With a film career that spans over four decades, Tom Cruise is arguably the biggest movie star of this generation. Cruise is associated with so many iconic film moments — the dance in “Risky Business,” the “need for speed” chant in “Top Gun,” and “Show me the money!” in “Jerry Maguire,” among many others — that it seems like he’s been a movie star forever.
He has been a critical darling through parts of his career but has mainly focused on blockbusters (acclaimed or not). He has received two Oscar nominations for Best Actor in “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989) and “Jerry Maguire” (1996) plus another as Best Supporting Actor in “Magnolia” (1999). Those are the three performances that provided him with Golden Globe wins. His other four nominations with the Hollywood Foreign Press were for “Risky Business” (1983), “A Few Good Men” (1992), “The Last Samurai” (2003) and “Tropic Thunder” (2008). Many of these roles have allowed him to work with some of the best directors in the business, including Oliver Stone, Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Rob Reiner and Cameron Crowe.
Take a tour through our photo gallery above which collects 16 of his greatest film performances (or franchises like “Mission: Impossible”) and ranks them from worst to best.
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17. WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
Image Credit: Frank Connor/Dreamworks/Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Steven Spielberg. Writers: Josh Friedman, David Koepp. Starring Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins.
Loosely based on the H.G. Wells novel, Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake again depicts an invasions of aliens that have huge mechanisms with which to decimate Earth. Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a Regular Joe dock worker who, though not living with his kids, rushes to protect them and their mother as the aliens obliterate everything in sight. Beyond that, it’s not a character-driven kind of film, but Cruise once again plays a convincing hero concerned with family, and that performance, combined with the Spielberg skill makes for a popcorn movie par excellence.
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16. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE series (1996, 2000, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2018)
Image Credit: Mark Fellman/Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directors: Various. Writers: Various. Starring Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg.
The big-screen adaptation of the 1960s TV espionage series has spawned six film incarnations, with seventh and eighth installments tentatively scheduled for 2021 and 2022. Cruise portrays Ethan Hunt, who, in the first film, is forced to take over as leader of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) as the team is betrayed from within. Under the direction of Brian DePalma, that first film — “Mission Impossible” (1996) — created the most iconic “MI” image, that of Cruise being lowered by wires in order to avoid laser alarms. The success of that film prompted the series, that has attracted such respected directors as John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird and Christopher McQuarrie.
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15. THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986)
Image Credit: Ron Phillips/Touchstone/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Martin Scorsese. Writer: Richard Price. Starring Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
Cruise’s first (and to date only) collaboration with Scorsese, “The Color of Money” brought an Oscar to co-star Paul Newman, and, as he would do two years later with “Rain Man,” Cruise delivered ample support for his Oscar-winning co-star. Newman reprises he famed pool-playing character from “The Hustler,” Fast Eddie Felson, who is retired from the game but agrees to mentor young pool player Vincent Lauria, taking him on the road to learn the tricks of the trade, which Vincent learns too well, and eventually teacher and student wind up facing each other in a pool championship. It’s not the greatest Scorsese film ever, but the character of Vincent fits Cruise very well, and he shines with it.
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14. THE FIRM (1993)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sydney Pollack. Writers: David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel. Starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter.
Based on the novel by John Grisham, “The Firm” is a legal thriller in which Cruise portrays Mitch McDeere, a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, who joins a prestigious Memphis law firm and is taken under the wing of one of the firm’s senior partners, Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman). It would appear that Mitch has it made. Eventually, though Mitch begins to realize that the firm is involved in some pretty shady dealings of which he is expected to become a part. Mitch tries to get out but he can’t, and then the FBI starts moving in. Cruise is completely convincing as Mitch, and with a director as adept as Sydney Pollack, who knows how to turn the suspense screws, you’ve got a thoroughly entertaining summertime thriller.
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13. RISKY BUSINESS (1983)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Paul Brickman. Starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca DeMornay, Joe Pantoliano, Nicholas Pryor.
The one that started it all. Cruise’s breakthrough role was as high schooler Joel Goodson who hopes to go to Princeton University, but when his parents go away on a trip, Joel’s good-boy self turns very bad, quickly involving him with hooker Lana (Rebecca DeMornay) and her pimp Guido (Joe Pantoliano). What lingers in the mind about “Risky Business” is the classic moment when Joel glides across his living room entryway, wearing only his pink shirt, underwear and socks, and lip-syncs to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.” It lasts less than a minute, but that’s the moment in which Tom Cruise became a movie star.
