, looking at movies and feeling disappointed about what happened. I want him to love movies.’ Wow.”

When Russell Crowe changed his plan from playing the assassin who conscripts a cab driver to drive him to a series of murders in Collateral , director Michael Mann went right to the doorstep of Cruise, even though it would be a decided departure from the actor’s résumé of hero roles.

“In Tom, I saw Lee Marvin,” Mann says. “When Tom zeroes into a certain kind of person, if they are far enough away from him so that it’s a turn-on for a man of adventure, to be on some kind of a frontier with a character he can get to know but is very different from him, I could tell that within him it becomes a real adventure. To play Vincent, this solipsistic sociopath, who has all the f*cking answers and is so methodical and good at what he does, it felt like Tom was a perfect fit. He’s a perfectionist about knowing how to do the things he is supposed to do, which is why he does his own stunts in Mission: Impossible . The sociopathy of this guy was so unique, in his cosmic indifference and outrageous statements that still crack me up when I see some of the scenes with Jamie Foxx in the taxi cab. ‘You ever hear of Rwanda? So, what do you care about one fat guy who gets thrown out the window?’ Or answering Jamie’s accusation of ‘you killed him’ with, ‘I didn’t kill him. The bullets killed him and then he fell out the window.’ The flat irony of Tom’s delivery on those lines is so perfect. It was a very different character for him, and I knew Tom would throw himself into whatever I needed to take him through to become that assassin.”

When I mention the memorable shootout scene in the nightclub and that Cruise’s proficiency with weaponry is reminiscent of the acumen shown by Keanu Reeves in the John Wick films, Mann is quick to correct the record.

“ John Wick’ s are not real techniques,” he says. “What Tom did, those are real techniques and there was a lot of training with my friend Mick Gould, who was the head of close-quarter combat training for the British SAS. The scene in the alley, there’s no cut in that scene… It came down to doing the work. There was nothing he was doing that wasn’t established close-quarter combat moves that came from months of training. That included blending in. Obviously, people know Tom, but I wanted him to feel what it would be like to blend in, to mix with people and have conversations. He went to Central Market and trained to be a FedEx delivery guy. He said to me, ‘They’re gonna know it’s me.’ I said, ‘No, they’ll see the sign that says FedEx, and you’ll wear sunglasses and a cap and carry that portable computer that drivers used to have when they made deliveries.’ Tom went in and delivered something to a liquor stand and sat down and struck up a conversation with a couple people and insinuated himself into the lives of others. There was a lot of psychological training he did. Tom is a dream. He sees the adventure in what we do, just the way I do, and I imagine other directors do. He just goes for it.”

Mission: Impossible

After scripting the Cruise World War II thriller Valkyrie , Christopher McQuarrie became the actor-producer’s creative partner on the Mission: Impossible franchise with 2015’s Rogue Nation , 2018’s Fallout , the recently completed Mission: Impossible –  Dead Reckoning Part One and the eighth installment currently in production. Cruise had stepped up his commitment to outrageously ambitious stunts right before McQuarrie got there, when Brad Bird directed Ghost Protocol , and Cruise scaled the glassy exterior of the world’s largest skyscraper in Dubai, 123 floors up. But it was on McQuarrie’s watch that Cruise hung from the exterior of a flying Airbus A400M in midair for Rogue Nation , and when Cruise broke his ankle after a leap during a chase in which he crashed into a wall. It was a rare mishap, and McQuarrie feels that Cruise is so meticulous in his stunt prep and so confident in his ability to walk away unscathed, that the director swallows hard and says yes.

“I was asked once by a film student: ‘How do you know when you’ve made it?’” McQuarrie says. “I said, ‘You don’t make it. You’re making it. Actively. All the time. May you never make it. May you always be making it. May you look back one day on all you’ve made and go right on making more.’ Tom embodies that. There is no finish line, no pinnacle, no summit. He applies all he’s learned to something new, then studies it with brutal honesty: Where did we go wrong? Where did we go right? How do we apply it to the next thing? How do we push the limits of what is possible? How do we create the most immersive, engaging experience for the widest possible audience? How do we do all that with an emphasis on character and story first? Tom’s not still here by accident.”

McQuarrie could not recall a stunt Cruise insisted on doing that the filmmaker tried to talk him out of. “I get asked that a lot,” he says. “Honestly, no. Is there anything I wish I hadn’t suggested? Absolutely. When I’m sitting in an A400M with the engines running and my friend is strapped to the fuselage, I’m thinking, Maybe I should have kept this one to myself. The truth is, that stunt seems tame now. What we’ve done since, I still can’t believe. If my hair could get any whiter, it would… Tom understands how all of the individual parts function. His level of preparation is exceedingly present and aware. The bigger the stakes, the higher the awareness. That awareness is contagious and enormously clarifying.”

J.J. Abrams made his feature directorial debut on Mission: Impossible III , the one in which Phillip Seymour Hoffman went mano a mano with Cruise after kidnapping the agent’s wife (Michelle Monaghan). Abrams says the stunts weren’t as eye popping as the ones in the films directed by McQuarrie and Bird (Abrams is a producer of all of those films). While Abrams was a hotshot TV director and showrunner with Alias , Cruise pushed for him to direct, despite his being untested on the big screen.

“I blame Tom Cruise entirely on my having a career,” Abrams says. “He did all the impossible heavy lifting I don’t think anyone could have done to give me a shot. I will be forever grateful for everything he did.”

