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The Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School is where the best of the best train to refine their elite flying skills. When hotshot fighter pilot Maverick is sent to the school, his reckless atti... Read all The Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School is where the best of the best train to refine their elite flying skills. When hotshot fighter pilot Maverick is sent to the school, his reckless attitude and cocky demeanor put him at odds with the other pilots, especially the cool and col... Read all The Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School is where the best of the best train to refine their elite flying skills. When hotshot fighter pilot Maverick is sent to the school, his reckless attitude and cocky demeanor put him at odds with the other pilots, especially the cool and collected Iceman.

• Jack Epps Jr.
• Tim Robbins
• Kelly McGillis
• 863 User reviews
• 193 Critic reviews
• 50 Metascore
• 11 wins & 9 nominations total

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• Air Boss Johnson

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Who Was Almost Cast in 'Top Gun'?

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Did you know

• Trivia Stunt pilot Art Scholl was killed during the production of the movie, aged 54. He died when his Pitts S-2 camera plane failed to recover from a flat spin and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. Scholl's last words over the radio were "I have a problem - I have a real problem." The exact cause of the crash was never determined, and neither the aircraft nor Scholl's body were ever recovered. The film is dedicated to him.
• Goofs The term "bogey" is misused throughout the movie. A bogey is an unidentified aircraft. Once identified, it is referred to as a "friendly" (for friendly aircraft), "bandit" (for non-friendly aircraft) or "hostile" (for non-friendly aircraft that may be fired at). In USN terminology, a non-friendly surface radar contact is a "skunk".

Iceman : You! You are still dangerous. But you can be my wingman any time.

Maverick : Bullshit! You can be mine.

• Crazy credits The opening credits sequence features a history of the Top Gun program before the title of the film appears on screen, with the remainder of the opening credits devoted to footage of planes being launched from and landing on an aircraft carrier.
• Alternate versions The version of the film shown on the Paramount Network has nearly all of the profane language intact (basically everything but the word "shit"). However, this version also randomly cuts out several scenes and parts of scenes, presumably to fit in the network time slot allotted. Scenes missing altogether include (but are certainly not limited to) Maverick and Goose conversing in their housing regarding whether or not they'll graduate, and Jester and Viper conversing, with Viper revealing hew knew Maverick's "old man." The latter is especially surprising considering this plot point plays a major role in a later scene.
• Connections Edited into MacGyver: GX-1 (1987)
• Soundtracks Danger Zone Written by Giorgio Moroder & Tom Whitlock Performed by Kenny Loggins Produced by Giorgio Moroder Kenny Loggins courtesy of CBS Records

User reviews 863

• Jan 10, 2007
• How long is Top Gun? Powered by Alexa
• What military conflict is going on in the movie? Is there an actual war, or just one isolated incident against Soviet fighter planes for some reason?
• What is Top Gun about?
• The soundtrack has a song called "Through The Fire" but does that song actually appear in the movie?
• May 16, 1986 (United States)
• United States
• Top Gun. Pasión y gloria
• 102 Pacific Street, Oceanside, California, USA (Charlie's house)
• Paramount Pictures
• Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $15,000,000 (estimated)
• $180,258,178
• May 18, 1986
• $357,288,178

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 49 minutes
• Dolby Stereo
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Digital EX
• Dolby Atmos

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See the ‘Top Gun’ Cast, Then and Now (Photos)

Catch up with the stars of the original 1986 hit now that “Top Gun: Maverick” has made Hollywood history

“ Top Gun: Maverick ” is, without a doubt, one of Hollywood’s biggest success stories. The long-awaited follow-up to the 1986 cult classic film “Top Gun,” “Maverick’s” domestic theatrical gross soared over $700 million ; making it one of the top 5 highest-grossing North American films of all time, alongside “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Avatar.”

There are a lot of things about “Maverick” that make it worthy of such sweeping success: epic, adrenaline-pinching stunts performed by the franchise’s frontman Tom Cruise, whip-smart dialogue and heartwarming friendships and relationships that are impossible not to root for.

But one of the elements that audiences are most taken with in the new film is that it is a great throwback experience that provides the perfect dosage of nostalgia from “Top Gun.” With that in mind, we saw it high time we look back at the characters in the ‘86 film and see what the actors playing them are up to today.

Tom Cruise (Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell)

After enrolling in one of the world’s top fighter schools, Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s gutsiness is pushed to its limits by his peers/fellow daredevils, including the cutthroat Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer).

In the decades after his appearance in “Top Gun,” Cruise has remained one of the best-known actors in Hollywood. He has earned three Academy Award nominations, which include Best Actor noms for the 1990 film “Born on the Fourth of July” and the 1997 film “Jerry Maguire,” as well as one for Best Supporting Actor for 2000’s “Magnolia.” Cruise is known for performing many of his own stunts in action films, including the wildly popular, box office-dominating “Mission: Impossible” franchise, which has a new entry coming out in 2023 — and, of course, in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Kelly McGillis (Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood)

Charlie is Maverick’s love interest… and his instructor. Yes, things quickly get steamy and awkward.

McGillis appeared in a couple of big films after “Top Gun,” the most notable being 1988’s “The Accused,” in which she starred alongside Jodi Foster. Most recently, the actor has primarily appeared in TV movies like “Love Finds You in Sugarcreek” (2014), “An Uncommon Grace” (2017) and “Maternal Secrets” (2020). The actor noted that “Maverick” filmmakers did not ask her to return for the reboot, stating “I’m old and fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about.”

Val Kilmer (Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazanksy)

A fellow student at the fighter academy, Iceman starts off as one of Maverick’s biggest rivals, and turns into one of his best friends. Yes – it’s exactly as heartwarming as it sounds.

After “Top Gun,” Kilmer remained a big-name movie star, appearing in Hollywood hits such as “True Romance” (1993), “Batman Forever” (1995) and “Heat” (1995). Tragically, the actor’s career was put on pause when he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 – a battle that was chronicled in the documentary “Val.” However, Kilmer’s struggles didn’t stop him from reprising his role as the iconic Iceman for a cameo in “Maverick.”

Anthony Edwards (Junior Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw)

Another one of Mav’s besties, Goose is a radar intercept officer and overall a top-notch dude.

Since “Top Gun,” Edwards has been keeping busy. The actor recently made the switch over to primarily TV roles, appearing in popular shows such as “Blue Bloods,” “Billions,” “Designated Survivor,” “Inventing Anna,” “WeCrashed” and, most recently, “Tales of the Walking Dead.”

Tom Skerritt (Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf)

The top instructor at “Top Gun,” Viper is fittingly a top-rate mentor to his students.

Skerritt has boasted a fruitful career since appearing in “Top Gun” – one that earned him an Emmy Award for Actor in a Drama Series for 1993’s “Picket Fences.” More recently, the actor has appeared in indie films like Kim Bass’s “Day of Days” (2017), a 2019 short film called “The Phantom 52” and Michael Feifer’s “Catch the Bullet” (2021).

Michael Ironside (Lieutenant Commander Rick “Jester” Heatherly)

Another great instructor in “Top Gun,” Jester takes no nonsense from no one.

After appearing in “Top Gun,” Ironside continued to have a successful film career, appearing in films like “Total Recall” (1990), “Free Willy” (1993) and “Starship Troopers” (1997). In recent years, his acting plate has remained full. The actor has appeared in everything from “X-Men: First Class” in 2011 as the Captain, to the 2016 “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” TV series as Emperor Zanmaron, as well as the hit series “The Dropout” just this year.