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12. MINORITY REPORT (2002)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Dreamworks/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Steven Spielberg. Writers: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen. Starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow.
In his second collaboration with director Steven Spielberg, Cruise portrays Chief John Anderton, the head of the Pre-Crime police division in 2054. Its disturbing premise is that, thanks to technology, authorities, with the help of psychics called “recogs,” can determine in advance if you are about to commit a crime and, if so, arrest you. With Cruise’s solid performance, the film raises fascinating questions of whether free will could overcome someone else’s determination that you will behave one way and only one way. One of the few blockbusters that might provoke hours of discussion afterward.
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11. TOP GUN (1986)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Tony Scott. Writer: Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. Starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tim Robbins.
In one of his most iconic roles as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Cruise heads up a group of closely-knit naval aviators aboard the USS Enterprise. When superiors don’t care for their reckless way of flying, Maverick and his partner Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) are sent to remedial training at the Top Gun school. There they meet their instructor, Kelly McGillis’ Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (everybody’s got a nickname in this thing), and Maverick is smitten, even though she harbors doubts about his recklessness (which only makes him more attractive). “Top Gun” is one of the quintessential movies of the 1980s.
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10. EYES WIDE SHUT (1999)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Stanley Kubrick. Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael. Starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman.
It may be one of the most bizarre films in Cruise’s filmography, but no actor would turn down the chance to star in a Stanley Kubrick film, which turned out to be his last. Cruise plays Bill Harford, a doctor who witnesses an orgy at a country mansion, and the experiences provokes questions about sex to his young wife Alice (Nicole Kidman, Cruise’s real-life wife at the time). Alice’s admission of a sexual affair prompts Bill to go on a sexual exploration of his own. The explicitness of the sex depicted in the film far exceeded anything that Cruise or Kidman had ever done, and although “Eyes Wide Shut” received mixed reviews, “Eyes Wide Shut” remains the artiest “art film” that Cruise has ever done.
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9. COLLATERAL (2004)
Image Credit: Frank Connor/Dreamworks/Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Michael Mann. Writer: Stuart Beattie. Starring Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo.
In a rare casting-against-type, good guy Cruise is cast here as a contract killer who takes a taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) hostage as he makes his deadly rounds. It takes someone of Michael Mann’s caliber to make the ever-smiling Cruise convincing as a contract killer, but somehow he does. Frankly, I have always thought that, with the exception of “Tropic Thunder,” Cruise is always better when he underplays, and here he is a stone-faced assassin roaming the streets of an eerily-lit L.A. Cruise and Foxx (who was nominated for an Oscar for this performance) have a great chemistry, and what could have ice-cold story, under Mann’s direction, draws audiences in slowly but thoroughly.
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8. TROPIC THUNDER (2008)
Image Credit: Dreamworks Llc/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Ben Stiller. Writers: Justin Theroux, Ben Stiller, Etan Cohen. Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Cruise.
Cruise has sometimes been accused of not having a sense of humor about himself and his work. But in “Tropic Thunder,” he is disproved it in a major way in his appearance, in what is essentially a glorified cameo, as an obese, bald and utterly disgusting studio executive, the appropriately-named Les Grossman, who is overseeing production of the “Tropic Thunder” film within the film. To see Cruise, who is usually so cautious in his few public interviews, let out a string of the most obscene profanities is actually kind of liberating and very funny. It’s a relatively small part, but it had such an impact that Cruise earned his seventh Golden Globe nomination.
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7. EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014)
Image Credit: 3 Arts Entertainment/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Doug Liman. Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth. Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson.
Cruise received his best reviews in over a decade with this sci-fi action film directed by Doug Liman, which recalls “Groundhog Day” if it was set in the midst of battle. Set in the future with Earth having been invaded by aliens, Cruise’s Maj. Bill Cage is basically a PR guy who is sent into battle. Not surprisingly, he almost immediately is killed. But it seems that Cage is caught in a time loop, where he is sent back the day before his death and is basically tutored by tough-as-nails Sgt. Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who will teach him something new. Then he’ll go back into battle, get killed again, then come back and learn something else. As the film’s tag line calls it: “Live, Die, Repeat.” A very clever premise, very well acted by both Cruise and Blunt.
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6. RAIN MAN (1988)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Barry Levinson. Writers: Barry Morrow, Ronald Bass. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino.
