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Steven Spielberg Tells Tom Cruise: ‘You Saved Hollywood’s Ass’ and ’Top Gun: Maverick’ Might’ve ‘Saved the Entire Theatrical Industry’

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Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise reunited at this year’s Oscar nominees luncheon, where the blockbuster filmmaker praised his “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds” actor for saving the theatrical movie business with “ Top Gun: Maverick .” Both Spielberg and Cruise are in the running for best picture this year thanks to “The Fabelmans” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” respectively.

“You saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” Spielberg said to Cruise in a video originally shared on Instagram by director Kartiki Gonsalves, whose film “The Elephant Whisperers” is nominated for best documentary short film. Cruise was left blushing.

“Top Gun: Maverick” was the second movie to gross over $1 billion at the worldwide box office amid the pandemic, following “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” With a $1.48 billion gross, “Maverick” ranks as the 11th highest-grossing movie in history worldwide (unadjusted for inflation). The film is the fifth-highest grosser at the domestic box office with $718 million.

Although “No Way Home” grossed more, that was a Marvel movie with three generations of Spider-Man actors in it. Although “Maverick” is a sequel, its success was hardly preordained. Yet the follow-up to 1986’s “Top Gun” became a rare old-fashioned hit that legged out at the box office for months based on worth of mouth. According to Paramount, repeat customers fueled the momentum for “Maverick.” By its fourth weekend in North American movie theaters, 16% of the audience had returned more than once and 4% had returned three times or more.

As Variety’s Oscars expert Clayton Davis previously reported , Cruise was the big hit of the nominees Luncheon. Spielberg was hardly the only nominee who fawned over the “Maverick” star. Brendan Gleeson, Paul Mescal, Baz Luhrmann, Michelle Yeoh, Austin Butler and more all made sure to approach Cruise during the event and take photos.

“Top: Gun Maverick” is nominated for six Oscars, while “The Fabelmans” is up for seven. The Oscars air March 12 on ABC.

steven spielberg telling tom cruise to his face, “you saved hollywood’s ass. and, you might have saved theatrical distribution. seriously. MAVERICK might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” i have to lie down. pic.twitter.com/nYbWbgadM7 — amanda (@marisatomay) February 14, 2023

Steven Spielberg tells Tom Cruise that “you saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” pic.twitter.com/nPWR5BqiUV — DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 14, 2023

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Minority Report at 20: Cruise and Spielberg test their limits in top-tier thriller

The director and star both played with their images in a knotty and exciting adaptation of Philip K Dick’s prescient short story

T om Cruise has spent the last few weeks – arguably the last few years – making the case that, at least under certain circumstances, he could qualify as the biggest movie star in the world. Twenty years ago, merely on the cusp of 40, this condition didn’t require such strenuous evidence. Cruise made movies, and, for the most part, audiences showed up; it had become almost routine. This is was why he could star in a spectacular science-fiction picture like Minority Report without attracting too much fuss. Yes, the movie was a hit. No, in the US it didn’t outgross Scooby-Doo, released a week earlier. No, this fact didn’t cast doubt on Cruise’s bankability. He had attained such stopwatch dependability that his appearance in a masterpiece seemed almost beside the point.

In fact, Minority Report depends on Cruise’s certainty – his ability to imbue a character with absolute conviction, even if doubt nags at him from somewhere deep inside. He plays John Anderton, a police chief in a futuristic Washington DC that has tried out a program called Pre-Crime. The organization taps into the visions of three “pre-cogs” to pinpoint the names and locations of future murders, arresting and convicting offenders before a crime is actually committed. Anderton is a fervent believer in the process because his young son Sean was kidnapped, and presumably killed, years earlier. Despite his regrets, Cruise is still playing a hotshot of sorts; driven by his belief in the program, Anderton always gets his man.

Standard haunted-movie-cop stuff; even Anderton’s drug addiction feels relatively familiar. So does the wrong-man wringer Cruise must go through when Anderton himself is identified as a murderer and goes on the run, desperate to prove his innocence and determined not to fulfill his supposed destiny. Because Minority Report is directed by Steven Spielberg , it has a relentless pace and visual mastery. But Spielberg does not typically make movies that could double as star vehicles (his other 2002 triumph, Catch Me If You Can, offers another exception), and his first collaboration with Cruise came at a time when one of the world’s biggest stars seemed increasingly willing to mess with his image.

Literally: in Minority Report, Cruise looks taut but hollow-eyed, his hair uncharacteristically close-cropped, his famous air-chopping run full of desperation alongside determination. Later in the movie, he has his eyeballs scooped out and replaced in a back-alley surgery, then injects a drug that droops and distends his face, all in service of disguising himself from ubiquitous facial recognition software. (At one point, Spielberg has him chasing his original movie-star eyeballs down a corridor.) The movie followed Vanilla Sky, in which his character is disfigured and forced to wear a facial prosthetic – a mask. Present-day Cruise yearns to test his physical limits, sacrificing his body for an appreciative audience; Cruise of 20 years ago had his characters test their abilities to maintain their shining image (and self-image).

If it were only a Tom Cruise star text, Minority Report would be a lot of fun, and a fine companion piece to Vanilla Sky. Remarkably, it’s also a top-tier Spielberg film, in which the film-maker tested limits of his own. His filmography features multiple stories of fathers reconnecting with children, especially sons; that’s the emotional engine of his other film with Cruise, 2005’s War of the Worlds. In Minority Report, Anderton is desperate to reconnect with, essentially, a ghost – losing himself in holographic home videos, he’s definitively too late to save Sean. Perhaps he has such faith in the morality of imprisoning pre-ordained criminals because he can’t picture a different future for himself.

Spielberg’s bold act of imagination in this movie, then, is to deny his character one; there’s a cathartic late-movie moment where Agatha (Samantha Morton), the most talented of the pre-cogs, pictures Sean’s life, narrating a devastating what-if to Anderton and his estranged wife. Despite Spielberg’s singular talent for imagery, he doesn’t show any of this; instead, he shows us Morton, her eerie conviction as self-possessed, in its way, as Cruise’s.

Admittedly, Spielberg allows the ending to go softer than the toughest, bleakest tones of the film noir stories that inspired him. That noir style, though, is rendered in a technical tour de force; this may well stand as the ultimate showcase for Spielberg’s longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. Coloring in the future with bleachy desaturation, Spielberg and Kaminski flirt with monochrome – grain-heavy blue-and-white images turn noir shadows into blinding, faux-utopian light. It’s a brilliant synthesis of retro-analog past and a digital future (and a fascinating contrast with Spielberg’s old buddy George Lucas, who also created a digital world with some noirish touches in his Attack of the Clones, released the same summer).