Sadly, Ironside’s recent jobs don’t include a reprisal of his role as “Jester.” The actor said he thinks that has something to do with his less-than-rosy relationship with the film’s producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “The one person still in charge is Jerry Bruckheimer, and Mr. Bruckheimer and I didn’t really get along,” Ironside explained in an interview with Movieweb . “He offered me a project 10 or 12 years ago and… I said no to it,” Ironside said, noting that the next time he saw Bruckheimer was at a hockey game, and the producer gave him the cold shoulder.

Meg Ryan (Carole Bradshaw)

The wife of Goose, Carole doesn’t have the biggest role in “Top Gun” – but she is certainly a scene stealer.

One of the most popular rom-com darlings of the 1990s, Ryan skyrocketed to fame after her relatively small role in “Top Gun,” appearing in classic films like “When Harry Met Sally” (1989), “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and “You’ve Got Mail” (1998). More recently, Ryan has made guest appearances on shows like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Web Therapy,” and voiced the narrator on the scrapped “How I Met Your Dad” pilot. Ryan will also return to her rom-com roots with the film “What Happens Later,” which she both directs and stars in (alongside David Duchovny).

John Stockwell (Lieutenant Bill “Cougar” Cortell)

“Top Gun,” at its heart, is all about brotherhood and loyalty, and it’s hard to think of a more loyal wingman to our Maverick than Cougar.

While his performance as Cougar captivated audiences back in ‘86, Stockwell is more than just an actor. In fact, he actually earned an Emmy nomination for writing the 2000 film “Cheaters.” Stockwell’s most recent credits include an acting cameo in the 2018 series “Escape at Dannemora,” as well as the director title on the 2017 film “Armed Response,” starring Wesley Snipes and Anne Heche.

Tim Robbins (Lieutenant Junior Sama “Merlin” Wells)

Radar intercept officer to Cougar, and later to the one and only Mav.

Robbins enjoyed a fruitful career as a leading man after appearing in “Top Gun.” Some of his most well-known post-Merlin roles include “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994), “Mystic River” (2003) and “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990). Recently, the actor appeared in Hulu’s Stephen King-based TV show “Castle Rock” (2019) and Todd Haynes’ 2019 film “Dark Waters.”

James Tolkan (Commander Tom “Stinger” Jardian)

Stinger is an essential piece of the Top Gun Academy puzzle: he’s the commander of the USS Enterprise Carrier Air Group.

Perhaps best known for his roles in the “Back to the Future” series as Mr. Strickland, Tolkan is still acting to this day. Recently, he appeared in the 2015 film “Bone Tomahawk” and a fun 2020 “Back to the Future” fan remake.

Rick Rossovich (Lieutenant Junior Ron “Slider” Kerner)

Loyal radar interceptor to the one and only Iceman.

Since appearing in “Top Gun,” Rossovich has acted in a number of varying projects, including the 1990 action flick “Navy Seals,” and the laugh-out-loud Steve Martin-starring comedy “Roxanne” (1987). Recently, Rossovich’s on-screen appearances have been few and far between, and he has only appeared in five projects since the year 2000. His most recent role was in a 2016 short film called “A Beautiful Day.”

Whip Hubley (Lieutenant Rick “Hollywood” Neven)

If there was ever a suitable sidekick for the illustrious Iceman, it’s the ever-eager Hollywood.

After “Top Gun,” Hubley turned largely to TV series such as “Murder, She Wrote” (1994-96), “The Practice” (2000) and “CSI: Miami” (2003). The actor took a bit of an acting hiatus in 2013, but returned to the screen this year for a film called “Alchemy of the Spirit.”

Barry Tubb (Lieutenant Junior Leonard “Wolfman” Wolfe)

Yet another loveable sidekick, this time to the character Hollywood (Whip Hubley).

After appearing in “Top Gun,” Tubb snagged roles in big projects like 1989’s “Lonesome Dove,” and 2001’s “American Outlaw.” However, he hasn’t acted in almost 10 years, with his last project being a 2014 TV movie called “Deliverance Creek.”

Clarence Gilyard (Lieutenant Junior Marcus “Sundown” Williams)

What’s that? Another radar interceptor? This one belongs to Chipper (Adrian Pasdar), and migrates to Mav’s side toward the end of “Top Gun.”

After playing “Sundown,” Gilyard had a fruitful career in film and TV, which included roles in “Die Hard” (1988), and the popular TV series “Walker, Texas Ranger” (1993-2001). More recently, the actor has been in a couple of short films and acted as the chair of the film program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Sadly, Gilyard passed away on Nov. 28, 2022, at the age of 66.

• Entertainment

Nearly 40 Years Later, See the Cast of "Top Gun" Then and Now

Thirty-six years after the original " Top Gun " hit theaters, its sequel, " Top Gun: Maverick ," is still packing a powerful punch for fans of the first film and new audiences alike. The film, which stars familiar characters Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, centers around Maverick's return to TOPGUN to train a new set of ambitious, experienced Navy pilots in the years following his experience at the flight school over three decades ago.

"Top Gun: Maverick" keeps the nostalgic, lively tone that first drew viewers to the screen in the 1980s but revitalizes Maverick's story in a way that is equally as poignant. While some characters of the original "Top Gun" are present in the sequel, there are others that did not physically return for "Top Gun: Maverick," though their presence is established in the film. Let's look back the cast of "Top Gun" from their days in the original movie compared to today.

Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell Then

In the original "Top Gun," Tom Cruise played the ambitious, daring, and certifiably handsome Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. In the film, Maverick is a young lieutenant who trains in the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School (aka TOPGUN) alongside his best friend, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw. When "Top Gun" was released in 1986, Cruise was an up-and-coming actor. He appeared in films like "The Outsiders" and "Risky Business" before landing his role in "Top Gun."

Tom Cruise Now

Since his early days of acting in the 1980s, Cruise has established himself as one of Hollywood's most dependable stars. He has led several critically acclaimed films over the years, including "Rain Man," "A Few Good Men," "Mission Impossible," and "Jerry Maguire." Most recently, he is known for playing Jack Reacher in the self-titled film series.

The road leading to Cruise reprising his role was a long one that had dragged out for years. In an interview on " The Graham Norton Show ," he told the host how the process unfolded. "For years, the studios wanted me to do it and audiences wanted me to do it . . . And there was just a moment where Jerry Bruckheimer wanted to do it, and he came to me, we were talking about it and just came up with some good ideas," he said. "It was just that moment, I thought, 'If I'm gonna ever do this, now's the time.'"

Val Kilmer as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Then

Val Kilmer is notorious for playing Maverick's cocky, competitive rival in the original "Top Gun." In the film, Maverick and Iceman both attend TOPGUN flight school, which leads them to butt heads and compete against one another to be the best pilot. Prior to his role in the original "Top Gun," Kilmer starred in two other feature films, "Top Secret!" and "Real Genius." After the film's release in 1986, Kilmer's career took off.

Val Kilmer Now

Following the success of "Top Gun," Kilmer landed roles in several successful films in the '90s, including "The Doors," "True Romance," and "Batman Forever." The actor continued working well throughout the end of the '90s and into the 2000s, but by 2014, he was diagnosed with throat cancer . After receiving chemotherapy and a tracheotomy, Kilmer has limited use of his voice, but that didn't stop him from taking on acting projects like "Top Gun: Maverick."

In the film, Kilmer's character, Iceman, has limited lines , but his voice is loud and clear on screen due to the help of a company that re-created his voice using AI technology. In 2020, he vaguely discussed his role in the "Top Gun" sequel with ET and praised his costar Tom Cruise, saying, "I have to tell you, Tom Cruise is very cool. That is all I can tell you. The rest you will have to [find out]."

