WAMG Celebrates MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 With Our 7 Favorite Tom Cruise Movies

By Movie Geeks | July 11, 2023

On September 6, 2020, the first day of principal photography on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Tom Cruise drove a motorbike off a mountain. Specifically, he drove a custom-made Honda CRF 250 off a purpose-built ramp on the side of Norway’s Helsetkopen mountain, a vertiginous rock face sat some 1,200 meters above sea level. Then he plunged 4,000 feet into the ravine below before opening his parachute barely 500 feet from the ground.

When he landed, director, Christopher Mc Quarrie, and the small crew of his Mission co-stars who had assembled to watch the seminal cinematic sequence from the safety of video village, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then Cruise picked himself up and did it all again another seven times, just to make sure the footage was perfect.

The stunt was, by any measure, the most dangerous of Cruise’s career – which is saying something given that in previous Mission films he has, among other jaw-dropping endeavors, swung around the outside of the world’s tallest building (Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, in Ghost Protocol), hung onto the side of an Airbus A400M while it was in flight (in Rogue Nation) and launched himself out of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from a height of 25,000 feet, opening his chute just 2,000 feet from the ground and becoming the first person ever to execute a High Altitude Low Opening – or HALO – jump on film (in Fallout).

 As is Cruise’s now standard practice, the motorbike jump – in which his Ethan Hunt zooms off the edge, ditches the bike and executes a high-risk BASE jump in the six-second window he has before impact – had been long in the planning. After rehearsing for a year in the UK during pre-production, by the time the cameras rolled he’d completed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps in readiness to prepare for the most dangerous stunt he has ever completed on screen.  Currently, the Mission series has grossed over $3.5 billion worldwide.

This, movie geeks, is why Tom Cruise is a global cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema by creating some of the most memorable characters of all time. Having achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer, and philanthropist in a career spanning over five decades, Cruise is a four time Oscar nominee whose films have earned over $12 billion in worldwide box office – an incomparable accomplishment.

His nominations include two for Best Actor (JERRY MAGUIRE and BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY). one for Best Supporting Actor (MAGNOLIA) and one for Best Picture (producer, TOP GUN: MAVERICK).

Fueled by a lifetime goal to entertain audiences around the world, Cruise has worked over the last 40 years to produce and star in movies that stand the test of time. As a result, he has played a leading role in numerous legendary films such as Top Gun, Interview with the Vampire, The Firm, Rain Man, Oblivion, The Last Samurai, Born on the Fourth of July, Taps, The Color of Money, and the Mission: Impossible series, among many others.

During Cruise’s appearance at the Oscars nominees luncheon in February, to celebrate the Best Picture nominee for TOP GUN: MAVERICK, Director Steven Spielberg told the actor and producer that he “saved Hollywood’s ass.”  

MAVERICK received a total of six nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects.

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.

Opening in cinemas on July 12, Rotten Tomatoes currently has MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE sitting at 98% https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mission_impossible_dead_reckoning_part_one

After more than 40 years and 40 films, Cruise continues to lift fellow artists, inspire fans, and entertain audiences everywhere and to celebrate the opening of MI7, the staff of WAMG chose our 7 favorite Tom Cruise movies.

A FEW GOOD MEN – December 11, 1992

By 1983, Tom Cruise had already come to our attention in relatively small films like RISKY BUSINESS, THE OUTSIDERS (1983) and ALL THE RIGHT MOVES (1983). His charm and charisma onscreen launched him into the stratosphere with TOP GUN (1986) and RAIN MAN (1989). In 1989, Cruise was acknowledged for his efforts with a Lead Actor Oscar nomination for BORN ON THE 4th OF JULY, proving that he was more than just a “pretty face.” In 1992, Cruise was tapped to play Lt. Daniel Kaffee in director Rob Reiner’s film adaptation of Aaron Sorkin’s hit Broadway play, “A Few Good Men,” starring opposite heavy hitter and Academy Award-winning actor Jack Nicholson, and an ensemble cast that included Kevin Bacon, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, and Keifer Sutherland. Cruise had already proved he could hold his own against a Hollywood legend (Paul Newman, THE COLOR OF MONEY-1986) and he brilliantly went toe-to-toe with Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan Jessup. The final courtroom scene (“I want the truth!!” “You can’t handle the truth!!”) is pretty iconic and this is easily one of Cruise’s best acting performances to date, if not the best. – Melissa Thompson