There’s both period timeliness and prescient timelessness to these images. Arriving less than a year after 9/11, Pre-Crime feels attuned to the unconstitutional policies of the George W Bush era; the film was written before the World Trade Center fell, and based on a Philip K Dick story, but Spielberg’s trademark urgency made it feel especially up-to-the-minute. And the film’s vision of endless targeted ads, reaching into our eyeballs and leaving an unwanted digital trail everywhere, is basically Instagram in person. (How does Insta not have a Janusz Kaminski/Minority Report filter?)

It’s especially striking that this movie’s vision of the future is refracted through images of America’s most steadfast man-of-action movie star getting abused and carved up. Top Gun: Maverick, for all of its stoic nods toward ageing and the passage of time, attempts nothing so bold with Cruise iconography. “Everybody runs,” Cruise repeats throughout Minority Report, often when warned not to make a break for it. It becomes his mantra, his own certainty turned back on itself. His late-career embrace of action movies, great as they often are, rebukes that notion: it’s Maverick/Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise who runs, and the other characters who work around his feats of derring-do. In the world of Minority Report, that Cruise exceptionalism can’t outrun the injustice of the future, or the immutable past.

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Steven spielberg overheard telling tom cruise he “saved hollywood’s a**” with ‘top gun: maverick’.

"Seriously, 'Maverick' might have saved the entire theatrical industry," the filmmaker said to the 'Top Gun' sequel actor-producer.

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

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Steven Spielberg was overheard giving a massive compliment to Tom Cruise at the 2023 Academy Luncheon on Monday.

The iconic filmmaker told Cruise in his ear in what was seemingly intended as a private exchange that last year’s blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick might have single-handedly saved theatrical moviegoing.

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Steven Spielberg tells Tom Cruise that “you saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” pic.twitter.com/nPWR5BqiUV — DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 14, 2023

During the pandemic, Cruise adamantly pushed for studio Paramount to hold Maverick for theatrical release and resist the temptation to release the film to a streaming service.

Spielberg and Cruise have a long relationship, which includes working together on 2002’s Minority Report and 2005’s War of the Worlds .

Maverick ended up with the highest-grossing domestic box office of 2022, bringing in $718 million. Combined with foreign receipts, the sequel totaled $1.5 billion.

The 2021 blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home has also been widely credited with helping revive moviegoing post-pandemic. But Maverick was seen as busting through the usual superhero movie dominance, plus bringing older moviegoers back to the theaters.

Maverick has six Oscar nominations, including best picture. Spielberg’s acclaimed biographical drama The Fabelmans is up for seven Oscars, including best picture and best director.

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It's official (according to Steven Spielberg): Tom Cruise saved cinema

By Lucy Ford

If ever there was a time to canonise some sort of living Patron Saint of Hollywood, Tom Cruise probably deserves a shot at the running. 

The movie business hasn't exactly had an easy few years. As we were stuck at home, cinemas shuttered, budgets got slashed, water cooler moments all but disappeared and VOD became the movie-watching experience de rigueur. The town was in a tizzy. ‘How will we ever get bums back in seats?’ Of course, there were some outliers. Marvel , for instance, never stopped making money, especially thanks to Spider-man: No Way Home . But then, swooping in on the wing of a plane , Tom Cruise appeared and solidified the blockbuster's place in the 2020s with Top Gun: Maverick .

This may sound hyperbolic, but at least Steven Spielberg agrees with us.

The pair were caught on camera at the annual Oscars luncheon, where they're both nominated for Best Picture ( Spielberg nabbing it for his semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans ). In a video captured at the event, Spielberg is seen gushing to a blushing Cruise “You saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, Top Gun: Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” It's a pretty glorious moment, especially when you consider the pair's history working together on films like Minority Report and War of the Worlds, two titans of the box office at their release. 

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Steven Spielberg knows a thing or two about boosting theatrical releases. Jaws , of course, is still one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, and you can throw in the Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones franchises in for good measure too. And when it comes to Cruise, he's not wrong. 

Grossing over a billion dollars at the global box office and railing against the short window between cinema release and on-demand viewing, with Top Gun: Maverick , Cruise ensured a place on the big screen for films that aren't tethered to 30 other films packed with lore before it. Sure, Top Gun: Maverick isn't an original film, it's drenched in nostalgia for its 1986 predecessor which told the story of young fighter pilots. The movie more or less cuts and pastes that concept into a new mould, with Cruise leading a gaggle of young bucks, including the son ( Miles Teller ) of his late best friend Goose. But its existence as a sequel at this point is kind of overshadowed by the sheer feat it pulled that could rival any F/A-18. 

It's hard to call anything a bonafide, decades-spanning A-list celebrity does a ‘Cinderella Story’, but Top Gun: Maverick bucked not only a post-pandemic movie-going trend but reopened a window to a former golden age of blockbuster experiences. Considering, ahead of its release, many were sure Cruise's resistance to sending it to streaming right away was some kind of folly of ego, its continuing box office success is something like a fairytale.

So there you have it, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Steven Spielberg, we now pronounce Tom Cruise the saviour of the film industry. 

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Steven Spielberg proclaims to Tom Cruise he 'saved Hollywood' with 'Top Gun: Maverick'

• "You saved Hollywood's ass," Steven Spielberg told Tom Cruise at Monday's Oscar luncheon.
• "Seriously, 'Maverick' might have saved the entire theatrical industry," he also told Cruise.
• Along with being Cruise's biggest box-office hit to date, "Top Gun: Maverick" is also Oscar-nominated.

In a rarely captured, candid moment between two movie titans, Steven Spielberg proclaimed Tom Cruise the savior of movies when the two had a brief encounter at the annual Oscars luncheon on Monday.

"You saved Hollywood's ass," Spielberg told his "Minority Report" star after the pair saw each other at the event. "And you might have saved theatrical distribution."

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"Seriously, 'Maverick' might have saved the entire theatrical industry," the legendary director told Cruise.

—amanda (@marisatomay) February 14, 2023

It's hard not to argue with Spielberg. The release of " Top Gun: Maverick " following the pandemic brought a vital jolt to movie theaters.