Kelly McGillis as Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood Then

What's a good action flick without a sprinkle of romance? Actor Kelly McGillis played the role of Maverick's love interest, Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood. The character of Charlie is not just a pretty face, however. In "Top Gun," she is an instructor at the flight school and woos Maverick with her brains and beauty. Before appearing in the film, McGillis starred alongside Harrison Ford in the 1985 film "Witness," which earned her Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations.

Kelly McGillis Now

After "Top Gun," McGillis continued acting in film, television, and even plays. Some of her film appearances include "The Accused," "Winter People," and "The Babe." Outside of her roles on screen, she has also performed on stage in Shakespeare plays like "The Twelfth Night" and "The Merchant of Venice." She most recently landed roles in TV movies, such as "An Uncommon Grace" and "Maternal Secrets."

Despite being a lead character in the original film, McGillis is not in "Top Gun: Maverick ." When asked by ET in 2019 if she was approached to return for the sequel, she jokingly said, "Oh my god, no. They did not, nor do I think they would ever. I mean, I'm old and I'm fat, and I look age appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about."

Anthony Edwards as Nick "Goose" Bradshaw Then

Before Iceman, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, played by Anthony Edwards, was Maverick's best friend and wingman. In "Top Gun," Goose is a radar intercept officer who grows close with Maverick as they train together at the flight school. Unfortunately, Goose tragically dies in a flight accident and leaves behind his best friend, wife Carole, and a son named Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw .

Edwards landed a few roles in successful films before his appearance in "Top Gun" and had acting credits that included "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Revenge of the Nerds" at the time.

Anthony Edwards Now

"Top Gun" was just the beginning of a prolific career for Edwards. Along with a number of movie roles, Edwards is perhaps most known for his portrayal of Dr. Mark Greene in the medical drama series "ER," which he worked on from 1994 to 2002 and then again in 2008. Most recently, he appeared in Apple TV+ 's series " WeCrashed ," as well as Netflix's " Inventing Anna ." Due to his character's death in the first "Top Gun," Edwards did not have a role in the sequel.

Meg Ryan as Carole Bradshaw Then

One of Meg Ryan's first movie roles was in "Top Gun," where she played Carole Bradshaw, the wife of Nick "Goose" Bradshaw. Carole is the mother of Bradley Bradshaw, who grows up to follow in his father's footsteps in "Top Gun: Maverick." Prior to acting in the film, Ryan had a few small roles in "Rich and Famous" and "Amityville 3-D."

Meg Ryan Now

Ryan's career blossomed during the 1990s. Throughout the decade, the actor starred in a handful of hugely popular movies, including "The Doors," "Sleepless in Seattle," and "You've Got Mail." Over her career, Ryan has earned several accolades, including three Golden Globe nominations.

The actor did not reprise her role in "Top Gun: Maverick ," which was a choice by the film's director, Joseph Kosinski. He told Cinemablend that the choice was influenced by his idea to introduce a new perspective to Maverick's life, saying, "Clearly, their spirits hang over the film in certain ways. There is a glimpse, as you guys know, of both of them in the film. But it was important that we wanted to make sure we were telling a new chapter of Maverick's life. We didn't want to be looking back the whole time."

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‘unstoppable’ review: jennifer lopez & jharrel jerome wrestle with the odds against them in inspiring true story – toronto film festival, breaking news.

Tom Cruise: Deadline’s How They Reached The Top

By Matt Grobar , Mike Fleming Jr

After soaring to the highest heights of his career with Top Gun: Maverick , Tom Cruise looks to surpass that with the Mission: Impossible franchise’s seventh outing, Dead Reckoning Part One . From the time he launched his now over 40-year career with an appearance in Endless Love , Cruise was “laser-focused” on achieving greatness, Val Kilmer recalls in his memoir, looking to become not only one of the most iconic and commercially successful actors of all time, but also perhaps the most athletic, regularly pulling off stunts that no one else would dare attempt. There will never be another one like him.

Here, we chart the methodical growth of a star who  has shown courage and pluck and mostly making strong choices along the way. That will include his greatest ever stunt, which will be to head up to space with frequent collaborator Doug Liman and shoot the first narrative feature that way.

RELATED: Harrison Ford: Deadline’s How They Reached The Top

Taps (1981)

In a cast that included Tim Hutton, George C. Scott and Sean Penn, Cruise got his ‘who’s that guy?’ moment as a gung-ho military student who goes out in a blaze of gunfire. “When I made Taps , really my first film experience, I remember laying there at night in the hotel room thinking, I love this so much. I wanted it since I was four, and there I was, thinking if I did my best on Taps , maybe I could do this for the rest of my life.” Said Penn about his mate: “Tom was so, what’s the word, sincere a guy, that I overlooked his talent. I will tell you that I loved him and thought he had no chance in this business. Because he was just so nice, and seemingly naive at the time. Of course, he’s become this force as a professional. As good as he was in Taps , I totally underestimated his talent, the things that came later which are really extraordinary, and he’s really a machine.”

The Outsiders (1983)

Cruise was a supporting player in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel, but the actor was envied by every member of this killer cast. This was a coterie of young stars in the making — Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Matt Dillon — and Coppola told Deadline that they were being offered roles in ensemble films. But it was Cruise who’d landed a true lead in Risky Business , the role every one of them wanted. Cruise removed a cap from his front tooth to convincingly play a greaser kid from the wrong side of the Tulsa tracks, and he endured “sugar shock” from three days of cake eating for one memorable scene. Cruise said the film taught him comedic timing, which would come in handy.  

Risky Business (1983)

Joel Goodsen was Cruise’s ticket to the A list. Approached for “every killer-murderer part” after Taps , Cruise fought hard to convince Paul Brickman he was right for the precocious affluent high schooler with Ivy League dreams. From sinking his father’s Porsche 928 – “Which one of you is the U-boat captain?” said the mechanic who fished out and fixed the car – to making love on a train (Rebecca De Mornay), to the youthful spirit lip-synching of Old Time Rock N’ Roll in his skivvies, to outwitting Guido, the killer pimp and showing entrepreneurial chops as a brothel owner that gets him into Princeton, Risky Business was a tour de force that put Cruise atop the young actor lists.

All the Right Moves (1983)

Cruise tapped his experience as a high school football player for the sports drama about a youth whose hopes for a college scholarship and a trip out of the steel mill is jeopardized by a clash with his head coach. Drawn to the project by Michael Chapman’s work as the cinematographer of Raging Bull , Cruise began a tradition of doing his own stunts and wound up at the hospital with a concussion. He also used his growing clout to appeal to producers on co-star Lea Thompson’s behalf to have nude scenes cut or altered to the point where she’d be comfortable. Just one of the instances in which he would prove himself a natural leader on set.

Top Gun (1986)

Top Gun turned Cruise into one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Everything clicked. “Tony Scott was firing on all cylinders. Simpson-Bruckheimer had just produced Beverly Hills Cop ,” Cruise remembers. “It was an exciting time.” Cruise helped the film broaden beyond a domestic hit by throwing himself into the overseas marketing. When he grew up, his mom struggled to make ends meet, and Cruise dreamed of visiting the exotic locations he watched in movies. He pressed studios to let him travel to promote films at a time when overseas revenues weren’t deemed that important. It became the playbook for big stars, but Cruise really just wanted to see the world. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Deadline that it became impossible to shoot the actors flying in those jets, because they would vomit every time. Only Cruise was able to spit out lines instead of his breakfast. 

