THOMAS CRUISE MAPOTHER IV: HIS ŒUVRE

Sikipedia.

I don’t know why I find this career team-up / human corporate takeover so fascinating but I can’t think of anything like it. Even Gena Rowlands usually made another film or two in between ones with Cassavetes, and she was married to him!

Eyes Wide Shut

and then Magnolia

The last three MI films are really superior films (if they had to be ranked Rogue Nation>Ghost Protocol>Fallout, RN winning primarily due to Rebecca Ferguson content) and the first three are weird in retrospect, each one is basically a reboot with an entirely new Ethan Hunt, a grim govt agent in the first and a stud lothario in the second and a family man sleeper agent forced into action in the third. The first is totally fine, the other two are disposable imo. The Abrams one is lightweight discarded Alias episode trash and the Woo film has almost nothing going for it beyond some committed acting lunacy from Dougray Scott and Thandie Newton doing her best to elevate a thankless part.

Reacher 1 is really good, just a solid b-movie with a bigger budget. I like it a lot.

Edge of Tomorrow is really excellent, I appreciate Cruise going for full coward in the role early on. It’s another film where his female co-star elevates it thoroughly and it’s to his credit that he’s been willing to cede ground to Blunt and Ferguson to such a degree, to the point that they’re practically the true heroes of both films.

It’s actually hard to choose his best role, I think he’s made a lot of good flicks.

cosign every piece of that

Would have to see Born on the Fourth of July again to really decide (and Magnolia, for that matter)...but am a Collateral fan, with Cruise as a credible psychopath.

american made, knight and day, vanilla sky and minority report are all good movies dont @me

Omar v Otm on the early MI movies (the only ones I've seen).

Def agree that his innate assholish nature is employed well in some roles where it's also part of the character. His Rainman character is a puppy prick and he really convinces in that role

Yuppy even blaa

love puppy prick as a description tbh

I don’t know if they’re the best, but MI-1, Edge of Tomorrow and, uh, Cocktail are the only ones I feel like I would enjoy rewatching - especially EOT.

I’m alone here I think, but found the Brad Bird MI4 by far the least interesting next to Woo’s. Set pieces and humour all felt flat to me. I like the bit where they impersonate the wall.

Risky Business is a masterpiece.

Knight and Day among the dumber movies I've ever watched

Cocktail is an interesting mess. It's obnoxious and terrible in a lot of ways,and cruise is usually responsible for its lowest points. But I kind of like the Flanagan/Coughlin relationship which is the heart of the movie.

Brian Brown is very charismatic,he deserved his moment in Hollywood imo

knight and day is dumb

idk if its an critique that lands to say it

do you think anyone involved didnt know they were making a dumb movie

most movies are dumb, now i think of it tbh

always liked him but not loved him. would have to go back and see some of these again to decide

It was hard to love him in Magnolia because he was so despicable, but it was a memorable performance

I was defending John Wayne as an actor/movie star a few months back to some people who were raging over the latest unearthing of his infamous <I>Playboy</I> interview from the’70s (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, its pretty easy to find). My point—made all the more difficult to illustrate due to the people I was talking to either admittedly or simply likely never having seen a Wayne pic—was that whatever you may think of him as an actor/movie star, his best movies (for me, <I>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence</I> and <I>The Searchers</I>) worked because a director (Ford, again, for me; I’m not a bit Hawks fan, but I’m sure one could make a similar argument re: his work with Hawks) knew how to employ his persona in ways that, depending on how charitable you wish to be towards him, may have even been above the actor’s full comprehension. Cruise is a lot like that for me, as well; he’s at his best when a filmmaker—Kubrick, definitely, but also Anderson, Mann, Levinson, and even, gulp, Rob Reiner—knows how to tap into Cruise’s particularly icy brand of yuppie smarm (the urtext for this definitely being Risky Business). I remember reading one critic, circa the early 2000s, describing Cruise as the most quintessentially American movie star of the era, and I agree; take that as you will, I guess.

(Screwed up the formatting on that last post, sorry)

Lots of great performances and many good movies here. I need to rewatch Vanilla Sky but I still think it's really underrated. He's the only person that comes out of Magnolia alive, somehow gives the most human performance of his career. his role in Collateral was a refreshing heel turn that he didn't really follow up on, sort of like Sandler after Punch-Drunk Love.

having said that I cannot vote for anyone other than Dr. Bill. did you know he's a doctor?

Dr. William Harford!

Well described, cryptosicko.