In a time when most studios were pushing their titles on streaming services, Paramount stood firm and held the movie's release until people felt more comfortable returning to theaters.

That finally happened in May 2022 when "Maverick" opened and led to a historic box office run. Its more than $1.4 billion worldwide gross is the biggest of Cruise's career to date, and the movie was the biggest box-office earner since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic until "Avatar: The Way of Water" was released in December.

The luncheon takes place every year in Los Angeles before the Oscars where nominees mingle and take photos.

Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" and Cruise's "Top Gun: Maverick" are both nominated for best picture at this year's ceremony, which will air on Sunday, March 12.

Cruise has starred in two of Spielberg's blockbusters: 2002's "Minority Report" and 2005's "War of the Worlds."

Watch: What 12 movies from 2022 looked like behind the scenes

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Steven Spielberg Appears to Tell Tom Cruise the Actor ‘Saved Hollywood’s A**’

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Steven Spielberg thinks theaters are soaring, thanks to “ Top Gun: Maverick .”

The “Fabelmans” writer-director appears to have told Tom Cruise at the Academy Awards nominees luncheon that the “Top Gun” actor-producer “got the milestone” of the year.

“You saved Hollywood’s ass,” Spielberg says in a clip widely shared on Twitter. “And, you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously. ‘Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” (You can watch the video below.)

Cruise’s appearance at the annual daytime gathering of the Academy Award nominees was a surprise to most attendees. He’s been largely absent from the awards circuit and so became the center of attention at the event, with nominees like Ke Huy Quan and Angela Bassett stopping him to say hi and take photos.

Cruise and Spielberg have collaborated on two films, “Minority Report” (2002) and “War of the Worlds” (2005).

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

Cruise’s best Picture nominee “Top Gun: Maverick,” directed by Joseph Kosinski, has grossed $1.48 billion at the global box office since opening last May. The now six-time Oscar-nominated film later became the most-watched movie premiere on Paramount+. Amid the pandemic, Cruise was adamant that “Top Gun: Maverick” premiere in theaters only, courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Paramount allegedly turned down offers from streamers to buy “Maverick,” shutting out Netflix and Apple to instead have a theatrical release. “Top Gun: Maverick” remains second only to “Avatar: The Way of Water” for top 2022 releases globally.

Spielberg previously called the Best Picture Oscar nominations for blockbusters “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” an inspiring step for cinema — and specifically theatrical releases. “I’m really encouraged by that,” Spielberg told Deadline .

In an earlier interview, Spielberg told  The New York Times that the pandemic “created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases.”

He continued that there is “no question” that “big sequels” and Marvel, DC, and Pixar films “still have a place in society,” especially as being theatrical draws among the likes of animated movies and horror films as a whole.

Spielberg is up for Best Director for “The Fabelmans” this year, as well as Best Picture as a producer on the film.

steven spielberg telling tom cruise to his face, “you saved hollywood’s ass. and, you might have saved theatrical distribution. seriously. MAVERICK might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” i have to lie down. pic.twitter.com/nYbWbgadM7 — amanda (@marisatomay) February 14, 2023

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Entertainment | big rig overturns on connector to i-880, commute a mess, entertainment, entertainment | tom cruise’s feud with steven spielberg got dark, with scientology involved, while spielberg recently hailed cruise for saving hollywood with ‘top gun: maverick,’ he distanced himself from the actor nearly 20 years ago over his ‘antics’ related to katie holmes and scientology.

Much was made last week about Tom Cruise being the toast of the Oscars nominees luncheon, and how his one-time director Steven Spielberg was heard praising the actor for saving Hollywood and the theatrical movie industry by shepherding “Top Gun: Maverick” into a $1.48 billion worldwide blockbuster.

Cruise was left “blushing” when Spielberg, his director for “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds,” gushed, “You saved Hollywood’s ass” and “Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry,” Variety reported .

But in the coverage of the Oscars luncheon, nothing much was made of the fact that the two had been estranged for nearly 20 years and the turbulent reasons for that estrangement. Industry veterans Kim Masters and Matthew Belloni have since come forward to discuss Cruise and Spielberg’s falling out and their apparent rapprochement last week in a new episode of Masters’ KRCW-FM radio show, “The Business.”

The estrangement goes back to when Cruise was supposed to be promoting “War of the Worlds” in 2005, but he let his passion for new girlfriend Katie Holmes and the Church of Scientology get the better of him.

“People will remember that Tom Cruise was very enthusiastic about Scientology and Katie Holmes in that period,” Masters, a longtime entertainment journalist, said.

During an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s talk-show in May 2005 to promote the “War of the Worlds,” Cruise notoriously jumped on her couch to proclaim his love for Holmes. In another interview, Cruise lashed out at his friend Brooke Shields, calling her “irresponsible” for using antidepressants to treat postpartum depression. As of one Scientology’s leading members, Cruise would have been opposed to psychiatric therapy and the use of psychiatric medications.

When then-“Today” host Matt Lauer asked Cruise about his criticism of Shields, Cruise became visibly combative and called psychiatry a “pseudoscience.” He also accused Lauer of being “glib” when the host mentioned knowing people for whom the prescription drug Ritalin worked. Cruise ranted against the drug, often used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and told Lauer: “You don’t even know what Ritalin is.”

While Cruise later apologized to Shields and invited her to his 2006 fairy-tale wedding to Holmes in an Italian castle, the damage was done to the actor’s once sterling reputation.

“There was a lot of negative publicity,” Masters said. At the time, she reported that Spielberg believed that Cruise’s “antics” had overshadowed the release of “War of the Worlds” and cost the film some $30 million in box office. “I’m not sure how he calculates that,” Masters said. The film still ended up earning $603 million in worldwide box office.

Page Six also reported that Spielberg was “furious” with Cruise because he, too, knew children for whom “Ritalin does a lot of good,” according to a report in The New Yorker .  But the issue that “really snapped the bond” between Cruise and Spielberg is that the director, “naively,” talked to Cruise about a doctor who prescribes Ritalin, Masters said.

The New Yorker reported that the doctor also was Spielberg’s friend. Soon after his chat with Cruise, the doctor’s office was picketed by Scientologists, Masters said.

Although Cruise reportedly assured Spielberg that he was not behind this incident, it infuriated the director and — perhaps more important — Kate Capshaw, Spielberg’s wife, Masters wrote in a 2006 article for Slate . “For a time, it seems, the Spielbergs waited in vain for the star to explain how, exactly, those protesters happened to appear at the doctor’s office,” Masters wrote.