They met when Cruise and Steven Spielberg wanted Abrams to script War of the Worlds (scheduling didn’t work) and they cooked up a Mission: Impossible movie different from the one Paramount thought it was going to make. “While I was shooting the Lost pilot, Tom watched Alias and asked if I would be interested in Mission: Impossible . They were meant to shoot that other version of Mission . Steven was meant to shoot Munich and then War of the Worlds , and somehow Tom convinced both Steven and the studio, and it seemed like a herculean task only Tom could do, but he managed to reorder the films. Steven agreed to do War of the Worlds first, and Mission: Impossible got moved to after. What I remember is that I had a meeting with Tom and Sherry Lansing, who was high on this other version of the movie. I remember Tom basically saying, that he and I were going to do Mission: Impossible together. I remember Sherry saying she liked the other script and Tom saying, ‘This is the one we’re going to do.’ And she said, ‘OK.’ I’m sitting there, watching him take a wild chance on someone who had never directed a feature before, and I couldn’t believe it was me. I came to learn that kind of thing is a normal Tuesday for Tom.”

Any fear Abrams had that the film’s star and producer would impose himself on a young director was quickly allayed. Abrams says Cruise had a clear understanding of the lanes each occupied, and that he relied on good directors to push him to do his best work.

“Any first film is a surreal experience,” Abrams says. “To have it be something where the first day you are filming in Rome with Tom Cruise on a Mission: Impossible set, now that is incredibly surreal. On the second film I directed, which was Star Trek in 2009, I remember getting to the set the first day and feeling the palpable sense of the absence of Tom Cruise. Which is to say, I had only known shooting a movie with Tom, which was a kind of gift you can’t find anywhere else. You have someone who you always know is working as hard — if not harder — trying to make something work, and he is number one on the call sheet. It’s an incredible rarity.”

American Made

Doug Liman, who directed Cruise in the fact-based American Made , the sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow and the upcoming film they’ll shoot in outer space, got to see more than most filmmakers what it is that makes Cruise tick.

“I lived with Tom when we made American Made ,” Liman says. “When you work with Tom, it’s a seven-days-a-week job. No matter how hard a worker you are, and I consider myself that, it’s nothing compared to Tom. After 40 or 50 straight days, we were coming up on July 4 weekend. It happens his birthday is July 3 and I’m thinking that since his birthday happened to fall on a holiday, maybe Tom will want to have a long weekend off to celebrate his birthday somewhere. I mention to Tom, ‘Are you thinking of going away for your birthday?’ Tom says, ‘No. I was thinking since we have the day off on July 3, we can use that time to have the eight-hour aviation meeting that we’ve been having trouble scheduling.’ I am beyond tired and I’m like, ‘You want to have an eight-hour meeting on your birthday?’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s what I want for my birthday. I want to be making a movie. That’s the best birthday present.’ There was no blowing out candles, either.”

“Cake? No, Tom doesn’t eat cake. You don’t get to look the way he looks, by eating birthday cake. You have to make a life choice there. You know the suit of armor, the exoskeletons he wore on Edge of Tomorrow ? They were extremely heavy, cumbersome, took 10 minutes to get on and off and was too heavy for him to sit in between takes. He would get out of the armor and go, we’re wasting all this time, me getting in and out of this suit. So, Tom gets this idea that, between setups, it would save time if, instead of getting in and out of his suit, we converted a child’s swing set into something with hooks that he could hang from, in between setups.”

For the result, picture the gangster Carbone, hanging from a meat hook in the freezer truck in Goodfellas .

“Yeah, that is the visual,” Liman says.

“Living with Tom on American Made , I came to the conclusion that it would be like if you imagined a premise for a high concept movie, where you got to wake up and be Tom Cruise for the day. He gets up with so much energy. He was a real taskmaster when it came to chores in the house. We didn’t have a housekeeper, for security reasons, and we had to clean the house. He would constantly pull out a pot that I had already cleaned and put back, and say, ‘This is not clean.’”

Liman is circumspect about timing and the story he and Cruise will film in space, but not the intent. “The thing both of us have in common is, we’re not interested in the gimmick of shooting a movie in outer space,” he says. “For Tom and me, it’s a challenge to make sure we make a movie that is so frigging good it can survive the inevitable criticism, ‘Did they really have to go into space to shoot that?’”

Barry Levinson, who directed Rain Man with Cruise, saw the film win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman’s turn as the autistic savant. Cruise wasn’t nominated for playing Charlie Babbitt, the hustler who kidnaps his brother Raymond and drives him to L.A. to claim an inheritance, but in Levinson’s mind, “Tom had the harder job,” he says. “It was a difficult role because he basically had to drive the movie. Otherwise, Raymond would just be content to sit in a motel. His obligation is to continually drive it and push him, and at the same time not exhaust the audience with a one-beat, ‘C’mon, we’re going.’ It was a very hard role, and he never got the credit he deserved for that film.”

Levinson got the job after Martin Brest, Spielberg and then Sydney Pollack were in and then out because of the tricky nature of the material. Levinson says they found the movie while shooting on the road trip, and what surprised him was Cruise’s skill in improv, and willingness to try most anything they could think of.