The Color of Money (1986)

Another important step for Cruise, who got to work with two legends, Paul Newman and director Martin Scorsese. He played Vincent Lauria, the cocky young pool hustler mentored by Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) and rekindles something in the pool player role that helped launch Newman’s star in The Hustler . Cruise bonded with Newman over their love of fast cars. “He was a helluve driver,” Cruise once told me. “I remember one day we were out at Willow Springs, and we brought out some stock cars, some big stuff from NASCAR. Every time we were around each other, we’d race cars against eath other…I remember this one day where I was driving well and thinking, finally, I got the old man. I came off this corner, thinking, I’m going to get him at the finish line, and he ripped past me. And as he went past me, he gave me the finger. And I don’t think I ever laughed so hard.” 

Rain Main (1988)

Dustin Hoffman won the Oscar playing autistic savant Raymond, and was able to immerse in the affectations and eccentricities of his character. Playing his conniving brother Charlie who kidnaps his sibling to drive to LA to claim an inherence and bonds with his bro on the road trip, Cruise wasn’t nominated. To director Barry Levinson, “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. 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.” Many of the best scenes were ad-libbed, and the Best Picture winner was important in establishing that Cruise had chops to go with starpower. 

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Oliver Stone had volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and came back injured and disillusioned, but a filmmaker with a purpose. He found his voice in addressing his war experience in Ron Kovic, the Long Islander who bought into the war, came back paralyzed, went through a fresh hell in a system that neglected wounded vets, and galvanized into an anti-war activist. Stone told me that the film kept falling apart and it crushed him to tell Kovic each time, until Cruise enlisted. “When I met Ron Kovic to write Born on the Fourth of July in ’77, I found somebody … now, I hadn’t done Platoon yet, so I had written Born back in ’77. But when I met him, I said, ‘This guy is more what I think I’m looking for. This is the return home. This is as stark as it can get.’ I went with his return, and that kind of vitiated the need to do my return.” Cruise gave one of his most transformative and emotionally vivid performances, which drew his first Oscar nomination. Cruise would say he was looking for “a real test” to determine if he was truly “any good” as an actor. And he committed to this “defining” moment fully, remaining in his wheelchair as much as possible during post-war scenes and delving deep into the psychology of a hero who felt his country had let him down. “My head was shaved, I’d lost weight, I was exhausted. And I got into that mind-set, and I saw it in Ron’s eyes,” Cruise once said. “You couldn’t fake it. You had to go there. When Ron got angry…he wanted to just explode. And I found it hard to disassociate those moments. It just became the world.”

A Few Good Men (1992)

Cruise didn’t shrink when his JAG lawyer character went head-to-head with Jack Nicholson’s grizzled colonel character in the iconic courtroom scene from this adaptation of Aaron Sorkin’s play directed by Rob Reiner. Said Reiner: “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 Pollak, everybody involved knew, you better step up here. We’re not messing around. Tom was always right there with it…people don’t realize how great an actor this guy is.”

The Firm (1993)

A huge hit for Cruise, but also intriguing is how his kinship with The Firm director Sydney Pollack was so integral to why Cruise was so gung ho to make Top Gun: Maverick, the film Spielberg said saved the movie business after Covid. “I always wanted to fly and that was one of the reasons I did Top Gun,” Cruise told me for the Playboy Interview. “I just never had the time to learn. Then I met Sydney Pollack. I was 19 or 20, and he was editing Tootsie at the time and I’d just finished Risky Business. I got a meeting with Sydney, it was supposed to be 20 minutes and it ended up being over two hours. Outside of my admiration of him as a filmmaker, we talked about a big mutual interest that we had in aviation because I knew he flew. Sydney became a lifelong friend, and when we finished The Firm together in ’93 or ‘94, he gave me flying lessons as the wrap gift. He said, I know how much you love flying. Take the time, right now, and do it, because otherwise you’ll never get to it. I had two kids by then, and I worked all the time. In a few months I had my instrument rating, and a little while after that I had my commercial rating. I trained mostly in aerobatics, because I wanted to fly the P-51. I was doing rolls, loops, all kinds of aerobatic maneuvers. My first airplane was called a Pitts, and then I flew a Marchetti. That’s a Third World air force trainer they use in the Top Gun schools for air to air combat. This was all in preparation to fly the Warburg, the P-51. I searched all over the world for my P-51 and found it in 2000.”

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Author Anne Rice was publicly critical when director Neil Jordan set Cruise to play her most famous character creation. The bisexual vampire Lestat was as charming as he could be cruel, as he turns both Brad Pitt and a young Kirsten Dunst into creatures of the night to form a family. Director Neil Jordan thought of Cruise for the part given parallels between the lives of the character and the actor, who likewise has to “retreat to the shadows” and “live in a spectral kind of world” given his immense fame. Rice changed her mind when she saw the result, and publicly became a big fan of Cruise’s performance, for which he learned to play piano and hung upside down before scenes to help along the creation of their undead looks. “I learned from the Anne Rice scenario,” Cruise told me later in a Playboy interview. “I should have called and sat down with her first, like I did on Born on the Fourth of July . I sat with Ron Kovic and said, I’ve been offered this; how do you feel about it? It was really a job interview.”

Mission: Impossible (1996)

The film adaptation of the old CBS spy series might have seemed like just another job, but at closer inspection, Cruise had been an action hero in training since boyhood. He sold greeting cards door to door, cut grass and raked leaves in Canada and Kentucky to buy his first motorcycle at 12, which he crashed doing stunts. A double gymnastic flip left him with a broken ankle (he’d break another on M:I6 leaping between buildings). Cruise became meticulous in stunt planning, but always made his directors and studio execs nervous. “When I was climbing at Mojave for Mission: Impossible 2 , Sherry Lansing was running Paramount and I held back sending them until we’d finished the sequence because I love her and didn’t want to give her a heart attack. Then we sent the rushes and normally Sherry would call right away to discuss them. I never heard from her on those. Finally, when I got back it was like, Tom, we’re not even going to talk about this.” Luckily for her, Lansing retired by the time Cruise hung off an ascending Airbus A400 airplane, or scaling the outside of a Dubai skyscraper, 124 floors up. 

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

It is still hard to even look at photos of Cruise scaling the perimiter of the Burj Khalifa, 124 floors high in Dubai. Cruise shugged when I asked him about it, saying that if he’d done the stunt 20 floors up and fell, he’d die. Why not an extra 100 floors? But the truth is that it was a nail biter of a day for Cruise, director Brad Bird, and the stunt team. But their meticulous attention to detail won the day. “I want it to be better than my director Brad Bird designed it, but I don’t have the level of blood flow through my body and I’m getting lightheaded because my body’s not getting enough oxygen,” Cruise told me in the Playboy interview. “And I’m hitting the side of the building. I rehearsed it in knee and elbow pads and a helmet the night before, but I couldn’t wear pads for the shot.  So I’m going off, and I’ll never forget; the sun is going down and we’re we’ve convinced the building now to knock out not just two windows but I think 27 windows. Originally they were worried about what it would do to the structure of the building, the pressure differentials through the building. But we’re like, C’mon, man, we’re making a movie! It’s Hollywood. And by the end of that day they were just ripping windows out. I was worried the whole time. The height is what it is, but is the cable gonna hold me if it gets kinked? Holding onto the building gave me a level of false security, but now I’m pushing away from the building, and I immediately realize, shit, I’ve got crosswinds. We’re so high that even a light crosswind would change my trajectory as I’m jumping across. I’m arching back trying to make it look good, but I’m facing out and I have no reference to the building. I have to know when to swing my legs around or it ruins the shot. I want to hold position as long as I can, and then at the last second catch the building. But I’m swinging in a pendulum arc, couldn’t sense the building and man, I slammed right into it at high speed and almost knocked myself out. Luckily I caught it right at the last second with my foot and came in with my elbow and knees. I try finding visual references, but it’s the highest building around and if my head’s looking down, it changes the trajectory of the arc. So I just had to start feeling when am I at the apex, when to adjust right at the last second and have enough energy to snap my body around to catch myself into the side of the building. It was one of those things where you just have to will it to go right.”