Oscar winner for Best Picture, “Rain Man” is one of the major movies in Cruise’s filmography, even though it’s co-star Dustin Hoffman’s film. However, Cruise’s character wheeler dealer Charlie Babbit, who always seems to be in debt, learns that his estanged father has died, and Charlie, hopeful for a large inheritance in order to pay off his debt, winds up getting a relative pittance. The lion’s share of the estate is going to an older brother he never knew he had — Raymond (Hoffman), a savant who is housed in a mental institution. Charlie seeks him out with hopes of squeezing more money out of him, but winds up getting a real brother instead. Hoffman, of course, walked away with the lion’s share of the awards, but Cruise, with the biggest character arc in the film, gives a standout performance as well.
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5. A FEW GOOD MEN (1992)
Image Credit: Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Rob Reiner. Writer: Aaron Sorkin, based on his play. Starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon.
Based on the 1989 play by Aaron Sorkin, who adapted the film’s screenplay is a courtroom drama, centering on the court-martial of two Marines who’ve been accused of killing a fellow Marine. But instead of telling the accuseds’ story, Sorkin focuses instead on the challenges faced by his lawyers, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Cruise) and Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore). When Kaffee feels that all is lost in the trial, he calls to the stand Marine Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), who implicates himself when Kaffee says that he wants the truth, and Jessup respons with the classic “You can’t handle the truth!” It never gets old. For his performance as Kaffee, Cruise earned his third Golden Globe nomination.
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4. TOP GUN: MAVERICK (2022)
Image Credit: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures Director: Joseph Kosinski. Writers: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie. Starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Val Kilmer, Ed Harris.
36 years after the original “Top Gun,” Cruise heads up this sequel, which became one of the best reviewed blockbusters of recent years. He again stars as test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who, despite a stellar record, has failed to be promoted due to his history of insubordination, yet he is called up to teach a group of hot-shot Mavericks-to-be just how pull off a near-impossible mission. Though Maverick’s dazzling smile is still intact, life has taken its toll, which Cruise acknowledges in a reunion with ex-rival Ice (a moving Val Kilmer), whose vengeful son Rooster (Miles Teller) is one of Maverick’s students. As Maverick, Cruise is both high-spirited and contemplative, a winning combination that results in one of his best performances.
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3. BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock Director: Oliver Stone. Writers: Oliver Stone, Ron Kovic, based on Kovic’s autobiography. Starring Tom Cruise, Kyra Sedgwick.
Cruise received some of the best reviews of his career for his performance as disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s acclaimed film based on Kovic’s memoir. Cruise won his first Golden Globe Award and earned his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the activist who, confined to a wheelchair thanks to injuries he sustained in battle. While Stone’s restrained direction was widely praised, critics took particular note of what they called Cruise’s new-found maturity, with less of a reliance of his grinning all-American boy looks than on his serious digging into the character of Kovic who, though an icon on the left, nonetheless had a lifetime struggle, which all Americans should admire and respect.
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2. MAGNOLIA (1999)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Melinda Dillon, Jason Robards, William H. Macy.
Though by now Cruise was accustomed to being the leading man in his films, he agreed to accept a supporting role to be a part of the ensemble of Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling “Magnolia,” an Altman-like mosaic of people just trying to find happiness while living in the San Fernando Valley. Cruise plays Frank Mackey, a self-help guru who might need some help himself as he is hiding a number of closely-held family secrets. Though the ensemble cast was widely praised, critics were particularly taken by the vulnerability seeping through the bravado of Cruise’s self-help guru, and for his performance, Cruise won his third Golden Globe, third Oscar nomination, and two nominations from the Screen Actors Guild — Best Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor for Cruise.
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1. JERRY MAGUIRE (1996)
Image Credit: Columbia Tri Star/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Cameron Crowe. Starring Tom Cruise, Renée Zellweger, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kelly Preston, Jay Mohr.
Others may argue, but I still think that overall, “Jerry Maguire” is still Cruise’s best film. Cruise is terrific in it, winning his second Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and earning nominations from both the Academy and the Screen Actors Guild. Thanks largely to Cameron Crowe, everything in “Jerry Maguire” just clicks — the romance with newcomer Renée Zellweger is funny and satisfying, his “Show me the money!” scenes with an over-exuberant Rod Tidwell (Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr.) and the smart take on the business of sports agentry — and the result is one of the most satisfying romantic comedies of the 1990s.