“When Sydney dropped out, we were seven weeks out from shooting and we hit the road and kept working on dealing with the relationship between the two of them as we went along,” Levinson says. “We did an extensive amount of ad-libbing and improv work for that film, and Tom jumped in there and ran with it. It was at that point very different for him, not only to be that type of character, but also because the movie was a two-hander. It’s just these two guys basically, and they’ve got to carry the movie. Tom was never resistant to the idea of, well let’s just see what happens if we do this. I said to him once, ‘Let’s get in a car, I wonder if the audience is thinking, the brother hasn’t done anything for Raymond. I think he needs to do something so at least he has made an attempt to deal with him.’ He said, ‘Well, what about if I gave him fresh underwear? That will lead to an argument. Raymond can’t wear that because he gets his underwear in Cincinnati.’ That was the basis of the idea to just have a little something, riding in the car. The two worked really well with each other. I know it sounds like it can’t be true, but it was as good a relationship between the two guys and in terms of what we were trying to accomplish. They were both contributing, and Tom was the one who had to push this movie all the time and I think Dustin would acknowledge that. You keep slowly seeing the changes, as he becomes more emotionally attached to his brother.”

A Few Good Men

To A Few Good Men director Rob Reiner, there is just about nothing Tom Cruise can’t do as an actor, and so he was not at all surprised by the way he went toe-to-toe with Jack Nicholson in his prime during that electric courtroom scene.

“I’ll tell you something. He’s a great actor,” Reiner says. “I know in the last many years he has been doing his Mission: Impossible movies and different things. It seems every really good actor, whether it’s Chris Evans or Mark Ruffalo, they are all in these big action pictures. The thing Tom used to do is, he used to balance that out. I would love to see him do some things that aren’t the franchise films. I’d seen him do things like Taps , Risky Business , and I never worried about him going up against Nicholson because Tom has an incredible work ethic. At that time, I’d never met a young actor with as much dedication as he had to the process. He worked his ass off in rehearsals. He was not only on time, but early every day, and always had his lines nailed. Never had I seen a young actor with a work ethic like this guy. He may tell you behind the scenes that he was intimidated by Jack, but I never saw it.

“When Jack came and we had the first reading of the script, he came fully loaded to work, with a performance at the table. In a table read, you’re usually just kind of marking it. And when Jack got into his performance, it just sent a message to every other young actor. Kiefer Sutherland, Tom, Demi (Moore) and Kevin Bacon and Kevin Pollack, everybody involved knew, you better step up here. We’re not messing around. Tom was always right there with it. I would love to see him play more complex characters than the ones he’s doing now because people don’t realize how great an actor this guy is.”

The Outsiders

When Francis Ford Coppola adapted the S.E. Hinton novel The Outsiders , he wound up with a cast filled with the most promising young actors in the business, from Patrick Swayze to Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell. Cruise’s role was smaller by comparison, but Coppola had an inkling he might be special based on how the rest of the cast buzzed about how it was Cruise who got the starring role in Risky Business , while the rest of them were confined to ensemble work.

“It’s hard for me to remember that time since I was so focused on casting all of the boys’ roles, of which there were many,” Coppola says. “In those days, I was very experimental about the way I handled auditions. I felt strongly that everyone who showed up be given a chance to show their strengths, so we held them in an open arena where everyone was able to watch the other actors’ auditions for the same roles. The method was as new to them as it was for me. Through that process, I discovered a wealth of talent from which to choose. It’s the luck of the draw I guess, but certainly Tom more than justified his promise. Risky Business was a great showcase for him, and as I recall, he left our set a few days early in order to begin production on that film.”

What stood out to Coppola was the young actor’s openness to messing with what would become his signature thousand-watt smile, to fit the character.

“I was impressed by his willingness to go to extremes in creating a character,” Coppola says. “If the role called for a chipped tooth, he would willingly chip his tooth. He is also very athletic, which you can clearly see in the scene where he backflips off a car. He did not go light or easy in his commitment. I liked his look, and I liked his performance in Taps . He might have been suitable for the older brother role, except he was a little young compared to Patrick Swayze.

“I can’t say that I would have predicted [what was to come for Cruise] at the time, but back when we worked together, he did impress me as a very committed actor with many gifts. Certainly, the incident of the self-inflicted chip in his tooth is an example of his whole-hearted commitment to character.”

Born on the Fourth of July

Oliver Stone badly wanted to tell the story of wounded Vietnam vet Ron Kovic’s transformation from gung-ho soldier to anti-war protester, and each time the film faltered, he could feel it crush the film’s subject. “I had written it with Al Pacino in mind,” Stone says. The movie fell apart when Pacino dropped out, and the project languished for years. Until Cruise sparked to it. The actor was coming off a string of hits that included Risky Business , Cocktail , Top Gun and Rain Man . He was the brightest young superstar in the business and used that clout to empower a picture that allowed him to test his acting mettle in a new way.

“I was broken hearted, and Ron was a basket case,” Stone says. “I said to Ron, ‘If I ever get the chance, I’ll come back and do it.’ Platoon opened up the world for me, and it was either Charlie Sheen or Paula Wagner who suggested Tom Cruise, who was her client. I had met with Tom, and he liked Platoon so much. Maybe no one was going to give the performance as Kovic that I’d seen Al Pacino do in rehearsals, but Tom had other qualities. He was the right age, he looked far younger [than Pacino] and he worked his ass off prior to rehearsal. He hung out with Ron Kovic for a few weeks, going around L.A. in a wheelchair and getting the moves down, getting the mentality down. Ron was such an enthusiastic teacher and Tom took everything he could and kind of fell in love with Ron in a way that he absorbed him into his performance. And they stayed in touch for many, many years.”