My memory of Cocktail is exactly opposite JIV's: I remember Cruise as good, Bryan Brown as giving a cliched cynical-older-guy performance (or at least the script boxing him into that corner).

"knew how to employ his persona"

Not to get off topic, but related: Someone dismissed Travolta's performance in Pulp Fiction on the Travolta thread the other day. Majorly disagree. He's not only great, that character can't be played by anybody else--Tarantino made the role about him. The Jack Rabbit Slim scene wouldn't be one-tenth as good with someone else.

I don't any director ever played around with Cruise's persona quite so creatively--Magnolia comes close--but the same thing is at play in lots of his films (maybe even, past a certain point, every film he does by default).

"I don't think any director..."

Kubrick totally does it in Eyes Wide Shut, obviously playing off of Kidman and Cruise's real life marriage and pitting them against each other on set, and continually, for nearly three hours, makes Cruise wander around Manhattan and a secret sex mansion and NEVER get laid, despite coming very close many times. Cruise is castrated in EWS, and his masculinity is implicitly mocked throughout and explicitly at least once (when the teenagers or whatever accost him on the street).

I was gonna say

best persona riff: EWS
worst persona riff: Tropic Thunder

hard agree on TT

Agree with everything you say about Eyes Wide Shut. But because the character's such a cipher, I personally don't find him as interesting as T.J. Mackey (or Vincent Vega).

I actually think TT holds up pretty well as a satire of Hollywood self-importance, which makes his self-flattery-via-self-mockery shtick in it even more glaring

that casting/role might have been one of the slickest bits of PR in Hollywood history

I will take the populist route and just say my actual favorite movie from this list starring Mr. Thomas Cruise, OT VII, is War of the Worlds.

Saw it twice

would throw his turn in Minority Report in directors utilizing his talents to best use.

i am saying this without evidence, but did his career take a notable dive after minority report? i guess i haven't seen a lot of his recent movies. but that's because i'm not really a big fan of the genre of whatever jack reacher is

and it seems like a lot of his recent movies are in that genre, global superstar tom cruise mode. i like when he pretends to be a more normal person

did his career take a notable dive after minority report?

no, before Minority Report, $200 million gross was the marker of a big hit for him. since Minority Report neeearly all his films since have grossed $200 million or above, with Fallout pulling $800 million to be his biggest hit since Top Gun or Rain Man.

Collateral, two years after Minority Report and just before the couch-jump, was the last time he ticked off a square on his "major white male American director" bingo card, though.

(In 2006 he and his producing partner were given part-ownership of United Artists after their deal with Paramount was terminated due to his anti-psychiatry, anti-Brooke Shields, and anti-anti-depressant public statements. She was ankled two years later, but since then he seems to have tried to create his own personal 1920s-style UA* by building a stable of house directors that he rotates between, and having McQuarrie involved in as many productions as Cruise can drag him into.)

*((founded by actress-producer Mary Pickford, writer-actor-director-composer-producer Charlie Chaplin, actor-producer-writer Douglas Fairbanks and director-producer DW Griffith to circumvent the influence of existing Hollywood studios. It is currently United Artists Digital Studios, a division of Comcast making webisode revivals of War Games and Stargate. Up the workers!))

Realise I haven't seen A Few Good Men!

...should I?

Can you handle the truth?

AFGM is pretty dumb

Voted Cocktail, since it was kind of exemplar of a certain kind of movie of its time, especially one with TC in it.

All I can remember from Cocktail is TC sexing Elizabeth Shue under a waterfall, which may reflect my age when I first watched it

An exemplar

kind of exemplar of a certain kind of movie of its time, especially one with TC in it.

When you got movies like TC in it, you can't lose

I've never seen the first two Mission: Impossible movies and likely never will. I hate DePalma, and hate what Hollywood did to John Woo. But I like a surprising number of Cruise movies, the last three M:I installments and the second Jack Reacher (haven't seen the first) among them.

I thought his self-mutilation movies (Vanilla Sky, having his eyes torn out in Minority Report) were interesting, and Edge Of Tomorrow, despite being saddled with one of the worst titles in cinema history, was really good.

Collateral was pretty good for a while, though the scene where the bar owner talks about Miles Davis makes me cringe all my skin off and it should have ended with Jamie Foxx flipping the cab - boom; cut to credits on a black screen.

People talked shit about Oblivion and it was probably too long but if was a cool vibe to dig around in. I'd love to play a game set in that world. And if it came on TV I'd watch the shit out of it.