Fast forward to 2023 and the Oscars nominee luncheon. Belloni said on “The Business” that the two acted like “best friends forever.” Cruise has regained enough of the public’s respect that he could be at the luncheon; he’s a producer for “Top Gun,” which has been nominated for best picture. Meanwhile, Spielberg is nominated for best director for his autobiographical film, “The Fabelmans,” which also is nominated for best picture.

Belloni and Masters agreed that Spielberg would have genuine reasons to appreciate Cruise and his push for “Top Gun: Maverick” to be released in movie theaters. “If there’s anything Tom Cruise could do to endear himself to Steven Spielberg, it is saving theaters. Spielberg, as we know, feels like many auteur directors, that theaters are essential to appreciating films properly.”

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Steven Spielberg Tells Tom Cruise He “Saved Hollywood’s A**” & Doesn’t Regret Turning Down Directing ‘Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone’

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Steven Spielberg is seemingly crediting Tom Cruise for “saving Hollywood” with the theatrical release of Top Gun: Maverick .

The Fabelmans director caught up with Cruise at the Oscar nominees luncheon and their encounter was caught in a video that has now gone viral. Spielberg congratulated Cruise on hitting the “milestone” last year by bringing back audiences to the theaters.

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Top Gun: Maverick , directed by Joseph Kosinski, was released in May 2022 and has grossed more than $1.48 billion globally.

steven spielberg telling tom cruise to his face, “you saved hollywood’s ass. and, you might have saved theatrical distribution. seriously. MAVERICK might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” i have to lie down. pic.twitter.com/nYbWbgadM7 — amanda (@marisatomay) February 14, 2023

In a separate interview, Spielberg is saying that he has no regrets about turning down the offer to direct Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , the film that established the whole franchise.

“There were several films I chose not to make,” Spielberg told “RRR” director S.S. Rajamouli during a conversation in India (via Insider ). “They offered me ‘Harry Potter’ and I chose to turn down the first ‘Harry Potter’ to basically spend the next year and a half with my family, my young kids growing up.”

Spielberg continued, “So, I sacrificed a great franchise — which today looking back I’m very happy to have done — to be with my family.”

Chris Columbus ultimately ended up directing the first adaptation of the J.K. Rowling book series that was released in 2001. Columbus also directed the sequel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which was released the following year.

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20 Thrilling Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Tom Cruise's Biggest Films

F or nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world. From his breakout role in Top Gun to the franchise lead in Mission Impossible , few stars boast the resume that Cruise has. He's also worth a cool $500 million. He's kind of a big deal. With four decades of movies under his belt, it's fair to assume a lot of interesting things have happened behind the scenes. Here are the craziest Tom Cruise movie secrets you need to know!

He Won't Sign Onto A Movie Unless He Gets To Do His Own Stunts

Tom Cruise famously performs the most dangerous stunts in all his movies. Watch any Mission Impossible movie, and it's shocking how much danger the action star is willing to put himself in. Cruise reportedly refuses to sign onto movies that won't let him do his stunts.

Say a movie wants to cast Cruise but won't let him jump from high rise to high rise for a critical chase scene. The producers better start looking for a different, more risk-averse actor. Tom Cruise feels the need, the need for speed!

He Took Lead Role In Valkyrie Because He Looked Like The Real Person

The movie Valkyrie is based on the true story of Colonel von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Hitler during World War II. When Cruise was offered the role, there was no sales pitch that convinced him to sign on. Instead, he noticed that he bared a striking resemblance to the German soldier.

Cruise was sold, proving sometimes looks are all that matters. The movie was a moderate success, earning $200 million worldwide. Doing his own stunts has its downfalls.

Mission Impossible: Fallout Literally Broke Tom Cruise

Mission Impossible: Fallout came close to missing its summer 2018 release date after Tom Cruise broke his ankle performing a stunt. The film had to take a break from filming in 2017 after Cruise couldn't stick his landing after a scary jump. The hiatus put the movie's release in serious doubt.

Never doubt Tom Cruise, though. After a brutal seven-week recovery, cameras were able to roll again. He also continued punishing his body by doing his stunts. All his hard work paid off. A seventh movie in the profitable franchise is already being planned.

The Last Samurai Almost Killed Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Last Samurai . If it wasn't for his co-star saving his life, we'd be writing a very different article right now. Using real samurai swords rigged for safety was a bad idea when one of the rigs broke.

The sword came one inch from Cruise's neck before Hiroyuki Sanada stopped it. That reminds us of the helicopter scene at the end of the first Mission Impossible ! Somehow it always comes back to Ethan Hunt.

Anne Rice Hated His Casting In Interview With A Vampire

Without author Anne Rice, there would be no Interview With The Vampire . Having written the book, she was not happy to see the film cast Tom Cruise in the role of the vampire Lestat. She was so upset with his selection that she publicly criticized Cruise and everyone involved with the film.

After the movie came out, Rice changed her tune. It turns out Tom Cruise was perfect for Lestat, and he proved it with his performance. To apologize, Rice bought a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising Cruise's portrayal of her most famous vampire.

Les Grossman Was Created For Tropic Thunder By Cruise

When Ben Stiller was struggling to write Tropic Thunder he had Tom Cruise read the script. Cruise suggested he include a movie executive in the film as a way to create pressure on the characters. Later, he decided to play the role of Les Grossman himself, under two very odd conditions.

The first condition was the character have fat hands. The second condition was that the bald and overweight studio executive be a dancer. And that is how one of the most memorable characters in movie history was created.

The Iconic Risky Business Dance Was Adlibbed

Even if you've never seen Risky Business , you've probably seen Tom Cruise's infamous underwear dance. According to the actor, he made up the routine himself, on the spot, "I just ad-libbed that," he said during an interview .

But how did he stick the landing on his slide to enter the scene? As he explains, "I dusted the floor and then put stick (tape) on the other side so I would get the center frame on that and wore the socks."

The Mummy Was A Real Monster Behind The Scenes

The Mummy was supposed to start Universal's "Dark Universe." That is until Tom Cruise got his hands on it. According to reports, Cruise took over every aspect of the film, from the story to the direction, and even the editing.

Despite having a team hired by Universal, Cruise brought in his own editor and screenwriter, then wrangled control of the direction away from Alex Kurtzman. For all his meddling, Cruise's version of The Mummy earned terrible reviews and scared audiences away. Made for $190 million, the film only grossed $80 million stateside.