Stone says the shoot was grueling, but Cruise was game. “We started the film overseas in the Philippines, where Platoon was made, and for Tom and everyone else, it was a very tough shoot because of the subject matter. I remember the scenes in the hospital being especially difficult, but Tom stuck through it. I was not surprised because I saw his dedication. Tom is a person with a tremendous willpower and once he committed to the role, he really committed.”

Stone says he wondered if Cruise was saying yes to anything the director asked. “In the early scenes, I was worried because I hadn’t seen him wrestle,” Stone says. “He tells me, ‘I can wrestle.’ Well, I’ve been told that kind of thing by a lot of actors, and when you get there on the day of the shoot, when you have no f*cking time to adjust, you find out they can’t wrestle. So, I’m worried. He said, ‘Just trust me. Don’t put pressure on me, I put pressure enough on myself.’ And sure enough, he actually wrestled very well. So never doubt Tom Cruise, I suppose is the lesson.”

Minority Report

For a young actress playing a difficult role as a precognitive woman in the Spielberg-directed Minority Report , measuring up in a blockbuster can be a daunting task. For that reason, Samantha Morton says she often thinks of how much easier a difficult shoot became because of the film’s star.

“I suppose I didn’t fully appreciate how rare Tom was, but now having been in the industry so long, he’s incredibly rare,” Morton says. “Not only is he unbelievably professional, and at a time when a lot of very famous men around me were not being very professional, he was unbelievably generous to me as an actor and as a creative person in that space. And it wasn’t fake or false in a kind of job way. He is genuinely one of the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever worked with, and I cherish those memories of that experience because the job itself was very tough.”

“Mr. Spielberg was incredibly kind and supportive and they made me raise my game because they believed in me. When an actor of his caliber is on set, oftentimes those individuals can be all about the self, and here’s the opposite of that. Because of (Tom), it was, ‘What do we need to make us better?’

“I was 22 when I worked with him, and I didn’t have a huge wealth of knowledge in regards to his cinema history at the time, and I was just there to get my job done. I’ve since seen how exceptional his body of work is. He’s insanely talented and continues to be so, and I have more praise for him as the years go by. He wasn’t being like that because he had to, back then, it was just how he is.”

Morton mentions Cruise sending a coffee truck on a particularly trying day. “People do that now, but nobody did that stuff back then,” she says. “My character was always very emotional and vulnerable. And maybe I was being a bit too method for my own good at the time. But there were scenes where the character couldn’t walk, and he physically carried me all through this shopping mall because I wasn’t taking my own weight. I said, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ after I don’t know how many takes of the scene. He just smiled. A lot of other actors would have moaned, said something to the director who would have come back and said, ‘Is there any way Sam can just walk on this take?’ Not Tom. And I can tell you, his generosity and exuberance were contagious.”

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Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One: release date, reviews, trailer and everything we know about the Tom Cruise movie

What crazy stunts will Tom Cruise pull off in the latest Mission: Impossible movie?

Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt is back to save the world once again in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , the seventh entry in the long-running franchise. Mission: Impossible movies date back to 1996 and are defined by Cruise and the incredible stunts he performs — the wire hanging scene, climbing the Burj Khalifa, doing a HALO skydive and clinging to the outside of a plane as it takes off being some of the most memorable.

Even as Tom Cruise approaches 60, the Mission: Impossible movies seemingly get better as they go along. The last entry, Mission: Impossible — Fallout , is the highest rated in the franchise on Rotten Tomatoes (97% "Fresh") and had the best box office of any of the previous movies ($791 million worldwide).

So how will Cruise raise the stakes in this new entry to the action franchise? Here's everything we know about Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One .

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One release date

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One officially arrives in movie theaters on Wednesday, July 12 in the US and two days earlier in the UK on July 10.

The release of the seventh Mission: Impossible movie is a long time coming. Mission: Impossible — Fallout was released in 2018 and the hope was that the next movie would follow quickly on its heels with a July 2020 release. However, in the early days of the pandemic it was moved from that July 2020 date to December 2020, only for it to be moved again to November 19, 2021, then to May 27, 2022, and then again to Sept. 30, 2022, before it was finally shifted to its 2023 summer blockbuster date.

Part of the reason for the delays was the challenges of doing production during the pandemic. Production was shut down multiple times, first at the beginning of the pandemic and then again in 2021 when there were cases among the crew . At one point during production, Cruise was captured on audio criticizing crew members for not following COVID safety protocols.

With the new date for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , the shift impacts Mission: Impossible 8 (which is being filmed back-to-back with to movie number seven and will presumably be called Dead Reckoning Part Two ), moving from its previous date of July 7, 2023 to June 28, 2024.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One trailer

An all new trailer for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is now available, previewing two new big stunts in a franchise known for them and giving video games fans " Uncharted 2 vibes ." Take a look right here:

You can also check out previously released trailer and teasers directly below:

While not a trailer, footage that was shown from the 2022 CinemaCon event has been shared online. In it Tom Cruise is standing on a biplane over a gorgeous backdrop. Is there anything this man won't do for a cool looking stunt?

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One plot

Even though we're just about four months away from the movie's release, there is almost no information on what the plot of Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is going to be. But we can assume that Ethan Hunt and his IMF team will have to race against the clock to save the world from some kind of imminent destruction (after all, if it ain't broke).

