Tom Cruise Movies Ranked: The 10 Best, Counted Down to Maverick

For more than four decades, Tom Cruise has been the definition of a movie star: the grin, the sprint, the absolute refusal to coast. Yet the best Tom Cruise movies are not only the spectacles. Alongside the fighter jets and the Mission: Impossible stunts, Cruise has played a paralysed Vietnam veteran, a misogynist self-help guru, a selfish car dealer and a silver-haired contract killer, and some of his best work came when he set aside the hero role altogether. The picks that follow balance the blockbusters and the riskier roles.

The ranking looks first at the performance and then at the film built around it. A daring supporting role in an ensemble drama can beat a blockbuster lead, and roles that stretched him count for more than roles that simply used his charisma. Each pick names his character, the director and the co-stars who shaped it. The countdown climbs from tenth to first, from a late-1980s war drama that announced him as a serious actor to the sequel that, decades after the original, became the crowning achievement of his career.

Tom Cruise Movies Ranked by Role and Director

10. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic, a patriotic young man from Long Island who enlists in the Marines and is sent to Vietnam. A battlefield injury leaves him paralysed from the chest down, and he returns home to neglectful hospitals, a changed country and his own crumbling faith in the war. Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava play Ron's parents, and Kyra Sedgwick plays Donna, his high school sweetheart. Over the years, Kovic's anger turns him into one of the most powerful voices of the anti-war movement.

This was the film that proved Cruise was more than a pin-up. He gives an intense, raw performance, charting Kovic's journey from eager teenager to broken veteran to passionate activist without vanity. The role won him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a drama and brought his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. It ranks tenth only because Stone's film is sometimes overwrought, but the performance remains one of the most committed of his career, and it laid the groundwork for every serious role that followed.

9. A Few Good Men (1992)

Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men is a courtroom drama set within the US military. Cruise plays Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a talented but lazy Navy lawyer who prefers plea bargains to trials. He is assigned to defend two Marines accused of killing a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay, and Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway, played by Demi Moore, pushes him to dig deeper. The trail leads to the base commander, Col. Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson. Kevin Bacon plays Capt. Jack Ross, the prosecutor and Kaffee's friend.

Kaffee is a showcase for Cruise's cocky charm, but the film gives him a real arc, from glib slacker to a lawyer willing to risk his career for the truth. His climactic cross-examination of Nicholson is one of the great courtroom showdowns, with Cruise matching a screen legend line for line. It ranks ninth because the film is polished but conventional. Still, it remains one of the best lawyer movies ever made, and it captures Cruise at the peak of his early-1990s stardom.

8. Minority Report (2002)

Steven Spielberg's Minority Report is set in the Washington of the future, where a police unit called PreCrime arrests murderers before they can act, using visions from three psychics known as precogs. Cruise plays Chief John Anderton, the unit's head, a grieving father whose son disappeared years earlier. When the precogs predict that Anderton himself will commit a murder, he goes on the run. Colin Farrell plays Danny Witwer, a Justice Department investigator, Samantha Morton plays the precog Agatha, and Max von Sydow plays Lamar Burgess, the director of PreCrime.

Cruise is excellent as a man whose faith in a perfect system collapses, and he brings real anguish to Anderton's grief and paranoia. The film is both an inventive thriller and a thoughtful meditation on free will, and Spielberg gives Cruise a mix of spectacular chases and quiet emotional scenes. It ranks eighth because the performance, though strong, is more conventional than the riskier roles ahead of it. Still, it remains one of the most satisfying science fiction films of its era, and a perfect union of star and director.

7. Rain Man (1988)

Barry Levinson's Rain Man stars Cruise as Charlie Babbitt, a self-absorbed Los Angeles car dealer who is drowning in debt. When his estranged father dies, Charlie discovers that the family fortune has gone to an older brother he never knew he had: Raymond, an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman, who lives in an institution. Charlie takes Raymond on a cross-country road trip, hoping to win control of the money. Valeria Golino plays Susanna, Charlie's girlfriend, who sees the cruelty in his plan, and Gerald R. Molen plays Dr. Bruner.