Cruise Destroyed A $100,000 Camera Filming Days Of Thunder

Tom Cruise's "need for speed" is iconic, and it got the better of him while filming Days of Thunder . Playing NASCAR driver Cole Trickle, Cruise drove his stock car during several scenes. I

n one scene he lost control of the car and crashed into a wall, destroying a $100,000 camera in the process.

He Didn't Get Paid For Minority Report

Tom Cruise was so passionate to film the 2002 film Minority Report with Steven Spielberg that he refused to take a paycheck. Spielberg refused money also, something he claimed to have on his last eight films. Instead of getting money upfront, the pair cut a deal to earn 15 percent of the movie's gross.

Minority Report made $358 million worldwide, netting Cruise and Spielberg around $54 million each. That's pretty amazing. They took a chance on a passion project and it paid off big time!

He Was A Passenger In A Car Accident During Filming For Edge Of Tomorrow

For Edge Of Tomorrow , Emily Blunt had to drive a van with Tom Cruise as her passenger. The van needed to be seen shaking for one particular scene, so producers had Blunt make a hard turn at a pretty high speed. But she lost control and the van crashed into a tree.

She was upset that she could have injured (or even killed) Cruise, but fortunately, they both walked away unharmed. And even laughed about the incident later.

One Stunt He Didn't Perform

We know that Tom Cruise prefers to perform even the most dangerous stunts himself. But according to director Martin Scorsese, there was one stunt that he didn't complete when filming the 1986 drama The Color of Money .

His character had to perform a bunch of complicated pool shots, which wasn't a problem for Cruise. Except for one: a shot where his ball had to leap over two others and sink a third. Scorsese said that he thinks Cruise could have made the shot but it would have taken two days. And that's just too long during movie production, so an expert was brought in to do the shot.

He Broke His Thumb Making The Outsiders

The 1983 coming-of-age drama The Outsiders featured a fight between two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. Things got pretty out of control during filming and one of Cruise's thumbs was broken in the scuffle.

He wasn't the only one to get hurt in the fight, either; two of Cruise's fellow actors were also injured. Tom Howell got a black eye and Emilio Estevez's lip was cut. That must have been quite a brawl!

He Lost A Lot Of Weight For Risky Business

The creators of Risky Business really wanted Tom Cruise to be as baby-faced as possible. To prepare for the role, he got serious about dropping weight fast. He told People that he followed a strict eating plan and jogged daily in the brutal Florida sunshine for five weeks. And then when he hit his target weight, he stopped exercising completely "so I could put on a little layer of baby fat."

"[Joel Goodson is] a very vulnerable person,” Tom explained. “I didn't want any physical defenses up for him. No muscle armor at all.”

Tom Cruise Has An Impressive Set Of Lungs

For 2015's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , Tom Cruise had to hold his breath for almost six and a half minutes! We knew he did all his own stunts but this might be one of the craziest of them. He called the experience unpleasant but explained his training technique to EW .

"You get rid of the regulator, get rid of the bubbles, get on the side and we wanted to do it one shot, so they were very, very long shots," he said. “I'd have to hold it consistently, you know safely, up to four minutes almost for every take.”

He Really Sang In Rock Of Ages

For the 2012 musical Rock of Ages , Tom Cruise insisted on singing his own parts. Of course, he did, right? He trained for four months, up to five hours each day to perfect his voice.

Cruise also filmed the scene where he sang "Pour Some Sugar On Me" while Def Leppard (the band that originally performed the song) watched. The guy just doesn't like to make things easy for himself.

Born On The Third Of July

In the 1989 war drama Born on the Fourth of July , Tom Cruise played a real-life Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic. Kovic was actually born on the 4th of July, as the title indicates.

It turns out that Cruise and Kovic almost share the birthday. Cruise was born on July 3, though, just a day early. Audiences didn't mind the discrepancy (as if they were even aware of it), as the film pulled in $161 million worldwide.

He Wasn't Expecting Emily Blunt To Kiss Him In Edge Of Tomorrow

Maybe he hadn't read the script thoroughly, because it sounds like Tom Cruise was surprised when Emily Blunt kissed him during filming for Edge of Tomorrow . She opened up about the moment to BBC Radio . "I mean, [it was] great. I don't think he was expecting it. I just sort of planted one on him," she said.

Blunt continued, "I think he was a bit taken aback. He was like, 'Oh my god! This is what we're doing.' Well, Tom had read the scene but he hadn't really read the stage directions. There were some new pages."

He Holds A Huge Box Office Record

We already know that his movies rake in tons of money at the box office, but Tom Cruise holds another distinction in that area. He became the first actor ever to star in five consecutive movies that each made more than $100 million in the United States.

The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), and Jerry Maguire in 1996. That's a pretty good run for the money.

Cruise Inspired A Character In A Movie He Wasn't Even In

Although he's been in some live-action Disney movies, Tom Cruise hasn't yet voiced an animated character for the studio. However, he was the inspiration for a very famous Disney prince. Can you guess which one? Turns out that Aladdin was based on the actor!

While providing commentary for the 2004 DVD release of the film, producers revealed that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the animation should be modeled after Cruise because of his "iconic hero" look.

Steven Spielberg's 10 Lowest-Rated Movies, Ranked

Even legendary directors like Steven Spielberg have been involved with films they're less than proud of.

Steven Spielberg has been the undisputed king of Hollywood for nearly half a century. As one of the original "movie brats," Spielberg kicked off the industry's blockbuster culture with the release of Jaws in 1975 and then laid claim to his stake as one of the most exciting filmmakers of his generation with the one-two punch of Raiders of the Lost Ark followed by E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial .

The gigantic ripple waves Spielberg's career caused in Hollywood led many critics to suggest that American film culture ultimately regressed due to his enormous success. Still, there's no denying that many of his films are all-timers: many, but not all. For the most part, Spielberg's 21st-century movies have never quite lived up to his previous successes, and for all the popularity of his biggest hits, he's got more than a dozen films on his resume that even his more ardent fans would prefer never to have to watch again.

10 Most Iconic Characters In Steven Spielberg Movies

10 war horse wasn't bad, just plain.

Even a master director like Steven Spielberg had problems translating Michael Morpurgo's simple children's book about a family horse braving the frontline of World War I with British troops to the silver screen. War Horse tells the story of a young man as he tracks down his beloved horse in the trenches of France, starting with a quaint sequence before dragging its audience into a modern mechanized world. It's unquestionably an interesting aesthetic choice; unfortunately, the rest of the film is too old-fashioned to amount to anything exciting.