EDGE OF TOMORROW – June 6, 2014

What makes this work is Tom Cruise as a charismatic comedian. He makes the audience laugh every time he dies. He isn’t the hero or the savior, but the loser who dies hundreds of time, only to have to relive it over again and again. “If you love Tom Cruise, you see him giving a genius performance, and if you hate Tom Cruise he dies like 200 times in the movie,” confirmed director Doug Liman in a post-footage Q&A. – Michelle McCue

https://www.max.com/movies/8d4640d7-fb4c-4ea8-bdc5-2c63a8b5ffe0

TOP GUN: MAVERICK – May 27, 2022

TOP GUN: MAVERICK is the sequel we never knew we needed until we actually needed it, 36 years later. It doesn’t get any more pop-culture than 1986’s Top Gun, and in sequel-happy Hollywood, it was surprising that Top Gun, with it’s $177M+ haul at the box office, never received a follow-up.  Top Gun: Maverick had been in development at Paramount since 2010. After eight years in development, Top Gun: Maverick finally began filming in 2018, with a release date that was originally set for July 2019. But the covid-19 pandemic had other plans, and the release date was pushed back to June 24, 2020. And then again to December 23, 2020. And again, to November 19, 2021. Finally, as the pandemic began to subside, we got the final release date of May 27, 2021. Finally! It was happening. But would Top Gun: Maverick deliver the same thrills as its predecessor? It was 36 years later – how could it? Fans that had been shut out of movie theaters for nearly 2 years came out in droves, and a big part of that was the sentimental factor. We really did want to see whatever happened to Lt. Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick. And it was everything we hoped it would be. Audiences were treated to multiple flashbacks from the original film that tied up some loose ends very nicely, and director Joseph Kosinski even recreated the unforgettably high-octane opening credits sequence from Top Gun, shot for shot. As sequels go, Top Gun: Maverick is as good as it gets and proved that Cruise is still the biggest movie star on the planet. – Melissa Thompson

https://www.paramountplus.com/movies/video/Alcn0hcGx0HosdhcawKteH8DXh3RiOF7/

TROPIC THUNDER – August 13, 2008

It was quite a stunner when the world’s biggest action movie star decided to join up with the “Frat Pack” in 2008 for the Hollywood satire helmed by frequent Cruise satirist Ben Stiller. Swallowed up in a fat suit, bald cap, Brillo-like beard, and massive phony hands, Cruise’s uncredited supporting role as furious foul mouthed producer Les Grossman is a “foreshadowing” take-off on Harvey Weinstein mixed with Scott Rudin and a splash of TOP GUN’s Don Simpson. The character was so popular that Cruise brought him back two years later for some memorable dance moves at the MTV Movie Awards. – Jim Batts

COLLATERAL – August 6, 2004

While his role as producer Les Grossman was slimy and vile, it was Cruise’s performance as the villainous Vincent in COLLATERAL that made audiences and critics take notice. The convincing transformation as the menacing contract killer, along with the actor’s sinister platinum hair and cold black eyes, had us scared and terrified for Jamie Foxx’s cab driver Max. We could barely breathe and were white knuckling it through the 2 hours spent in that taxi with the psychopath. For the first time, we were rooting for our leading man to lose. – Michelle McCue

https://www.paramountplus.com/movies/video/mSEEbIw3N2cSsPIfcuTo3LREHCsZlrhg/

RISKY BUSINESS – August 5, 1983

It felt fresh and funny at the time. For me, Curtis Armstrong’s anxiety about Guido the Killer Pimp was one of the big takeaways, however most remember Cruise’s now iconic doorway dance. – Mark Glass

JERRY MAGUIRE – December 13, 1996

No list of Tom Cruise movies would complete without JERRY MAGUIRE, the hit comedy romance that gave it’s decade the catch phrases “You had me at hello” and “Show me the money.” It made Renee Zellweger a star, and coming after Tom’s action star role in the first MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, it ahem brought him back down to earth. – Cate Marquis