Hoffman has the showier role, but the film depends on Cruise. Charlie begins as a cold, manipulative hustler and slowly becomes a loving brother, and Cruise charts that transformation with real subtlety, never rushing it. His frustration in the early scenes is believable, and his tenderness at the end is earned. It ranks seventh because he is largely reacting to Hoffman's performance. Still, it was the first time he held his own against a screen legend in a serious drama, and it changed how Hollywood saw him.

6. Magnolia (1999)

Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia weaves together a dozen lives in California's San Fernando Valley over one extraordinary day. Cruise plays Frank T.J. Mackey, a swaggering, foul-mouthed motivational speaker who teaches men how to seduce and manipulate women. Behind the bravado lies a painful past involving his estranged father, a dying television producer. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Phil Parma, the compassionate nurse who tries to reunite father and son, Julianne Moore plays Linda Partridge, the father's young wife, and Philip Baker Hall plays the quiz show host Jimmy Gator.

Frank is the most daring role Cruise has ever taken. In his seminar scenes he is ferociously funny and repellent, using his star energy to sell a grotesque philosophy. Then a probing interview and a deathbed visit strip him bare, and his collapse is devastating. The role won him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and brought an Academy Award nomination. Magnolia ranks sixth only because he appears in one strand of a sprawling ensemble; minute for minute, it may be the finest acting of his career.

5. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow is a science fiction war story with a clever twist. Cruise plays Major William Cage, a military spokesman with no combat experience who is thrown onto the front line against an alien invasion. Killed almost immediately, he wakes up at the start of the same day and is forced to live through the battle again and again. Emily Blunt plays Rita, a celebrated soldier who understands what is happening to him, Brendan Gleeson plays General Brigham, and Bill Paxton plays Master Sergeant Farell, Cage's no-nonsense commanding officer.

Cruise plays against type at first, making Cage a smooth-talking coward who must slowly turn himself into a warrior. The film gets enormous comic mileage from his repeated deaths, and his chemistry with Blunt is terrific. It ranks fifth because it is one of the smartest blockbusters of its decade and a performance that cleverly plays on his heroic image. Few science fiction films have used a time loop so inventively, and it is a favourite among fans who prefer his lighter, more self-mocking side.

4. Jerry Maguire (1996)

Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire stars Cruise as a slick sports agent who has a crisis of conscience and writes a passionate mission statement urging his firm to care more about its clients. He is promptly fired. Only one athlete stays with him: Rod Tidwell, a loudmouthed football player played by Cuba Gooding Jr. Renée Zellweger plays Dorothy Boyd, a young accountant and single mother who walks out of the firm with Jerry, and Kelly Preston plays Avery Bishop, Jerry's ambitious fiancée, who is unimpressed by his newfound idealism.

This is the definitive Cruise romantic comedy, and it gave him the chance to play a hero who is genuinely flawed: selfish, insecure and desperate to be liked. His scenes with Gooding are hugely entertaining, and his relationship with Zellweger is surprisingly tender. The role won him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a musical or comedy and brought an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. It ranks fourth because it is his most purely likeable performance, and the film around it is sharp, funny and full of heart.

3. Collateral (2004)

Michael Mann's Collateral takes place over a single night in Los Angeles. Jamie Foxx plays Max Durocher, a cab driver with big dreams and no plan, who picks up a sharply dressed passenger named Vincent. Cruise plays Vincent, a contract killer who forces Max to drive him between a series of murders before dawn. Mark Ruffalo plays Det. Ray Fanning, who starts connecting the killings, and Jada Pinkett Smith plays Annie Farrell, a prosecutor Max drove earlier that evening and who turns out to be linked to Vincent's targets.

With grey hair, stubble and an unnerving calm, Cruise transforms himself into the most chilling character he has ever played. Vincent is philosophical, sardonic and utterly without mercy, and Cruise uses his own charisma against the audience, making the killer strangely compelling. His scenes with Foxx crackle with tension. Collateral ranks third because it remains the boldest departure of his career, proof that one of the most likeable stars in the world could be truly frightening when he chose to be.