Simply put, War Horse isn't a bad film, but it isn't a good one either. It's exceedingly bland — a gripe that has defined many of Spielberg's late-career movies. Sappy and overly saccharine, War Horse is almost assuredly no one's favorite Spielberg film.

9 West Side Story Is All Spectacle, No Story

West side story.

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In 1957 New York City, two rival gangs, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, clash over territorial boundaries and cultural differences. Tony, a former Jet yearning for a better life, falls in love with Maria, the sister of the Sharks' leader, Bernardo. Their forbidden love story unfolds amidst escalating tensions and violence, highlighting the destructive nature of prejudice and the power of hope in the face of adversity.

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West Side Story received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, but as many film fans have noted, this nomination was largely based upon Spielberg's previous merit. While it's clear that Spielberg poured his passion into the film's score, it seems as though he failed to save that emotion for the film's central love story.

Centered around the forbidden romance between its protagonists, Tony and Maria, West Side Story's use of color and choreography largely overshadow the story of the film. In other words, it's almost entirely spectacle. While the movie's case is, everything about it winds up feeling hollow, leaving little for the audience to relate to.

8 Hook Never Finds a Way to Escape Neverland

When Captain James Hook kidnaps his children, an adult Peter Pan must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit in order to challenge his old enemy.

Hook is a film in which beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Its opening scenes are dramatic and confident, reveling in what an adult Peter Pan would have been like if he had ever had the opportunity to grow up. However, once Peter lands in Neverland, the tone shifts dramatically to that of a broad comedy, and as a result, the film never comes together as a whole.

Hook may very well be one of those films best left in the rearview mirror. As an adult, it's painfully apparent that the film doesn't hold up to modern standards. Moreover, the film's 142-minute runtime is patently absurd for a children's film. There's no denying that the movie has charm, but even Spielberg laments that he didn't give Robin Williams more freedom to bring this film to life.

7 The Sugarland Express Was Thrilling, But Raw

Steven Spielberg's theatrical debut began with The Sugarland Express , and looking back at it, it was an unceremonious beginning to a remarkable career. For those less familiar with the film, it follows the story of a husband and wife on the run from the law, looking to regain custody of their estranged son. As one of Spielberg's first films, it's a little rough around the edges, but even with its shortcomings in mind, it showcases a natural talent for directing action sequences.

In The Sugarland Express , heart-racing car chases and a nihilistic edge counter Spielberg's typically earnest approach. Compared to his later films, it lacks his normal magic. This movie feels much more in keeping with other mediocre films of its era and doesn't necessarily announce the promise of one of the most talented filmmakers of a generation. That, more than anything else, is its greatest sin.

6 The Lost World: Jurassic Park Was Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

Steven spielberg almost lost jurassic park to another iconic director.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park was a complete and utter misstep. Admittedly, its effects are gorgeous, and its cast is unbelievably talented. However, that's still not enough to keep this movie from feeling like an unnecessary sequel. Even Steven Spielberg admitted he was suffering from apathy during the movie's creation. After the original Jurassic Park film, there were just so few worlds left for this filmmaking dynamo to conquer.

The Lost World 's biggest fault is that its climax in San Diego feels tacked on and underwhelming. Although it is intended to pay homage to King Kong , the lack of thematic weight throughout the earlier parts of the film ensures that no one cares about its outcome.

5 War of the Worlds Is Too Nihilistic and Gloomy

War of the worlds.

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

When Steven Spielberg tackles sci-fi, things usually break right, but not with War of the Worlds . This adaptation of H.G. Wells's sci-fi classic reimagined the story as a paranoid metaphor for a post-9/11 America. The biggest problem? For a movie that was sold as a summer blockbuster with Tom Cruise in the lead role, War of the Worlds was unrelentingly gloomy.

On one hand, Spielberg's daring choice to go against his better storytelling habits and embrace the bleakness of War of the Worlds was a brave one. On the other hand, had he embraced his strengths instead, the film would have undoubtedly turned out better. The urgency and the spectacle never quite coalesce.

4 Always Is Best Forgotten About

Even the most ardent Steven Spielberg fan would be forgiven for forgetting about Always . After all, it was released in the same year as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , which naturally overshadowed it. Simply put, Always was Spielberg at his most sentimental, but never more apropos than it was here.

Initially inspired by a 1943 war drama called A Guy Named Joe , Spielberg and the film's star, Richard Dreyfuss, shared a mutual love for the story of a ghost pilot who mentors his friend from beyond the grave. However, this interpretation of that story does nothing better than the original outside of Spielberg's masterful direction of the aviation sequences.

3 The BFG Was Soulful, But Not Much Fun

The BFG should have been a home run, but against all odds, it was not. Working from a screenplay provided by the late and great Melissa Mathison (who also wrote E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) , this film marked Spielberg's return to children's fantasy with the story of an orphaned girl who is abducted and befriended by the film's titular giant.

There are some compelling moments in The BFG , including some genuinely delightful special effects , but those moments are too few and far between. Mark Rylance's performance is soulful, but the rest of the film around him feels entirely tired and too tightly controlled.

2 Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull Let an Entire Franchise Down

Indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull.

Indiana Jones becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.

Steven Spielberg Is Shocked by How Great Indiana Jones 5 Is

The fact that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull faced massive expectations upon its release. Simply put, Spielberg's attempt to make an Indiana Jones sequel that lived up to the legacy of the fantastic trilogy he created earlier in his career was misguided. Worst yet, the film doesn't feature the same level of excitement as the first three, especially towards the end.

While the stunts and action were present and accounted for in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull , the film's heart was missing. Outside of Indy and a returning Marion, the other characters were limp and lifeless. The film also suffered from an overabundance of awful CGI, which, compared to the practical effects of the originals, left this more recent film feeling the most dated.

1 1941 Was Spielberg's First and Only Attempt at Screwball Comedy

Hysterical Californians prepare for a Japanese invasion in the days after Pearl Harbor.

If there is one genre Steven Spielberg doesn't feel comfortable in, it would have to be comedy, which he has largely avoided since the disastrous 1941 . Riding high off the back-to-back success stories of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Spielberg's pride got the better of him with this infamous fiasco.