While specific plot details are being kept secret, we have gotten some inklings on what stunts Tom Cruise will be performing for audiences’ enjoyment. A behind-the-scenes look at what Cruise and company have described as his most dangerous stunt came out in December 2022.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One cast

Tom Cruise has been at the center of the Mission: Impossible franchise since the very beginning as IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent Ethan Hunt. It has become one of the actor's most iconic roles in a career that also includes movies like Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick ), Risky Business and Jerry Maguire . 

While there were originally thoughts Cruise would hand the franchise off to Jeremy Renner after the latter was introduced in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol , Cruise remains a constant and the driving force behind the movies (Renner left the franchise after Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation ). However, Mission: Impossible has built up a team to go along with Cruise over its last few movies.

The IMF team that supports Cruise's Ethan Hunt is led by Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell (around since Mission: Impossible ), Simon Pegg's Benji Dunn (around since Mission: Impossible III ) and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust (around since Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation ). 

There are also some tenuous allies from past movies that will be returning for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , including Vanessa Kirby's White Widow and Angela Bassett's Erika Sloane, both of whom debuted in Mission: Impossible — Fallout. There's also Henry Czerny, who played Eugene Kittridge in the original Mission: Impossible .

Making their Mission: Impossible debuts with this seventh entry are going to be Hayley Atwell ( Agent Carter , Captain America: The First Avenger ), Cary Elwes ( The Princess Bride , Stranger Things ), Pom Klementieff ( Guardians of the Galaxy ), Rob Delaney ( Home Sweet Home Alone , Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw ), Indira Varma ( Game of Thrones, Obi-Wan Kenobi ), Charles Parnell ( The Last Ship , Top Gun: Maverick ), Shea Whigham ( Boardwalk Empire , Perry Mason ) and Mark Gatiss ( Sherlock , The Favourite ).

On March 10, director Christopher McQuarrie also announced via Instagram that Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham is joining the franchise in an unspecified role.

A post shared by Christopher McQuarrie (@christophermcquarrie) A photo posted by on

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One reviews

The reviews are in for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , and they are some of the best of the summer. In WTW's Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One review , our reviewed called it one of the most thrilling rides in the franchise.

Other critics were pretty laudatory as well, as the movie quickly became "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes and as of July 5 has a 98% score.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One director

Mission: Impossible went through four different directors with the first four movies of the franchise, including Brian De Palma, John Woo, JJ Abrams and Brad Bird. However, since Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation , the franchise has been shepherded by Christopher McQuarrie, who is once again serving as director for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (and Mission: Impossible 8 ).

The Mission: Impossible movies have been McQuarrie's calling card as a director, though he had previously directed Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012). Prior to taking over as a director, McQuarrie was best known as a writer, having penned The Usual Suspects and other Tom Cruise movies like Valkyrie , Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow . McQuarrie has also written all of the Mission: Impossible movies that he has directed.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One poster and photos

Check out photos and posters for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One right here:

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Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca , Moulin Rouge! , Silence of the Lambs , Children of Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars . On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd .

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Top Gun: Maverick’s director explains how he convinced Tom Cruise to come back

“I had 30 minutes to pitch this film. When I got there, I found Tom really didn’t want to make another Top Gun .”

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Nearly 40 years ago, Top Gun made moviegoers feel a small fraction of the thrill that comes with being a fighter pilot — in part thanks to Kenny Loggins’ anthem “Danger Zone,” but also largely due to the talents of the cast and crew, under the direction of the late Tony Scott. Arriving in theaters decades later, Top Gun: Maverick has to do right not just by the fans, but by the first film’s creators. How do you make audiences accustomed to the casual magic of CGI feel like they’re in the cockpit with these pilots in 2022 the way Top Gun did in 1986? For director Joe Kosinski, the answer was: You do it for real.

As his previous films Tron: Legacy and Oblivion prove, Kosinski is accomplished at both making unlikely sequels to decades-old films and delivering blockbuster action starring Tom Cruise. Top Gun: Maverick shows the director combining these talents for a throwback summer blockbuster that feels real in a way big-budget movies haven’t in some time.

In a call with Polygon, Kosinski dove into the way Top Gun: Maverick makes viewers feel like they’re in those jets, how he convinced Tom Cruise to star, and how the right villain for a Top Gun movie might just be no one.

Polygon: Let’s start with your connection to Top Gun . What was your experience like with the first movie?

Joseph Kosinski: I saw the movie for the first time as a 12-year-old kid, and for me, it was the prototype for the ultimate summer movie. It made Tom Cruise a superstar, and [producer Jerry] Bruckheimer and [producer Don] Simpson had done Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance at that point. When you saw that dual lightning strike at the beginning of a movie, it meant you were gonna have a good time.

But otherwise, it was not necessarily a movie that I had revisited a lot, until Jerry sent over an early version of a script in 2017 that he wanted me to take a look at. I’d made [ Oblivion ] with Tom at that point, and obviously had an incredible experience doing that.

Was everyone on board for Maverick from the start?

So I read the script, I had some ideas, and Jerry liked those ideas. He said, “You know what, you gotta go pitch this to Tom directly.” So we flew to Paris, where Tom was shooting Mission: Impossible , we got about a half hour of his time between setups. And I basically had 30 minutes to pitch this film, which I didn’t realize when we were flying over. But when I got there, I found that Tom really didn’t want to make another Top Gun .

