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Tom Cruise's 21 best movies – from Risky Business to Top Gun: Maverick
To celebrate the Mission: Impossible star's 60th birthday, we've compiled a list of his very best films.
YouTube/Paramount Pictures
- Patrick Cremona
Published: Sunday, 3 July 2022 at 8:00 am
21 items
Since he first emerged as a major star in the 1980s, few Hollywood celebrities have enjoyed more success on the silver screen than Tom Cruise – success that has continued this year with the phenomenal box office performance of Top Gun: Maverick.
And with the star celebrating his 60th birthday this weekend, now's the perfect time to look back at some of the highlights of his career, from his more dramatic roles in the '80s and '90s to his sublime all-action performances in the '00s and '10s.
Across four decades, Cruise has worked with many of the finest filmmakers in the world including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, and Paul Thomas Anderson – not a bad CV!
And since 1996 he's also been the face of one of the biggest action franchises in the world in the shape of Mission: Impossible, having already starred in six instalments and with a further two to follow.
All in all, it's a pretty incredible filmography – and so without further ado, here are Tom Cruise's best films as chosen by RadioTimes.com.
Showing 1 to 21 of 21 results
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1983
Drama
Crime/detective
PG
Drama starring Matt Dillon and Ralph Macchio. In 1960s small-town America, two rival gangs are involved in the usual confrontations. The "Socs", the rich college kids, are at war with the "Greasers" from the other side of town. But their rivalry takes a serious turn when one fight ends with the death of a boy.
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1999
Drama
18
Audacious ensemble drama, from the writer/director of Boogie Nights, starring Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore and Jason Robards. San Fernando Valley, California, the present: the lives of nine seemingly unconnected individuals begin to intersect over the course of one day.
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1986
Drama
Sport
15
Martin Scorsese's sequel to The Hustler, starring Paul Newman, Tom Cruise and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Liquor salesman and former pool hustler "Fast" Eddie Felson has long since put aside his cue and now backs young players in return for a slice of their winnings. When Felson spots the raw talent of Vincent Lauria, he persuades him to undertake a six-week pool-room tour in preparation for a big tournament.
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1983
Comedy
Crime/detective
18
Risqué teen comedy starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. Left to safeguard the family home while his parents are away, promising student Joel Goodson seizes the chance to have the time of his life. But when a friend's prank results in Joel being visited by troubled prostitute Lana, things get out of hand.
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1986
Adventure
Action
12
Blockbuster action drama starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is a rebellious pilot who is accepted into the air combat training programme at Miramar Naval Air Station. There he finds romance with one of his instructors as he battles to be the best.
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1988
Drama
Action
15
Oscar-winning drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Hustler Charlie Babbitt feels cheated when he is disinherited in favour of his autistic older brother Raymond, whom he hardly knows. Demanding a fair share of his late father's fortune from his brother's trustees, Charlie takes Raymond out of care and heads for California.
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1989
Documentary
Drama
18
Biographical drama starring Tom Cruise. Fired with enthusiasm, young Ron Kovic volunteers for the Vietnam War only to be wounded in battle. Paralysed from the chest down, he returns to an America vastly different from the one he left and attempts to heal the mental and physical wounds he has sustained.
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1992
Drama
Thriller
15
Courtroom drama starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore. Navy lawyer Daniel Kaffee is assigned to defend two marines accused of killing a colleague at their base in Cuba. As he gathers evidence for the case, Kaffee encounters strong opposition from the base's disciplinarian commanding officer.
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1993
Crime/detective
Thriller
15
Legal thriller based on John Grisham's bestseller, starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Gene Hackman. Top Harvard law graduate Mitch McDeere expects to find work in the big city, but the highest bid for his talents comes from a paternalistic Memphis firm. Mitch throws himself into the job, despite his wife Abby's reservations, only to be warned by the FBI that the deaths of two company associates weren't accidental.
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1996
Adventure
Crime/detective
PG
Action spy thriller based on the 1960s TV series, starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight and Emmanuelle Béart. The elite Impossible Mission Force's latest assignment is to recover stolen information that threatens to blow the cover of US spies throughout the world. But the plan goes disastrously wrong.
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1996
Comedy
Romance
15
Romantic comedy starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr and Renee Zellweger. As a top agent at Sports Management International, Jerry Maguire knows his way around and is his own man... until one day he gets an attack of decency and finds himself out of a job. Now he must start from scratch. His only allies are a single mother, her cheeky young son and a second-rate player for the Arizona Cardinals.
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1999
Drama
Mystery
18
Psychological drama, the last film by director Stanley Kubrick, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Unsettled by his wife's confession of erotic fantasies about another man, Dr William Harford is thrown into a series of destructive sexual encounters that threaten to engulf him and destroy his marriage.
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2003
Adventure
Drama
15
Period action drama, starring Tom Cruise. In 1876, after witnessing the US military brutality against native Americans, Captain Nathan Algren turns to drink to escape his battle nightmares. Hired by the young Japanese emperor to train the country's first modern, conscript army, Algren is forced to lead an inadequate campaign against the ancient line of Japanese warriors, the Samurai. But when he is captured by these alleged national enemies, he begins to doubt his mission.
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2004
Thriller
Action
15
Action crime thriller from the director of Heat, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. Suave hitman Vincent hijacks taxi driver Max and forces him to stop at a variety of locations in Los Angeles where he carries out his gruesome business. Realising that his unwilling participation will end with his demise, Max looks for means of escape.
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2008
Comedy
War
15
Comedy action adventure starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black. While filming an epic Vietnam War movie in the jungle, a group of pampered, egotistical actors find themselves fighting for their lives when they stumble across heavily armed drug lords.
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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2011
Adventure
Action
12
Action spy thriller starring Tom Cruise. The elite Impossible Missions Force is officially disbanded after being blamed for a botched operation, forcing agent Ethan Hunt and his crack team to go off grid to prevent a terrorist from causing a nuclear disaster.
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2014
Adventure
Sci-fi
12A
Sci-fi action drama starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. After being killed on his first day of combat in a war against aliens, Major William Cage finds himself in a time loop, living the same day over and over again. Gaining more knowledge each time he is killed, Cage realises that the key to victory is for him to keep on dying.
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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
2015
Crime/detective
Thriller
12
Spy adventure starring Tom Cruise. After the CIA chief persuades a Senate committee to disband the Impossible Missions Force, Ethan Hunt and his team are forced to act covertly. Their mission is to thwart a shadowy organisation known as the Syndicate, a network of rogue operatives plotting a series of global terror attacks.
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2018
Adventure
Action
12
Action spy thriller starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson and Henry Cavill. Ethan Hunt is sent to Berlin to buy three stolen plutonium cores before a terrorist group can get a hold of them. But after a hostage crisis leads to the failure of the mission, Hunt is targeted by a CIA assassin who could derail the IMF for good.
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2022
Action
Drama
12
Action drama sequel starring Tom Cruise. US Navy fighter pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is tasked with urgently training a cohort of young hotshots, in order to undertake a near-impossible mission and neutralise a dangerous enemy of the state. Assailed by problems both professional and personal, can Maverick stay on course and live to fight another day?
See more Tom Cruise news and features
Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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