Starring Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, 1941 is occasionally funny but not nearly enough to justify its existence or the incredible amount of money Spielberg wasted on the film's impressive but ultimately unnecessary set pieces. A bloated runtime and an indiscriminate tone kept this movie from succeeding at not only the highest levels but any level.

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Tom Cruise Seen Sprinting Down Street in London as He Shoots Next Mission: Impossible Movie

The eighth 'Mission: Impossible' film, which does not yet have a title, is expected in theaters May 23, 2025

Mega / Dean - Click News And Media / SplashNews.com

Tom Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down in the next Mission: Impossible movie.

On Sunday, Cruise, 61, was seen sprinting down a street in London while filming a scene for the upcoming eighth film in his signature action franchise. The actor could be seen wearing a black suit with a white shirt opened at the top, with fake blood drenched over his chest while filming the sequence.

Cruise most recently appeared as his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt in last year's Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning , which made $172 million at the  domestic box office . Dead Reckoning also earned the franchise its first-ever Academy Award nominations when it received nods for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the recent 96th Oscars ceremony.

A title for the upcoming eighth Mission: Impossible movie has not yet been announced. The next film was originally set for release on June 28, but production delays related to 2023's SAG-AFTRA strike forced the film to restart production in the fall and delay its release until May 23, 2025, as Deadline reported back in October.

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Dead Reckoning left Cruise's character Ethan Hunt and series regulars Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) at odds with villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) and forging new alliances with characters like Grace (Hayley Atwell) over a battle for control over a sentient artificial intelligence.

James Gourley/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

The eighth Mission: Impossible film is just one movie among a number of projects Cruise has in development. In February, PEOPLE confirmed Cruise will star in the next movie from The Revenant filmmaker  Alejandro G. Iñárritu , while The Hollywood Reporter  reported in January that Paramount is developing Top Gun 3 as a sequel to Cruise's major 2022 success Top Gun: Maverick .

Cruise, known for his penchant for performing his own stunts, was recently seen climbing the iconic Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills on March 16 accompanied by a film crew. A representative for Cruise did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Monday. While it's unclear what Cruise was filming on Saturday, the stunt did not appear related to the next Mission: Impossible film.

Mission: Impossible 8 is expected in theaters May 23, 2025.

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Tom Cruise Movies List

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1. Endless Love (1981)

R | 116 min | Drama, Romance

Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between two teenagers leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy.

Director: Franco Zeffirelli | Stars: Brooke Shields , Martin Hewitt , Shirley Knight , Don Murray

Votes: 9,547 | Gross: $31.18M

2. Taps (I) (1981)

PG | 126 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 20,065 | Gross: $35.86M

3. The Outsiders (1983)

PG | 91 min | Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 97,249 | Gross: $25.60M

4. Losin' It (1982)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

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

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

Votes: 5,214 | Gross: $1.25M

5. All the Right Moves (1983)

R | 91 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

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

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

Votes: 20,372 | Gross: $17.23M

6. Risky Business (1983)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 99,608 | Gross: $63.50M

7. Legend (1985)

PG | 94 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

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

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

Votes: 72,310 | Gross: $15.50M

8. Top Gun (1986)

PG | 109 min | Action, Drama

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

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

Votes: 501,432 | Gross: $179.80M

9. The Color of Money (1986)

R | 119 min | Drama, Sport

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

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

Votes: 93,134 | Gross: $52.29M

10. Cocktail (1988)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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

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

Votes: 91,685 | Gross: $78.22M

11. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 545,774 | Gross: $178.80M

12. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War

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

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

Votes: 115,701 | Gross: $70.00M

13. Days of Thunder (1990)

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

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

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

Votes: 96,224 | Gross: $82.67M

14. A Few Good Men (1992)

R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 286,748 | Gross: $141.34M

15. The Firm (1993)

R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 147,441 | Gross: $158.35M

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

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

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

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

Votes: 346,726 | Gross: $105.26M

17. Mission: Impossible (1996)

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

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

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

Votes: 469,542 | Gross: $180.98M

18. Jerry Maguire (1996)

R | 139 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

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

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

Votes: 286,563 | Gross: $153.95M

19. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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

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

Votes: 374,251 | Gross: $55.69M

20. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

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

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

Votes: 327,973 | Gross: $22.46M

21. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

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

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

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

Votes: 377,135 | Gross: $215.41M

22. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)

Not Rated | 142 min | Documentary, Biography

The career and life of Stanley Kubrick is explored through pictures, clips from his films, his old home movies, comments from his colleagues and a narration by Tom Cruise .

Director: Jan Harlan | Stars: Katharina Kubrick , Malcolm McDowell , Stanley Kubrick , Barbara Kroner

Votes: 12,200

23. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

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

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

Votes: 285,324 | Gross: $100.61M

24. Space Station 3D (2002)

Not Rated | 47 min | Documentary

From outer space countries don't exist.

Director: Toni Myers | Stars: Tom Cruise , James Arnold , Michael J. Bloomfield , Robert D. Cabana

Votes: 1,745 | Gross: $93.37M

25. Minority Report (2002)

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

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

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

Votes: 583,436 | Gross: $132.07M

26. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

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

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

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

Votes: 222,615 | Gross: $213.31M

27. The Last Samurai (2003)

R | 154 min | Action, Drama

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

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

Votes: 470,137 | Gross: $111.11M

28. Collateral (2004)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

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

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

Votes: 432,450 | Gross: $101.01M

29. War of the Worlds (2005)

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

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

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

Votes: 474,421 | Gross: $234.28M

30. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

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

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

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

Votes: 390,174 | Gross: $134.03M

31. Lions for Lambs (2007)

R | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

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

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

Votes: 52,628 | Gross: $15.00M

32. Valkyrie (2008)

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

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

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

Votes: 258,914 | Gross: $83.08M

33. Tropic Thunder (2008)

R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War

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

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

Votes: 447,186 | Gross: $110.52M

34. Knight and Day (2010)

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

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

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

Votes: 210,148 | Gross: $76.42M

35. Takers (2010)

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

A group of bank robbers find their multi-million dollar plan interrupted by a hard-boiled detective.

Director: John Luessenhop | Stars: Chris Brown , Hayden Christensen , Matt Dillon , Michael Ealy

Votes: 65,716 | Gross: $57.74M

36. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

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

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

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

Votes: 527,794 | Gross: $209.40M

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Every Movie in the Tom Ripley Series, Ranked

Which take on Mr. Ripley was the most talented?