It’s one of those moments as a director, you have one on every film, where you’re on the spot to make a case for why this movie should be made. I had 30 minutes to do it. And at the end of the pitch, he picked up the phone, he called the head of Paramount Pictures and said, “We’re making another Top Gun .” It’s pretty impressive to see the power of a real movie star in that moment.

How did you pitch it to Tom Cruise? Did he tell you what convinced him?

Well, I worked with Tom, and I knew to start with character and emotion. I just pitched this idea of Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller) growing up to become a naval aviator, and him and Maverick having this fractured relationship that had never been repaired. With Maverick getting called back to train this group of students to go on a mission that he knows is very, very dangerous.

The conflict [is about] the difference between being an aviator who goes in and risks his own life, and someone who’s in a more senior position that has to send others in to risk their lives. I talked to some Navy admirals who talked about that difference. It’s a different sort of pressure, it’s almost harder to send others in rather than go yourself. And to me, it felt like that leveraged the emotion of the past film and those relationships that we all love, but took it in a new direction. So that’s where I started.

I think that was honestly the element that really grabbed Tom, because it gave him an emotional reason to return to this character. The second thing was, what’s Maverick been doing? You know, where do we find him? And this is kind of my own passion, you know, coming through and pitching the Darkstar sequence [in the beginning], just being someone who has always loved airplanes and aerospace and studied aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering and loved The Right Stuff . So the idea of finding him as a test pilot on the bleeding edge of what’s possible seemed to me like the perfect way to find him, and Tom loved that.

He also must’ve loved how you planned to shoot this.

I showed him some videos of Navy pilots who put GoPros in their cockpits, and I said, “You know, this is out on the internet for free. If we can’t beat this, there’s no point in making this.” And he agreed. And then finally, I just had the title, you know, which I think kind of summed it all up. “We aren’t going to call it Top Gun 2 , we’re going to call it Top Gun: Maverick .” It’s a character-driven story, a drama with this giant action film around it. And that to me was what a Top Gun movie is.

Let’s talk a little bit about that Darkstar sequence. Jerry Bruckheimer says you were heavily involved in its conception.

Yeah, I mean, it was my dream. Skunk Works is this division of Lockheed that makes these planes that are top secret. They fly at night, no one knows they exist. We find out about them 20, 30 years after they fly.

I had just done a movie that was financed by Fred Smith, who is the founder of FedEx. And he told me he had a contact at Lockheed. He had just done a tour there — it helps to have friends in high places. He set up a meeting between Jerry, I, and Skunk Works, and we drove out into the middle of Palmdale and met with their senior staff. And I just said, “Listen, I want to put an airplane in this film that does this , this , and this . I know you guys have some experience in that area. We’re gonna give people a glimpse of something they’ve never seen before.”

And they said yes. I think the real reason they helped us was so we could make it as real as possible, but not too real, you know? We changed a couple of details so we’re not giving any secrets away, but it has a lot of features and details for people who really are into this world. I think they’ll get a kick out of it.

How do you get people excited about these pilots and the planes? Like other people I’ve talked to about it, I had an experience watching this, like, “Apparently I really like planes. Have I always been this way?”

Our approach is a classic movie approach. The only thing they could do in the ’80s was capture this stuff, at least the exterior shots, for real. You just can’t fake what it feels like to be in one of these jets, the forces, the way the light changes, the vibration, the sense of speed, all of that. There’s just no replacement for that.

I’ve noticed that people see this movie, and they just keep saying the same thing over and over: “It just feels so real.” And it’s funny, because maybe we’ve lost track of that a little bit with fantasy films or superhero films, where they’re creating images that you can’t capture for real. So you rely on CGI. But there’s just something different about capturing it for real. And for this film, we found a way to do it. And it just feels different.

In the original Top Gun , the villains aren’t really named. In Maverick , the pilots are training for a mission against a vague “shadow state.” What went into that decision?

It was specifically designed to be a faceless, nameless enemy, just like the first film. You know, this is a movie about friendship and sacrifice and teamwork and competition, just like the first film. It’s not a movie about geopolitics. We didn’t want it to be. So we designed it that way — the jets are fictional, they’re faceless enemies. The mission itself is about keeping the world safe.

And that was all by design, just because we wanted the focus to be on on the Maverick story, and his relationship with these characters. We made the movie in 2018. We started filming in 2018. And, you know, the world changes constantly. It’s really hard to make something that feels relevant, because the world is always changing.

Film Details

• Articles & Reviews

Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, sydney pollack, jeanne tripplehorn, gene hackman, holly hunter, technical specs.

Tom Cruise learns that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is, when he accepts an excessively lucrative offer from a Memphis firm after graduating from Harvard Law. In this thriller from director Sydney Pollack, based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham, Cruise's ambitious character Mitch McDeere discovers that the firm's prosperity is a direct result of its mob ties. When the murders and seductions pile up, Mitch must get to the truth and get out alive. Also starring Oscar winner Gene Hackman, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Paul Sorvino, and Ed Harris.

David Strathairn

Hal holbrook, steven hill.

Wilford Brimley

Bart whiteman, richard r ranta.

