By We’ve gotten quite used to seeing Tom Cruise run, jump, kick, punch, fly and ubiquitously drive cars and motorbikes really, really, really fast.
Throughout the 2010s he focused primarily on action cinema, producing arguably much of the decade’s finest genre films such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Edge of Tomorrow.
The appearance of old age isn’t slowing him down. In fact, it might be speeding him up (although using a Boeing Super Hornet in Top Gun sequel Maverick to hit 1,100 mph maybe considered cheating).
Tom Cruise’s best films that don’t feature action scenes
Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder
Let’s begin with an honourable mention for Tropic Thunder. It has action scenes but Cruise is not part of them. Here we see one of his great cameos, jumping at director Ben Stiller’s offer of playing caffeinated fat-suit wearing businessman Les Grossman. The bald cap and chubby fingers Cruise dons add to this left-field character and make it possibly his funniest role.
10. Vanilla Sky
Dir. Cameron Crowe (2001)
This remake of Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes features some good ideas but is ultimately a bit of a mess. It probably also shouldn’t be on this list given there’s a bit of Tom Cruise Action by way of a car crash that kick-starts the kooky mystery. However, for much of the film a facially scarred Cruise resorts to character study as his once all-powerful business owner tries to make sense of his life and predicament.
9. Magnolia
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (1999)
Tom Cruise achieves so much in so little time in Paul Thomas Anderson’s dramatic opus Magnolia. It’s more than a cameo performance even if Cruise’s role is a small one. The actor’s character, an egotistical, foul-mouthed motivational speaker, is prompted to reconcile with his estranged family, the heartbreak softening his belligerence and giving him a bittersweet resolution.
8. Risky Business
Dir. Paul Brickman (1983)
Tom Cruise comes-of-age and turns into a bona fide Hollywood star in this entertaining eighties film about a wealthy entrepreneurial student who starts running his own high class brothel. It famously features the trouser-less “Tom Cruise slide” and his iconic spontaneous dance in ice white socks.
7. The Color Of Money
Dir. Martin Scorsese (1986)
Tom Cruise is a pool player in this sequel to The Hustler. Martin Scorsese directs a powerhouse cast featuring Paul Newman (who reprises his role as Fast Eddie Felson) and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.Â
6. Born On The Fourth Of July
Dir. Oliver Stone (1989)
Born on the Fourth of July is a cheat. Oliver Stone’s film does contain a few action scenes (understandable given its Vietnam War backdrop) but as the real life Ron Kovic, a man confined to a wheelchair after being injured in combat, Cruise finds a very intimate darkness to showcase Kovic’s slow acceptance of his fate and battle to find new purpose.
5. Jerry Maguire
Dir. Cameron Crowe (1996)
In a far more successful collaboration between actor and director (Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe would later re-team for the messy Vanilla Sky), Jerry Maguire is a funny and endearing film about a sports agent who finds he can instil honesty in a widely dishonest industry. The romance between Cruise and Renee Zellweger is nearly as heartwarming as the agent’s blossoming patriarchal relationship with her young son.
4. Rain Man
Dir. Barry Levinson (1988)
It’s the Dustin Hoffman show in Barry Levinson’s Rain Man. Nevertheless, this compelling drama wouldn’t work without Cruise’s affectionate role as Charlie Babbitt, the estranged brother of Hoffman’s autistic Ray.
3. The Firm
Dir. Sydney Pollack (1993)
Tom Cruise stars as a young lawyer who thinks he’s hit the big time when gaining employment with Bendini, Lambert & Locke. A huge wage packet and plenty of corporate benefits blind him to the troubled waters he’s getting into. Also starring Gene Hackman, The Firm sees Cruise’s Mitch McDeere recruited by the FBI to reveal details behind the law firm’s shadier activities and hopefully shed light on the fact that every lawyer who has attempted to leave has ended up murdered.
2. A Few Good Men
Dir. Rob Reiner (1992)
Perhaps more famous for Jack Nicholson’s indelible line: “You can’t handle the truth”. But let’s not forget he’s prompted by a vein-popping Tom Cruise who demands “The Truth”. A Few Good Men is a crowd-pleasing courtroom drama about a military lawyer attempting to defend two soldiers accused of murder.
1. Eyes Wide Shut
Dir. Stanley Kubrick (1999)
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece features former real life couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as husband and wife Bill and Alice Harford. The characters’ troubled relationship allegedly mimics the actors’ off-screen marriage which ended soon after shooting. However, the sexual chemistry between the pair – and their real life problems – add a possibly otherwise unattainable level of authenticity to this compelling, dreamy, immersive tale of self discovery.
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I thought Vanilla Sky was the best film on 2001 and absolutely hated Magnolia, but thought Cruise was really good in it. I like your choice at number one as well.
The Firm is all Cruise. Hackman and the other supporting cast are really good too but Cruise just makes it work.
Really good list Dan.