Tom Ripley fever may well have hit a peak in 2024, with a new miniseries about the infamous con artist called Ripley debuting on Netflix to a high level of acclaim . This is a character and a story that has had its fair share of movie adaptations in the past, but this continual retelling of a familiar narrative is never objected to too greatly, given how engaging and relevant much of the content remains. It also helps that the Tom Ripley book series, written by Patricia Highsmith , has five entries within it, each involving Ripley getting involved in some kind of new messy situation, then scheming and/or murdering his way out of the troubles he gets himself into.

Coincidentally, there are also five movies that have served as adaptations for the series , but not every movie adapts a different book. Of the five novels in Highsmith's series, two have actually never received major movie adaptations: the last two: The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) and Ripley Under Water (1991), the latter being published four years before Highsmith passed away. Of the other three, the first novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley , forms the basis for the aforementioned TV show. It's also had two film adaptations, the second novel, Ripley Under Ground , has one adaptation, and the third novel, Ripley's Game , has two. Those five movies are ranked below, starting with the decent and ending with the great.

5 'Ripley Under Ground' (2005)

Director: roger spottiswoode.

This take on Ripley doesn’t lack talent entirely, but it is quite easy to single out as the least compelling of all the movies to feature Tom Ripley, and certainly the most obscure, too. Released in 2005, Ripley Under Ground is also the most recent film adaptation of one of the books from the series, and the only feature film version of the novel of the same name. Ripley Under Ground takes place some years on from The Talented Mr. Ripley , with the premise involving Tom engaging in a scheme to get rich by covering up the death of one of his friends: a talented painter, and then selling his artworks himself.

Despite the obscurity, Ripley Under Ground does have some fairly well-known names attached to it, with Barry Pepper playing the lead role (perhaps a little miscast) and the supporting cast including the likes of Tom Wilkinson , Willem Dafoe , and Alan Cumming . It functions as a somewhat competent thriller , and it’s unlikely too many people will find it abhorrent in terms of quality… though it is ultimately disappointing as an adaptation of a story in this acclaimed series, and the other four films about Tom Ripley – all of which were released before 2005 – are noticeably superior.

Buy on Amazon

4 'Ripley’s Game' (2002)

Director: liliana cavani.

It might not quite be criminally good , and it’s also not the best version of Ripley’s Game , but 2002’s Ripley’s Game is still compelling and a worthy cinematic take on the source material. It’s hard to call it one part of a movie series, necessarily, because no actor has played the character of Tom Ripley more than once on-screen (this could change if 2024’s Ripley has more than one season, because Andrew Scott would likely return to the role). But, at the same time, having a different actor play a familiar and distinctive character is interesting, with John Malkovich bringing his typically offbeat and sometimes unsettling energy to the role with success.

Malkovich’s Ripley is a little older than most other depictions of the character, but he makes it work, and it also feels logical with this being the third story in the series; the character should naturally have matured a little. Ripley’s Game sees Tom Ripley being even more in control and manipulative than ever before, convincing a dying man to become a hitman, after an old associate of Ripley’s asks for a rival to be killed. Befitting the title, Ripley treats the whole thing like a game and seems to enjoy the power he holds more than ever before , giving the film a consistent sense of tension and uneasiness that makes it a compelling psychological thriller.

Rent on Apple TV

3 'The American Friend' (1977)

Director: wim wenders.

Given it’s also an adaptation of Ripley’s Game , The American Friend follows roughly the same premise as that aforementioned 2002 movie, but feels distinctive enough in several ways to stand on its own. It might be the most unusual and unexpected of all the adaptations, with legendary German filmmaker Wim Wenders showing himself to be unafraid of mixing things up in certain regards . For one thing, Dennis Hopper as Tom Ripley might be the most unusual or unexpected actor to play the character to date, given Hopper often excels in larger-than-life roles, and Ripley tends to be more measured and someone who doesn’t necessarily want to showcase large emotions.

Hopper makes it work, somehow, though, and ends up being a great Ripley alongside fellow acting legend Bruno Ganz , who also famously appeared in Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987), and here plays the dying man turned hitman that Ripley manipulates. The American Friend takes its time and certainly feels slow during some scenes, but nevertheless always builds tension and proves able to keep one’s interest, so long as they don’t mind a slow burn. When it gets to the more intense sequences, the payoffs prove worth the build-up, and the film overall is atmospheric, excellently acted, and perfectly suspenseful.

Watch on Criterion

2 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999)

Director: anthony minghella.

1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley is likely the Tom Ripley movie most are familiar with, and that’s okay, because it’s undoubtedly one of the best and perhaps the most approachable. For anyone new to the series who wants to explore it through the movie adaptations, The Talented Mr. Ripley is an excellent starting point, being an adaptation of the first book and being arguably the clearest and most straightforward of the films. Narratively, it excels in introducing Tom Ripley and his obsession with another young man called Dickie Greenleaf , and the consequences of what happens when the two grow close and then have a dramatic fallout.

Ripley engages in the sort of conman behavior that defines his character in later stories, but there’s a sense of messiness to it all here, with Tom being young and not as experienced when it comes to things like lying, murder, and stealing identities. It was a key role for Matt Damon , further showing the depths he had as an actor in much the same way Good Will Hunting did, and the supporting cast of The Talented Mr. Ripley is also great, including the likes of Jude Law , Gwyneth Paltrow , Cate Blanchett , and Philip Seymour Hoffman . It’s proven to be an influential movie that does justice to an influential and groundbreaking crime/thriller novel, and has aged extremely well in the quarter-century since its release.

1 'Purple Noon' (1960)

Director: rené clément.

The first of all the Tom Ripley adaptations, 1960’s Purple Noon , arguably remains the best, even after more than six decades. It came out just five years after the original The Talented Mr. Ripley was published, and so it also narratively centers on the same basic premise found in the 1999 film of the same name. It’s all about Tom, his relationship with Dickie, and the drastic change Tom experiences in his life after their brief friendship comes to a violent conclusion.

Purple Noon is a French release, and perhaps it was that country’s willingness to push things a little further when it came to things like adult themes and violence that made the film work so well, and feel quite revolutionary for a 1960s release . It might not seem too confronting nowadays, but it’s easy to imagine it being more of a shock to the system for many back in 1960 . It’s also the nicest-looking of all the movies about Tom Ripley, having a richness and bold use of color that gives the visuals a timeless quality, and, of course, the untouchable Alain Delon is fantastic as Tom Ripley; perhaps the definitive portrayal of the character on the silver screen to date.

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