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Cameron Crowe’s film about a sports agent who finds his conscience in an existential crisis journey has many classic lines that could have become groaners. But it was the last scene that gave Crowe the biggest fear he might cross the line, until Cruise begged for a shot at pulling it off. “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 [Zellweger] 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 also recalled the courtesy Cruise showed to the youth who first had the role made famous by Jonathan Lipnicki, but who’d felt too much pressure and bowed out. Cruise stayed in touch with the boy and when Crowe later asked why, he said, “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.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Cruise set a Guinness World Record for longest continual film shoot 15 months shooting the Stanley Kubrick film. He did it to work with then-wife Nicole Kidman, but also to immerse himself in Kubrick. He played William Harford, a Manhattan doctor drawn into a sexual underworld following his wife’s admission of dissatisfaction in the bedroom, finding that Kubrick played mind games with him and Kidman in order to draw the most out of their performances. The filmmaker made them confront real personal issues in joint therapy sessions and prevented them from communicating during production, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The stresses of the process reportedly led Cruise to develop an ulcer, though he wouldn’t let it distract him from this opportunity to work with a filmmaking icon. “I didn’t like playing Dr. Bill. I didn’t like him. This guy’s holding everything in for such a long time. And he never broke out,” said Cruise. “It was unpleasant. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn’t done this.” Many believed this was an apprenticeship toward Cruise moving to the director’s chair, but that hasn’t happened yet. 

Magnolia (1999)

Cruise found a character like none other on his resume in Frank T.J. Mackey, a vulgar motivational speaker teaching men to “Seduce and Destroy,” In Paul Thomas Anderson’s surreal mosaic of Southern California stories. He came to inhabit the ponytail-wearing purveyor of phrases like “Respect the cock, tame the c**t” as a fan of Anderson’s Boogie Nights who responded to the script’s strange comedic bent. “I like humor. I thought it was dark and funny,” he said. “And that’s what I focused on, working on…the bitter humor of that.” But if Mackey was an outlandish type, he was made human by a pain regarding his relationship with his father, which led up to a staggering deathbed scene. Cruise landed another Golden Globe and Oscar nom for his work.

Minority Report (2002)

While Steven Spielberg initially looked to direct Cruise in Rain Man , he found his long coveted first opportunity to work with the actor on this noirish sci-fi actioner based on a Philip K. Dick novella. It was Cruise who brought the story to the filmmaker, viewing it as a vehicle to meditate on the emergence of Big Tech and its reach into society in “very cinematic” fashion. He stars as John Anderton, a police chief living in the year 2054, who oversees a department known as Precrime, which is able to identify and arrest future criminals before they’ve done a single thing. All is well, of course, until Anderton, himself, is accused.

The Last Samurai (2003)

Cruise delivered a performance of potent emotional depth in the Ed Zwick-directed drama. Nathan Algren was a veteran haunted by his participation in both the Civil War and the American Indian Wars who comes to a deep reverence for the Japanese after being sent overseas to help westernize the army of the Meiji Restoration government. Cruise looked at the project as his epic adventure film in the vein of Lawrence of Arabia , not only studying American and Japanese history for the role, but also learning the Japanese language and how to wield a sword and packing on over 20 pounds of muscle for scenes in heavy armor. “I spent a year training six hours a day, seven days a week to be able to handle the sword, and do it on uneven terrain because I didn’t want to blow my knees out. You’ve got to build the body up for impact. I remember trying to put my shirt on at one point and couldn’t, my forearms had gotten so big.” Cruise’s dedication had much to do with the samurai’s codes of honor. “This movie has a lot of adventure and battle scenes, but I wouldn’t have made it if it didn’t explore the samurai’s code. The purity of that is stronger than any battle scene we could have dreamt up.”

Collateral (2004)

“Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars and a speck on one in a blink — that’s us,” says an existentially-minded Cruise in this Michael Mann-directed action thriller. In one of his most memorable villain roles, he here plays Vincent, the gray-haired hitman who brings Jamie Foxx’s unsuspecting Los Angeles taxi driver Max along for a ride he’ll never forget. Max something in the sociopath that leads to the assassin’s spiral, but not before some memorable action scenes including a tour de force in a nightclub, where Cruise’s character adapts to a chaotic crowd situation to take out his mark. “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,” Mann said. “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.”

War of the Worlds (2005)

Reteaming with Spielberg on this sci-fi action thriller based on the novel by H.G. Wells, Cruise here returned to hero mode as Ray Ferrier, a Brooklyn longshoreman who does whatever it takes to protect his children in the midst of an alien invasion. Commonly discussed as a response to the terrors of 9/11, this film sparked the enthusiasm of the filmmaker-actor duo, to the extent that they pushed work on other projects — Munich for Spielberg and Mission: Impossible III for Cruise — to make War their priority. The Paramount title scripted by by Josh Friedman and David Koepp brought the latter his biggest opening weekend up until Top: Gun Maverick came around.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

The actor brought the basic premise of Groundhog’s Day into a sci-fi action world as Major William Cage, a military PR officer caught in a time loop until he can fend off the advances of an alien race, starring opposite Emily Blunt in Warner Bros’ adaptation of the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel All You Need Is Kill . Director Doug Liman had the actor wearing tactical outfits so heavy, he’d have to be suspended by chains in between takes to protect his joints. Cruise responded to the dark humor of the material, joking with regard to his character, caught between life and death, “It’s fun coming up with new ways to kill yourself.” Said McQuarrie: “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’’ swing set into something with hooks that he could hang from, in between setups.”

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

On the first Top Gun, 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,” said producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “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.” He also was a mentor to the hotshot young actors who probably reminded him of himself during the original Top Gun. 

“I remember one day on the carrier, when Tom was sitting with these young actors, most of them just starting their careers,” director Joseph Kosinski said. “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.”

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‘Top Gun’ Then & Now: Celebrate ‘Top Gun Day’ With Photos Of Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis & More

May 13th is ‘Top Gun’ Day and with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ just around the corner, fans are flying high. Check out the stars of the original film and where they’ve come since, here.

‘Top Gun’ Stars Then & Now: Tom Cruise & More

‘Top Gun’ is one of the most memorable movies of the 80s, with an A-list cast and hit-packed soundtrack. The 1986 Tom Cruise flick followed the high-flying adventures of Navy fighter pilots in training and starred Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer, with songs from Kenny Loggins. It became to biggest box office hit of 1986 and managed to take home 3$57.1 million worldwide. With the much-awaited sequel ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ soaring into theaters on May 27, 2022, we thought we’d take a look back at the original movie, and where the cast is today. 

Leading man Tom Cruise was just 24 when he played fighter pilot Maverick in ‘Top Gun’. In the years following he became an action icon, starring in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise, ‘Minority Report’, and ‘Jack Reacher’, as well as appearing in critically acclaimed dramas like ‘Jerry Maguire’ and ‘Interview With A Vampire’. And now he’s back for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and fans couldn’t ‘be more thrilled.

Want to learn about the rest of the cast? Click through the gallery.