Terri Welles

Jeffrey ford, karina lombard, paul sorvino, jimmy lackie, margo martindale, tommy cresswell, william j parham, levi frazier jr., david a kimball, susan elliot, ollie nightingale, jonathan e kaplan, mark johnson, jerry weintraub, brian casey, jerry chipman, james white, victor nelson, clinton smith, joe viterelli, terry kinney, william r booth, chris schadrack, michael d allen, debbie turner, lannie mcmillan quartet, rebecca glenn, little jimmy king, teenie hodges, frank crawford, jerry hardin, erin branham, paul calderon, dean norris, tommy matthews, david dwyer, barbara garrick, afemo omilami, sullivan walker, deborah thomas, jeane aufdenberg, janie paris, joey anderson, ed connelly, greg goossen, david l abell, stephanie antosca, andy armstrong, brian armstrong, joyce arrastia, david beadle, jennifer blair, steve bowerman, bill bradford, randy bricker, sharleen bright, david brink, brooke brooks, charles brown, robert bruce, lauren buckley, david l butler, gerry byrne, debbie charboneau, marjorie chodorov, cathleen clarke, drew clarke, ann cockerton, lucy coldsnow-smith, carla corwin, john craigmile, eric davidson, richard davis, kim davis-wagner, andrew j. day, richard dean, mathilde decagny, michael dellheim, michael dick, lindsay doran, michael doven, francois duhamel, mary kate edmonstone, bruce ericksen, jenny evans, mark fabert, william farley, james c. feng, scott ferguson, carmen flores de tanis, jessica gallavan, michael gastaldo, thomas gilbert, claudia gilligan-ivanjack, john grisham, dave grusin, yael haffner, casey hallenbeck, barbara harris, scott harris, michael hausman, rachel heilpern, d. m. hemphill, jerry henery, a mcrae hilliard, j paul huntsman, steven husch, steven jackman, jerry jackson, chris jargo, chris jenkins, derek johansen, sunny wayne johnson, david jones, jonathan klein, robin knight, lisa knudson, larry leggett, vicki r lybrand, richard macdonald, david macmillan, elton macpherson, bobby mancuso, karen marmer, wende martin, joseph mcafee, marjorie mccown, leo mcdaniel, david mcgiffert, lee mclemore, lisa maria miller, robin l miller, dennis milliken, theresa repola mohammed, john monsour, paul murphey, myron nettinga, phill norman, ben nye jr., donna ostroff, randy ostrow, kevin patterson, jennifer portman, peggy pridemore, lyndell quiyou, david rayfiel, spencer h register, luke reichle, darin rivetti, pete romano, david rubin, scott rudin, carolann sanchez-shapiro, john r saunders, adam sawelson, matthew g sawelson, riko schatke, doug schwartz, nanette siegert, steven d spallone, fredric steinkamp, karl steinkamp, robert steinkamp, william steinkamp, daniel strol, mike thompson, robert towne, chris ubick, mark van loon, sam velasco, john g. velez, tommy walker, david weathers, ted whitfield, john willett, darryl wilson, jeanine wilson, michael t wilson, alonzo woods, frank woodward, award nominations, best original score, best supporting actress.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States on Video December 16, 1993

Released in United States Summer June 30, 1993

Meryl Streep was at one time mentioned to play a female version of the character Avery, who in the book is a womanizing male attorney.

Tom Cruise reportedly received $12,000,000 for this film.

Began shooting November 9, 1992.

Completed shooting March 20, 1993.

Rights to "The Firm" were purchased by Paramount for a reported $600,000.

Robin Wright was originally set to play Abby McDeere.

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Screen Rant

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

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

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

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

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

10 Movies That Defined Tom Cruise's Career

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

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

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

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

Every Michael Mann Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

Villain roles can help tom cruise stay relevant.

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

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

Source: Box Office Mojo

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

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

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

Christian Slater Reflects on The Missed Sequel Opportunity

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

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

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

The Enduring Legacy of 'Interview With the Vampire'

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

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

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

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

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The Possibility Of A Sequel With Cruise

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

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

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

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Tom Cruise Movies List

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

1. Top Gun (1986)

PG | 109 min | Action, Drama

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

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

Votes: 502,916 | Gross: $179.80M

2. Taps (I) (1981)

PG | 126 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 20,103 | Gross: $35.86M

3. The Outsiders (1983)

PG | 91 min | Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 97,603 | Gross: $25.60M

4. Losin' It (1982)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

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

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

Votes: 5,231 | Gross: $1.25M

5. Risky Business (1983)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 99,896 | Gross: $63.50M

6. All the Right Moves (1983)

R | 91 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

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

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

Votes: 20,402 | Gross: $17.23M

7. Legend (1985)

PG | 94 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

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

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

Votes: 72,518 | Gross: $15.50M

8. The Color of Money (1986)

R | 119 min | Drama, Sport

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

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

Votes: 93,312 | Gross: $52.29M

9. Cocktail (1988)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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

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

Votes: 91,915 | Gross: $78.22M

10. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 546,823 | Gross: $178.80M

11. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War

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

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

Votes: 116,009 | Gross: $70.00M

12. Days of Thunder (1990)

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

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

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

Votes: 96,451 | Gross: $82.67M

13. Far and Away (1992)

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

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

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

Votes: 68,347 | Gross: $58.88M

14. A Few Good Men (1992)

R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 287,499 | Gross: $141.34M

15. The Firm (1993)

R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 147,760 | Gross: $158.35M

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

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

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

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

Votes: 347,650 | Gross: $105.26M

17. Mission: Impossible (1996)

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

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

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

Votes: 470,491 | Gross: $180.98M

18. Jerry Maguire (1996)

R | 139 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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

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

Votes: 287,137 | Gross: $153.95M

19. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 375,349 | Gross: $55.69M

20. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 328,618 | Gross: $22.46M

21. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

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

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

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

Votes: 377,869 | Gross: $215.41M

22. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

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

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

Votes: 285,791 | Gross: $100.61M

23. Minority Report (2002)

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

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

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

Votes: 584,579 | Gross: $132.07M

24. The Last Samurai (2003)

R | 154 min | Action, Drama

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

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

Votes: 471,355 | Gross: $111.11M

25. Collateral (2004)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 433,291 | Gross: $101.01M

26. War of the Worlds (2005)

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

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

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

Votes: 475,427 | Gross: $234.28M

27. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

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

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

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

Votes: 390,888 | Gross: $134.03M

28. Lions for Lambs (2007)

R | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

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

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

Votes: 52,723 | Gross: $15.00M

29. Tropic Thunder (2008)

R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War

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

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

Votes: 448,299 | Gross: $110.52M

30. Valkyrie (2008)

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

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

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

Votes: 259,338 | Gross: $83.08M

31. Knight and Day (2010)

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

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

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

Votes: 210,383 | Gross: $76.42M

32. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

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

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

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

Votes: 528,596 | Gross: $209.40M

33. Rock of Ages (2012)

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

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

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

Votes: 81,682 | Gross: $38.52M

34. Jack Reacher (2012)

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

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

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

Votes: 365,157 | Gross: $80.07M

35. Oblivion (I) (2013)

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

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

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

Votes: 553,335 | Gross: $89.02M

36. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

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

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

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

Votes: 737,355 | Gross: $100.21M

37. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

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

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

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

Votes: 411,103 | Gross: $195.04M

38. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

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

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

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

Votes: 175,381 | Gross: $58.70M

39. The Mummy (2017)

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

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

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

Votes: 206,322 | Gross: $80.10M

40. American Made (2017)

R | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Crime

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

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

Votes: 208,345 | Gross: $51.34M

41. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

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

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

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

Votes: 378,310 | Gross: $220.16M

42. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Drama

After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

Director: Joseph Kosinski | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jennifer Connelly , Miles Teller , Val Kilmer

Votes: 697,961 | Gross: $718.73M

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

PG-13 | 163 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise , Hayley Atwell , Ving Rhames , Simon Pegg

Votes: 247,418 | Gross: $172.14M

44. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two (2025)

Action, Adventure, Thriller | Post-production

The 8th entry in the long running Mission Impossible franchise.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Katy O'Brian , Tom Cruise , Hannah Waddingham , Vanessa Kirby

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Tom Cruise produced a movie in Eugene during the summer of 1996 about Steve Prefontaine

In 1996 a film crew descended on Eugene to make a movie about Steve Prefontaine.

The film followed the relationship between record-breaking distance runner Steve Prefontaine and his coach Bill Bowerman.

Prefontaine was a star athlete from Coos Bay who ran for the University of Oregon and later competed in the Olympics in the 1970s.

He died in an automobile accident in Eugene on May 30, 1975, at the age of 24.

The film was written and directed by Robert Towne and produced by Tom Cruise.

Hundreds of locals appear as extras in the film at locations around Oregon, Lane Community College and Hayward Field.

The $25 million movie was released and distributed by Warner Bros. in 1998.

Cruise himself visited Eugene in 1998 for a screening of the film at the McDonald Theater.

The movie was well-received by critics but ended up grossing only $777,000 at the box office.

Contact photographer Chris Pietsch at [email protected] , or follow him on Twitter @ChrisPietsch and Instagram @chrispietsch

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Tom Cruise produced a movie in Eugene during the summer of 1996 about Steve Prefontaine

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Tom Cruise Creates His Own ‘Trafalgar Square’ Tube Station Filming Mission: Impossible in London

The actor was pictured filming scenes for the eighth 'Mission: Impossible' movie in the British capital on April 28

Raw Image / Goff / Splash / SplashNews

Tom Cruise has taken over the streets of London!

On Sunday, April 28, the actor, 61, was photographed filming scenes for the next Mission: Impossible movie in the British capital outside an invented Tube station called 'Trafalgar Square.'

Cruise shut down the real Trafalgar Square for the shoot as he was seen coming in and out of the London Underground station while surrounded by crowds of extras.

Off camera, the action star appeared in happier spirits as he chatted to members of the crew in between takes. 

The eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise is set for a May 23, 2025 release. According to Deadline , the release was delayed by a year due to the SAG-AFTRA strike , which ended in November 2023.

Cruise returns to the franchise as protagonist Ethan Hunt, along with director and longtime collaborative partner Christopher McQuarrie. 

The actor was spotted filming more adrenaline-fueled scenes for the action movie in London last month. 

On March 24, the American Made star was photographed sprinting down a street in the capital wearing a black suit with an unbuttoned white shirt covered in fake blood.

Last summer, Cruise returned to the big screen in the seventh film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning .

The film made $172 million at the domestic box office and earned the franchise its first Oscars nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the 96th Academy Awards earlier this year.

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Meanwhile, Cruise is reportedly set to appear in another sequel of his movies for the third Top Gun film , following the huge success of the second installment, Top Gun: Maverick , released in 2022. 

In January, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Paramount is developing the sequel with co-writer Ehren Kruger, with Joe Kosinski set to direct. According to the outlet, the film will see Cruise return in his role as Pete Mitchell, alongside his Maverick costars Glen Powell and Miles Teller .