2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible – Fallout follows Ethan Hunt after a mission goes wrong and three stolen plutonium cores fall into the hands of a terrorist network. Forced to work with August Walker, a blunt CIA assassin played by Henry Cavill, Ethan races across Paris, London and Kashmir to stop a nuclear catastrophe. Ving Rhames returns as Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Ethan's loyal teammates. Old enemies and allies resurface, and Ethan is forced to make choices that put the people he cares about at risk.

Fallout is the high point of the series, and Cruise's performance is a big part of why. Ethan is more vulnerable here than in earlier films, a man whose compassion is both his strength and his weakness. The action, from a skydive over Paris to a helicopter chase through mountains, is breathtaking, and his commitment to it is total. It ranks second because no Tom Cruise film better showcases his gifts as an action star, and it belongs on any shortlist of the best action movies of the century.

1. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick catches up with Captain Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell more than thirty years after the original film. Still a captain, still a test pilot and still allergic to authority, he is ordered back to the Top Gun school to train a team of young aviators for a near-impossible strike mission. Among them is Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw, played by Miles Teller, the son of Maverick's late friend Goose, who resents him deeply. Jennifer Connelly plays Penny Benjamin, a bar owner with whom Maverick shares a long history.

This is the role that sums up everything Cruise has spent his career building. He plays Maverick as a man haunted by loss and confronting his own obsolescence, and the emotional scenes land as powerfully as the dazzling flying sequences. The film earned a Best Picture nomination, with Cruise among its producers. It takes first place because it is the rare blockbuster sequel that improves on the original, and because it uses Cruise's age and legend as part of the story rather than hiding them, making the performance feel personal.

Honourable Mentions: More Tom Cruise Films Worth Seeing

These roles fell just outside the top ten but each shows another dimension of Cruise.

• The Color of Money (1986): As Vincent Lauria, a cocky young pool hustler, he holds his own against Paul Newman in Martin Scorsese's sequel to The Hustler.
• The Firm (1993): His Mitch McDeere, a young lawyer who discovers his prestigious firm is working for criminals, is a classic 1990s paranoid thriller lead.
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999): In Stanley Kubrick's final film, he plays Dr. William Harford, a New York doctor drawn into a strange night-long odyssey.
• Tropic Thunder (2008): His foul-mouthed studio executive Les Grossman is a gleeful, almost unrecognisable comic turn.
• Valkyrie (2008): He plays Claus von Stauffenberg, the German officer at the heart of the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler.

Tom Cruise's Awards and Nominations

Cruise has never won a competitive Academy Award, but his record at the Golden Globes shows how highly his dramatic work has been rated. He has won Golden Globes in the drama, comedy and supporting categories, and each of those roles also brought an Academy Award nomination:

• Born on the Fourth of July: won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a drama, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
• Jerry Maguire: won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a musical or comedy, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
• Magnolia: won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
• Top Gun: Maverick: nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture as a producer.

What stands out is the spread. He has been recognised for a war drama, a romantic comedy and an ensemble art film, which says a lot about an actor often reduced to his action persona. In recent years his focus has shifted toward huge, practical action spectacles, and his Best Picture nomination for Top Gun: Maverick reflects his growing role as a producer of his own films.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Tom Cruise movie?

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) takes first place here. Joseph Kosinski's sequel gives Cruise one of his most emotionally rich roles, wrapped in spectacular flying action.

Has Tom Cruise been nominated for an Oscar for acting?

Yes. He received Academy Award nominations for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, and he won a Golden Globe for each of those roles.

Which is the best Mission: Impossible film?

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), directed by Christopher McQuarrie, ranks highest of the series here, thanks to its spectacular action and a more vulnerable Ethan Hunt.

Does Tom Cruise play a villain in any of his movies?

Yes. In Michael Mann's Collateral (2004) he plays Vincent, a cold and calculating contract killer who takes a Los Angeles cab driver hostage for a night.

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