Kelly McGillis

Kelly McGillis played Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood, Maverick’s love interest, in the original ‘Top Gun’. Other notable roles were in 1987’s ‘Made in Heaven’ with Timothy Hutton, 1988’s ‘The House on Carroll Street’ with Jeff Daniels and Jessica Tandy, and as Kathryn Murphy in ‘The Accused’ (1988) with Jodie Foster. Her career slowed down in the 90s and 2000s, but later in her career, she starred in acclaimed independent horror films like ‘Stake Land’ (2010), ‘The Innkeepers’ (2011), and ‘We Are What We Are’ (2013).

Val Kilmer played LT Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, in ‘Top Gun’. His fiesty character was one of Top Gun’s students and Maverick’s rival turned wingman. From there, he continued his rise to fame by starring in ‘Willow’ and ‘Kill Me Again. In Oliver Stone’s biopic, ‘The Doors’ he played Jim Morrison. After that, Val put on the cape and cowl for ‘Batman Forever.’ His take on the Caped Crusader was mixed, and his career took a few bumps. In 2005, his role in ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ was well-received by critics despite its limited release. Val continued to act in the following decades, including appearances in ‘The Traveler’, ‘MacGruber’, and a cameo in Tenacious D’s video ‘To Be The Best.’ He was diagnosed with throat cancer later in life, permanently affecting his voice and his acting career.

Anthony Edwards

Anthony Edwards was LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, Maverick’s best friend and Radar Intercept Officer, in the movie. His most recognized role would come in the 90s with ‘ER’, where he played Dr. Mark Greene for the first eight seasons. Anthony received a Golden Globe award and six Screen Actors Guild Awards for the role. He also enjoyed parts in ‘Zodiac’, ‘Miracle Mile’, ‘Revenge of the Nerds’, ‘Planes’, ‘Northern Exposure’, and ‘Designated Survivor’.

Tom Skerritt

Tom Skerritt was Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf in ‘Top Gun’. His character was a veteran of the Vietnam War who served with Duke Mitchell, Maverick’s father. Tom was already an established actor by the time of ‘Top Gun’, having appeared in ‘MASH’, ‘Harold and Maude’, ‘Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke’, and ‘Alien’. His future roles would include parts in ‘A River Runs Through It’, ‘Steel Magnolias’, and an Emmy-winning turn on CBS’s 1992 to 1996 series ‘Picket Fences’.

Meg Ryan had a bit part as Goose’s wife Carole Bradshaw in ‘Top Gun’. The rom-com queen would become an icon with cute roles in classics like ‘When Harry Met Sally’, ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’. Her further credits include a reunion with Val Kilmer in ‘The Doors’ (1991), ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ (1994), ‘Courage Under Fire’ (1996), ‘Addicted to Love’ (1997), ‘City of Angels’ (1998), ‘Proof of Life’ (2000), and ‘The Women’ (2008). In 2015, she made her directorial debut with ‘Ithica’, which she also starred in.

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Tom Cruise Celebrates 38 Years Since the Original Top Gun : 'It's Incredible to Look Back'

'Top Gun' producer Jerry Bruckheimer told PEOPLE in March that Tom Cruise has been pitched an idea for a third 'Top Gun' movie that "he liked"

Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Tom Cruise is celebrating nearly four decades of taking to the skies.

On May 13, the actor-producer, 61, shared photos from the set of 1986's original Top Gun on Instagram in honor of the film's 38th anniversary.

The photos show behind-the-scenes pictures of him on set with the movie's director Tony Scott , who died in 2012 at 68, as well as a photo of him sitting with the film's cast in its air-hangar-turned-classroom set.

One throwback photo shows the actor smiling during a conversation with producer Jerry Bruckheimer . Another shows Cruise filming 2022's Top Gun: Maverick as he stares at the famous still of him and costar Val Kilmer shaking hands at the end of the original movie.

"It’s incredible to look back on the thirty-eight years of Top Gun ," he wrote in a caption. "To the fans who have been with us since the start, there wouldn’t be a Top Gun Day without you."

Cruise's original Top Gun movie was an immediate hit when it hit theaters May 16, 1986. The movie follows his character Pete "Maverick" Mitchell as he attends the U.S. Navy's Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. The movie costarred Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis and Kilmer, 64, as Maverick's chief rival and eventual ally Tom "Iceman" Kazansky."

Top Gun was the highest-grossing film at the domestic box office that year. It won one Academy Award , for Best Original Song, at the 59th Oscars in 1987, among four total nominations.

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

Decades later, Cruise regrouped with producer Bruckheimer, 80, to make a sequel, Top Gun: Maverick , which similarly captured audiences' imaginations as the highest-grossing movie of 2022 domestically and made $1.5 billion worldwide. The sequel sees Maverick return to Top Gun to train a new generation of pilots — including characters portrayed by Miles Teller and Glen Powell , among others — for new missions with the Navy.

Paramount/Courtesy Everett 

Many have speculated about the franchise's future given the smash success of Maverick . The Hollywood Reporter reported in January that a third Top Gun movie was in development . In March, producer Bruckheimer told PEOPLE he is working on putting a new entry together.

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

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Tom Cruise’s 96% Rotten Tomatoes Legacy Sequel Is Soaring on Paramount+

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Good morning, aviators! After an impressive run at the global box office a couple of years ago, Top Gun: Maverick has found good results on Paramount + . The legacy sequel that marked the return of Tom Cruise as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell has gained massive viewership numbers on the streaming platform this week. Even if many blockbuster hits have come and gone since Top Gun: Maverick made its way to the big screen, it's clear that viewers are still in love with the emotional adventure that follows a team of naval aviators as they fight against the forces of evil.

Top Gun: Maverick takes place decades after the events of the first movie. As the United States Navy prepares to face one of their toughest challenges yet, they realize that there's only one man who can train the young pilots in order to accomplish their goal. Rooster ( Miles Teller ), Hangman ( Glen Powell ) and Phoenix ( Monica Barbaro ) are very talented, but they won't be able to get out of the mission alive without Maverick's leadership. The stage was set for a legacy sequel as thrilling and as emotional as the first installment.

Joseph Kosinski was in charge of directing Top Gun: Maverick for Paramount . The filmmaker had previously worked on titles such as Tron: Legacy and Only the Brave . But the production that developed the working relationship between Kosinksi and Tom Cruise was Oblivion . The post-apocalyptic action story featured the star stepping into the shoes of a repair technician who had to stay safe on a version of Earth that had become hostile towards humans.

'Top Gun: Maverick' Was a Box Office Juggernaut

A summer movie season that featured Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Jurassic World: Dominion was never going to be easy to get through. But Top Gun: Maverick found a way. After a very impressive domestic opening weekend that saw the sequel earning $160 million, Top Gun: Maverick went on to earn $1.496 billion at the global box office. Tom Cruise's return as Pete Mitchell quickly became one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. The movie joined a prestigious list that included the biggest titles of 2022, such as Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever . A third Top Gun film remains in development, but details about that movie remain under wraps at Paramount.

Top Gun: Maverick is currently streaming on Paramount+. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

Top Gun: Maverick

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.

Watch on Paramount+

How Goose Died in Top Gun

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Top Gun's Maverick and Goose are among cinema's most iconic duos, with the two pilots becoming de facto blood brothers facing life-or-death situations. That takes a tragic turn when Goose is killed on a mission, a pop-culture moment still remembered decades later, helping make Top Gun one of Tom Cruise's best action films . However, it hurts far worse with the appearance of his son in Top Gun: Maverick , and indeed, the events of Maverick reveal that Goose's death still haunts those close to him.

But how did Goose die in the original Top Gun , and who was at fault? The sequel touches on those specifics very briefly but doesn't go into details, assuming (probably safely) that most of the audience had seen the first film before watching the second. Considering how important Goose's death is to Top Gun : Maverick's two main characters, it's well worth revisiting the specifics for when Top Gun 3 finally hits the big screen.