I've never heard of Oblivion, and "Jack Harper" is such an incredibly generic name my eye just slid right past that entry in the poll. "Jack Harper" is a name Arnold Schwarzennegger would have had in one of his late 80s/early 90s movies that no one remembers now.

Edge Of Tomorrow, despite being saddled with one of the worst titles in cinema

Warners formally changed the title (back) to Live. Die. Repeat., the director's intended title, for home video, and Liman & McQuarrie have both referred to the sequel as Live Die Repeat And Repeat.

(after being inspired by the primary sexual interaction of modern screen Cruise: a woman turns to look at him over her shoulder.)

Actors playing "themselves" is distinct from phoning it in. I don't think Tom Cruise has ever phoned anything in. It's either very good or a complete disaster.

I think he’s best in the Mission Impossible movies, esp the last few: it’s like he’s happiest if he know he’s got lots of crazy stunts to do

(as opposed to say, The Mummy where he has like 2 set pieces and spends most of the movie running or looking confused. do not watch)

Am looking forward to the Top Gun sequel - seems like the perfect conditions for some of that same kind of peak Cruise

Hmm, I'll have to think about it, but by "Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise" I guess I would say it's akin to, I dunno, Arnold playing Arnold in all those '80s action movies. That is, Cruise has been great in lots of movies, but to the credit of his instincts (Great White Male Director bingo or no), most of those movies are not great *because* of Tom Cruise. The Mission Impossible movies, however, they're all but built around him. Watch Tom Cruise do stunts, not "I hope Ethan Hunt finally finds closure re: his wife."

The greatest 'Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise' role was when he jumped up and down on Oprah's couch. There were more layers to unpack in that performance, reaching deeper into his psyche, than anything he has yet committed to the big screen.

See it here, if you dare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgXEkL3NV4

The Mission Impossible movies, however, they're all but built around him. Watch Tom Cruise do stunts

For sure from Ghost Protes on, but that's 15 years after the DePalma one, and he was still marking out Cameron Crowe, Spielberg, PTA, Kubrick and Michael Mann bingo squares for a decade.

(The big "look at this really being Tom Cruise risking his life" stunt in MI2 is bolted on to the front from a separate shoot in another hemisphere)

I wish the movie were called Ghost Protes.

(GhoPro also where McQuarrie came on halfway through the shoot and rewrote it to be built around Cruise; originally he was gonna leave the series at the end. Since making Rock Of Ages immediately afterward, he then hasn't made another movie without McQuarrie involved, as producer, writer, co-writer, uncredited rewriter or writer/director.)

I think he’s best in the Mission Impossible movies, esp the last few: it’s like he’s happiest if he know he’s got lots of crazy stunts to do

yah but and also: I used to think he was only ~really~ good in Risky Business and and Magnolia; rewatched Risky for the first time a month ago and he is really ace in it.

I guess most of his best work after that is playing an asshole of some kind, and Risky Business is his character learning to be a collaborative but self-serving and exploitative boss on-screen...

Risky Business is so good. I think it would have still be a good movie with someone else, but probably not as good.

It's kind of weird that he's gotten this action hero persona thing going on, because I think one of his gifts is flipping the switch from arrogant to vulnerable (if not quite sympathetic). He does that well in "Magnolia," but also "Jerry Maguire" (iirc) and the Spiellberg films, too. Certainly in "Edge of Tomorrow," sort of in "Collateral."

Is latter-day cruise more or less asexual than The Rock? Every scene with a woman in Ballers seems like it might be the first time he’s kissed someone.

Risky Business is dope because it’s like some hybrid of John Hughes and Michael Mann. Was pleasantly surprised when I first saw it a few years ago, was expecting something entirely different.

not about to watch Ballers to compare, but The Rock flirting and fighting with Vanessa Kirby* in F&FP:H&S managed to be weirder and creepier than Cruise flirting and fighting with Vanessa Kirby** in M:I-FO

*(14 years younger)
**(24 years younger)

flirtin and fightin it's all the same Livin' with Louie dog's the only way to stay sane

Yeah Risky Business has a bizarre, singular mood, circa otm

DeMornay might be more crucial to the mood of Risky Business than Cruise. The viewer can believe they have more of a grasp on her personality than Cruise's character does, but only by a couple of degrees.

You're right, and iirc Cruise's friends are total losers/cowards like him(at first)... I only saw this a few years ago as well and while I knew it was more than the living room scene (which was its reputation according to VH1's I Love the 80s), I was frankly astonished when I saw "MUSIC BY TANGERINE DREAM" in the opening credits. In my mind, Risky Business and Thief are films happening simultaneously in the same city.