Updated on September 4, 2024, by Arthur Goyaz: Goose's death is a tragedy that haunts both Maverick and Top Gun fans to this day. This article was updated to discuss more about Maverick's relationship with Goose's son, Rooster, and to reflect CBR's current formatting standards.

What Happened to Goose in Top Gun?

Top gun 3 gets encouraging update from glen powell.

Glen Powell shares a positive update on the third Top Gun movie.

Played by Anthony Edwards, Goose was Maverick's co-pilot for their F-14 fighter jet. That means he handled communications, navigation, and several other tasks while the pilot focused on flying. As the duo passed through trials to achieve the TOPGUN status, they were paired with Iceman to help take down enemy fighters for a combat simulation. However, things quickly went wrong, ending in Goose's untimely death.

Top Gun pilots are said to be the best of the best, hand-picked by the U.S. Air Force to lead the most crucial and covert missions available. So, when Goose died during a Top Gun training mission, it was not only a huge deal for Maverick, but also for the entire program as a whole. Losing a pilot during a mission is a sad but unfortunate reality of war, but to lose a world-class pilot during a training dogfight was unprecedented. Sadly, the filmmakers based the incident on the real-life case of Luis Claudio Jaramillo, who served as a RIO and was killed in an accident very similar to Goose's during the original Top Gun program about a decade before the events of the film.

What Caused Goose's Plane to Crash?

As Iceman engaged in a dogfight over the Pacific Ocean, he was unable to get a successful lock-on with his weapons. Soon, Maverick and Goose joined the chase, tailing close behind Iceman to try to get a shot at the same target. But despite his unsuccessful aim, Iceman insisted on following the target, yelling that he'd have a lock-on within seconds. However, with time running out, Maverick grew impatient and tried targeting the enemy while flying right behind Iceman.

Each F-14 was about to fire on the enemy when it suddenly darted upward to break free. As Iceman followed suit, Maverick's F-14 sat too close behind and got caught up in the turbulence. It stalled one of his engines, causing it to burn out and stop functioning. Unfortunately, the problems didn't end there for the pilots, as they now only had one working engine. That caused the F-14's thrust to become uneven, resulting in a continuous spin as Goose and Maverick plummeted toward the ocean.

Why Did Maverick Blame Himself for Goose's Death?

10 movies to watch if you love top gun: maverick.

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Instead of attempting to regain control of the fighter, Goose and Maverick knew it was a lost cause and tried to eject. However, with the g-force pinning Maverick back, he couldn't reach the ejection cord, leaving Goose to pull his own. As the aircraft's cockpit canopy opened up, both Maverick and Goose got launched out of their seats. While Maverick safely made it into the air, Goose wasn't clear of the canopy and got sent headfirst into it. The impact of hitting the canopy likely caused his immediate death, as Goose was left to parachute down into the ocean below.

As for who was at fault for Goose's horrifying death, that's more difficult to pinpoint. Maverick blamed himself, as he shouldn't have been as close as he was to Iceman. However, a trial soon determined that Maverick was not to blame for the accident, as he couldn't have possibly regained control of the jet. There's also the argument that Iceman was to blame because he knew Maverick was right behind him but refused to move and let him take the shot. In some ways, the intense competition between the two men is to blame, with both of them seeking the top slot among their graduating class without regard for the risks they're taking in the process. Either way, Maverick was later forced to face the consequences of Goose's death when he met his son, Rooster, in Top Gun: Maverick .

How Goose's Legacy Lives On In Top Gun: Maverick

One of Tom Cruise's highest-grossing films of all time, Top Gun: Maverick thrives on how tenderly it handles the legacy of its beloved characters. Although Goose himself does not appear in Maverick , his memory is strewn throughout the sequel, which does its best to help the late fighter pilot's legacy live on long after his death. The most prominent manner in which the sequel accomplishes this is by introducing Goose's adult son, Bradley Bradshaw, who is also known by his codename "Rooster." Portrayed by Miles Teller, Rooster can carry on his father's legacy, enrolling in the Top Gun program and becoming a skilled fighter pilot.

This comes despite Maverick's efforts to ensure he doesn't. As the movie reveals, Maverick promised Goose's widow Carole that Rooster wouldn't follow in his late father's footsteps, something Rooster actively resents. Though he's been dead for over 30 years, Goose still haunts both men, and his memory is now actively driving a wedge between them. The film underscores its action scenes with the pair of them slowly coming to grips with Goose's absence in their lives, and the ways their own relationship has been damaged. It gives both characters an emotional journey, and their ultimate reconciliation helps the various action sequences feel like more than an empty spectacle.

Rooster and Maverick Learn To Move On Together in Top Gun: Maverick

Who is top gun: maverick’s penny and is she in the first film.

Since Kelly McGillis did not return for the Top Gun sequel, producers turned to an "old flame" for Maverick's love interest, Penny Benjamin.

Seeing Rooster join the Top Gun team in Top Gun: Maverick strikes Maverick as another failure, setting up the film's main conflict. Not only is he still haunted by the death of his loyal comrade, Maverick now has to face the consequences of a failed promise; he did everything he could to prevent Rooster from exposing himself to danger. The boy, on the other hand, was determined (and skilled enough) to do justice to his father's legacy. In the sequel, Maverick disagreeing with his superiors, managing his own inner demons, and the risk of a life-threatening mission abroad all hang upon the characters' heads — but none of them have the weight of Maverick and Rooster's contretemps.

At the center of Top Gun: Maverick lies the stubbornness that drives two different generations of men. Through Maverick and Rooster, viewers get to see more than just a great modern war movie. There are genuinely human struggles at play. Forgiveness, regret, and guilt are some of the emotions that conduct the movie towards its nail-biting climax, but also towards a mutual path of redemption for two troubled characters. Top Gun: Maverick plays with the audience's emotions by hinting at all times that Maverick will eventually sacrifice himself to save Rooster, finally coming to terms with the guilt he feels over Goose's death and resting like a true hero. The movie subverts expectations by going the other way around: it's Rooster who comes back to save Maverick, unpredictably bringing the story full circle.

The F-14 jet piloted by Maverick and Rooster at the end of Top Gun: Maverick represents Goose's spirit returning to tie the fate of his son and his beloved friend together. It marks the fateful moment in which both characters learn to move on and trust each other. There's little information about Top Gun 3 as of now, but the movie will likely explore Maverick and Rooster's trajectory as an accomplished duo. With their differences settled, fans will finally get to see a mentor-pupil relationship as Maverick passes the baton to his best friend's son.

Unlike many other recent legacy sequels, which fail to do justice to the characters of the original films, Top Gun: Maverick takes the time to honor characters like Maverick and Goose. The sequel challenges Maverick in his relationship with Rooster, who wants nothing to do with him. As his instructor, however, Maverick manages to win Rooster over and, in some small way, can get his old friend back. By repairing his relationship with Rooster, Maverick finally learns to forgive himself for Goose's death, which had haunted him for decades. Finally, Goose's legacy was allowed to live in peace, with his family and friends harboring only positive memories of the fallen pilot. Top Gun: Maverick helps lay out the legacy of Goose, even decades after he died in the original Top Gun . While the exact circumstances behind Goose's death may never be fully revealed, his tragic passing is a driving factor for the 2022 sequel and a big reason for its phenomenal success.

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.

• Top Gun (1986)

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Tom cruise’s mission impossible & top gun hits make his short-lived franchise’s cancelation even more baffling.

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Jason Statham’s Coolest Action Movie Team-Up Happened 20 Years Ago (But With A Twist)

“is this a kids’ show” how power rangers’ darkest season changed it forever, rocky's prequel cheapens the point of sylvester stallone's original movie.

Even though Tom Cruise ’s Top Gun and Mission: Impossible sequels were box office hits, the charismatic star's presence wasn't enough to save one failed franchise. Tom Cruise is an iconic actor whose career has seen him star in a wide variety of projects. From acclaimed dramas like Magnolia to fun blockbusters like Edge of Tomorrow , Cruise has proven his versatility again and again over the decades. A look back on the star’s career shows that he has proven something else throughout his years as a multiplex mainstay. Namely, Cruise has repeatedly displayed his enduring popularity with audiences across the world.

From 1986’s Top Gun to 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick , Cruise’s blockbuster career has been primarily defined by a slew of successes. The Mission: Impossible franchise and the Jack Reacher movies prove his bonafides as an action star, while Oblivion , Edge of Tomorrow , Minority Report , and War of the Worlds displayed Tom Cruise’s success in the sci-fi genre . The Last Samurai ’s success showed that Cruise could pull off a historical drama, while Collateral allowed the actor to show his range in a relatively rare villainous role. All these successes only made one 2017 flop even more inexplicable.

Tom Cruise and Jason Statham once shared the screen in an acclaimed action thriller, but their scenes together aren't what viewers might expect.

Tom Cruise’s Withstanding Box Office Power Makes The Dark Universe’s Cancelation Even More Curious

Mission: impossible and top gun's franchise success prove the dark universe was an anomaly.

2017’s The Mummy was a critical disaster and a relative financial failure that ended the highly hyped “Dark Universe ” before the franchise could even begin in earnest. The Mummy was a contemporary reboot of the Universal franchise that strayed far from the light, fun one of the Brendan Fraser movies of the ‘90s. Cruise’s take on The Mummy was darker and edgier and was supposed to kick-start a series of movies that re-envisioned the Universal Monsters in modern settings. Although Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyl/ Mr. Hyde appeared in a cameo, The Mummy ’s disappointing reception killed any follow-up plans.

Cruise remains a rare star who can sell a franchise alone.

Since then, Tom Cruise’s historic box office success with Top Gun: Maverick and the solid performance of 2023’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One have made it harder than ever to work out how the Dark Universe stumbled. Admittedly, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One made a somewhat underwhelming $567 million on a budget of $291 million. However, this was due in part to the stiff competition provided by “ Barbenheimer .” Thanks to Top Gun: Maverick , Cruise remains a rare star who can sell a franchise alone. Thus, it is striking to realize that even he could not save the Dark Universe.

The Mummy Reboot Did Okay At The Box Office (Likely Due To Tom Cruise)

The dark universe’s flagship project wasn’t a complete financial catastrophe.

While the 2017 movie’s box office performance was bad enough to kill the Dark Universe, The Mummy was not a complete financial catastrophe . Per BoxOfficeMojo , The Mummy earned just under $410 million globally, which is undeniably impressive against a budget of $125 million. However, the movie’s domestic and global split tells a more complicated story, as a whopping $329 million of that total comes from international markets. The Mummy only made $80 million domestically. Considering the same year's $50 million Cruise movie American Made earned $83 million domestically, it is fair to say the actor’s brand was responsible for most of those ticket sales.

The Mummy proved that Cruise's appeal has its limits.

In contrast, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One earned $172 million domestically and another $395 million globally for a total of $567 million. While Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One ’s box office struggles were substantial, its domestic performance proves that Cruise remains a box office draw. Top Gun: Maverick ’s incredible success further affirmed this nationally and internationally, whereas The Mummy proved that Cruise's appeal has its limits. One major issue may have been the movie's genre, as Cruise isn’t typically associated with horror movies. His only earlier horror, Interview With A Vampire , was a romantic historical drama, unlike The Mummy .

2018's Mission: Impossible — Fallout earned over $790 million only one year after The Mummy 's disappointing $410 million payday.

Why The Dark Universe Was Canceled After Just One Movie

The dark universe’s messy planning made future movies risky.

While the Cruise vehicle wasn’t a big hit by any means, The Mummy ’s 2017 failure was not the only factor in the Dark Universe’s failure . In an interview with ScreenRant , Limitless director Neil Burger noted that the franchise was being pulled in various directions by various producers and executives with no cohesive vision. Burger, who was once lined up to direct a Bride of Frankenstein reimagining, divulged that there were disagreements over the franchise’s period setting and which characters to utilize.

It wasn’t clear whether all the Dark Universe movies would be set in the modern day or if some would be period pieces.

Some creatives wanted to use all the classic Universal Monsters, while other producers wanted a select few. It wasn’t clear whether all the Dark Universe movies would be set in the modern day or if some would be period pieces, and it was this type of internal division that truly doomed the series. If The Mummy had been a runaway success, these problems might have ironed themselves out in good time. However, the Tom Cruise movie's failure killed the Dark Universe because the series never had the clear, consistent vision of Top Gun , Mission: Impossible , or the actor's other successful franchises.

Source: BoxOfficeMojo

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See Paralympian Ali Truwit get a 'good luck surprise' phone call from Tom Cruise before big wins

Paralympian Ali Truwit got a personal call from Tom Cruise before she won a pair of silver medals in Paris. 

The “Top Gun: Maverick” star called the swimmer on Wednesday, Sept. 4, before two of her swimming events.

In a video of the moment, Truwit greeted Cruise on speakerphone. She told Cruise that the moment was “the coolest thing ever,” to which the actor responded, “You are the coolest thing ever.”

The swimmer’s mom, Jody Truwit, told TODAY via email that one of her best friends from college brought her daughter's story to the actor’s attention. The call served as “a pick-me-up good luck surprise” for the swimmer.

She said Cruise’s main message to her daughter on the call, which lasted around five minutes, was to “go have fun.”

Jody Truwit paraphrased the rest of their conversation and Cruise’s encouraging words as, “You’ve trained. You’ve worked so hard. You’ve already won in my mind. We’re cheering for you.”

In addition to offering his support, Cruise also invited Truwit to visit the set of the eighth “Mission: Impossible” film in London.

In the days that followed the call from Cruise, Truwit had two big wins during the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games . 

She took home two silver medals, first for the women’s 400-meter freestyle S10 event on Sept. 5 and then for the 100-meter backstroke S10 on Sept. 6.

The 2024 Paris Games marks Truwit’s first as a Paralympian. The swimmer, who previously competed on Yale University’s swim team, was attacked by a shark in May 2023 while snorkeling in the Turks and Caicos Islands with her former teammate.

“A shark came up and started attacking us and aggressively bumping us and ramming us from underneath, and we fought back and shoved and kicked, but pretty quickly it got my leg in its mouth,” Truwit told TODAY on Aug. 23. “And the next thing I knew, it had bitten off my foot and part of my leg.”

After the attack, she underwent multiple blood transfusions and surgeries, which included amputation. In the aftermath, she said that adjusting to her new reality was difficult and that she “didn’t want anyone to see my prosthetic leg.”

She eventually made her way back to the pool, and her former coach came out of retirement to help with recovery. 

Truwit ultimately returned to competing that same year, and in December 2023, she medaled at the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships. Months later, she went on to qualify for the Paralympics.

Coach Jamie Barone has said that Truwit is the “hardest worker” he has ever met.

“If at any point in time she had texted me or called me and said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to curl up in a ball today, and I’m going to cry.’ Everyone in the world would be like, ‘That checks out. You take the day, you do whatever,’” Barone added. “Not once. She has never once missed a day of practice.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com