Think this is the most popular thread I ever started lol

his œuvre

"Risky Business" is where he "becomes" Tom Cruise in lots of different ways, but especially how the naive character starts out at the mercy of De Mornay but seemingly ends up ruthlessly cold-blooded (lesson learned, capitalism!). But yeah, because DeMornay is so crucial she lends her character a real ambiguity, especially in the alternate (director's preferred) ending:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KnW9_viA7Q

Gah, that movie is so good.

Was flipping around on hotel tv and saw Cruise with Cameron Diaz. I thought, wait, what movie is this? Turns out to be something called Knight and Day. What the hell is that?

I thought he was really good in the new "Top Gun," charming, dramatic, funny, vulnerable, pretty versatile in the role of "Tom Cruise, movie star."

On the way to the theatre my wife told me one of her co-workers is his ... first cousin, once-removed? Cruise's first cousin is the co-worker's mother, whatever that makes her. So everyone was, of course, curious. Have you met him? What's he like? She said the only time she met him was at his mother's funeral, but that for years, every year they would get a pile of Scientology books and pamphlets from him, which they promptly threw out. This went on for several years, but at some point the Scientology stuff stopped coming and he started sending a coconut cake instead.

Apparently this is a Cruise trademark:

It is a White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake from Doan's Bakery that Tom Cruise sends as a gift to all his famous friends at Christmas. The cake is a moist coconut bundt cake with chunks of sweet white chocolate topped with a rich cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut flakes.

Incidentally, at the box office my wife asked the ticket seller for two to "Mission Impossible." The ticket seller just looked back blankly, and my wife doubled down. "Two for 'Mission Impossible,' please." And the ticket seller kept staring, frozen. "Um, 'Top Gun,'" I told my wife, and she turned red, and the seller and everyone just cracked up. Tomato/potato.

Mentioned in the other thread, but the last half hour of this was Mission Impossible

For those of you worrying that your dreams have passed you by, Tom Cruise just had his biggest hit at age 60. He did it via a specific set of values and habits that I think can work for anyone, so I wanted to start a thread. The first thing you need to know: What is a Thetan? 1/ pic.twitter.com/NvrymZElrJ

— Jason Pargin, author of John Dies at the End, etc (@JohnDiesattheEn) July 16, 2022

lol

One day it’s gonna seem mad to everyone that it came out this dude uses actual slaves and nobody gave a shit

I think we (I?) have talked about this before, but has any actor worked with as many (esp. at the time) A-list directors as Tom Cruise has? Coppola, Ridley Scott, Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Tony Scott, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, De Palma, Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Woo, Spielberg, Michael Mann, Robert Redford, Iñárritu, Cameron Crowe... Not even counting various top-tier workmanlike directors like Doug Liman, Curtis Hanson, James Mangold, Ron Howard, etc.

I look at that list and think "Hmm...has he ever worked with a director who is a woman before?" (Has he? I have no idea, and obviously there's a massive structural imbalance already but boy this puts it into sharp perspective.)

Good question! Doesn't look like it, but I'm not sure how unusual that is, tbf (sadly).

Cary Grant might give him a run.

xp to me I think I believe in “one day” a little less than I did 3yr ago, for all sorts of things

Von Sternberg, Cukor, Hawks, McCarey, Stevens, Kanin, Hitchcock, Capra, Donen, etc.

Hmm, that's a good question, too. I feel like Cruise (must have) consciously made a point of going through a Great Directors list (young and old), whereas Grant was just working with great directors. Not sure there's a real distinction to be made there, but Grant must have had a lot of contemporaries working consistently with such a high-tier of contemporary directors, right? Like Jimmy Stewart or Bogart, etc.. Does Cruise have any peers that have made the similar A-list rounds to the same degree?

His ex-wife has made a point of working with female directors:
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/nicole-kidman-worked-with-19-women-directors-eight-years-1236313884/

It doesn't help that Cruise has been in action mode for a while now, and there aren't that many female action directors, at least few with real Hollywood traction. Of course, Cruise could get whoever he wants hired to direct one of his movies, so given his pull the ball(s) is in his court. He's got another couple of decades of making movies ahead of him, and maybe only 10 more years doing anything close to action movies, so hopefully as he slows down he changes tack and takes some (metaphoric) risks again for a change.

Curious about this fall's Iñárritu collab.

I always assumed Cate Blanchett was doing something along those lines: Scorsese, Spielberg, Jarmusch, Soderbergh, Malick, del Toro, Iñárritu, Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, Peter Jackson, Eli Roth lol