The Seven Best Tom Cruise Films

Since skidding down the hallway in an undies/buttoned shirt combo, Tom Cruise has thrilled film audiences around the world. Well not so much with Far and Away. Or Vanilla Sky. Or Jack Reacher. Yet for the most part, the man shifts into cruise control for the duration of any feature he appears in. Here are my Seven Best Tom Cruise Films:

7: Cocktail (1988). Directed by Roger Donaldson. Other Than Tom: Elisabeth Shue, Bryan Brown and Kelly Lynch.
Here me out. There are plenty of silly cocktails; salty chihuahua, flaming giraffe, as well as this particular blend from 1988. Though as ridiculous as Cocktail is, I cannot help but drink it all up. As Brian Flanagan, our headline act crackles in down town New York, flexing his bar-tending skills with his neither prim nor proper mentor Doug Coughlin (Brown), before jaunting off to Jamaica, where his womanising ways are challenged by his affections for beach holidayer, Jordan Mooney (Shue). Cocktail is not critically acclaimed, and if one took it seriously, well then this would taste worse than a dirty pint. The drunken pacing of the narrative is notable, and Coughlin's suicide being thrown into the mixer just so that Flanagan can fine-tune his morals is an abrupt absurdity. Still, this is substantial entertainment.





6: Mission: Impossible III (2006). Directed by JJ Abrams. Other Than Tom: Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan and Simon Pegg.
Another film that was a misfire with some critics, and I for one cannot understand why. It is, without question, the best of the series. The tone of the film feels much darker than previous outings, more personal, with a sense that Ethan Hunt could lose everything. Philip Seymour Hoffman's villain may speak in monotone, though he definitely does not suffer from ennui. His intonation makes him all the more dangerous, his lack of emotional capacity harbouring a threat that no life matters to him. The opening scene fires an arrow at Hunt's 'Achilles heel' and that wound is exposed for the entirety of the film. I rate Mission: Impossible III higher than most. It has its faults yes, Monaghan's wife to Cruise's Hunt is rather dull, as well as the Vatican sequence boasting moments of bathos. Yet the thrills spill. This Mission is virtually impossible to supersede as the most exhilarating.



5: Collateral (2004). Directed by Michael Mann. Other Than Tom: Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo.
Clearly Michael Mann has done no better since The Collateral, and I want to say neither has Tom Cruise. Although The Edge of Tomorrow has superb set-pieces and an adrenaline pumped script, as well as Tropic Thunder providing him with a grotesquely hilarious, hot-headed, vocabulary-of-fucks movie producer, The Collateral is Cruise's last great movie. Jamie Foxx earned an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor as Max, the taxi-driver (the same year he won Best Actor for Ray), but Cruise is just as enthralling to watch as Vincent, the hit-man. His calm and collective persona remains steady, soldiering through the choppy waters of killing his marks, hoarding a body in the trunk of the taxi, and the growing anxiety of his driver, Max. Vincent puts the captiv(e) in captivating, but this film is driven by two terrific performances, and Foxx perhaps has more depth to dive into with his portrayal. Still, Cruise is not afraid of going to the dark side, which is where he goes best.



4: Jerry Maguire (1996). Directed by Cameron Crowe. Other Than Tom: Cuba Gooding Jr, Renee Zellweger and Kelly Preston.

Oh Jerry Maguire. Such an easy film to watch. Laden with comedy, drama and sweet sentimentality. No wonder Tom Hanks was Crowe's first choice for the role. Though, Hanks concedes that the film would not work had the other Tom not been sports agent, Jerry Maguire. Cruise is fantastic in this role, deserving of his Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He journeys on the same trajectory he rode in Rain Man eight years earlier, transitioning from cocksure and arrogant into empathetic and loving. With hyped up support from Cuba Gooding Jr, who received the Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1997, 'show me the money' became the quote of the late 90's. With other memorable lines like 'you had me at hello', which Jerry throws at Dorothy Boyd (Zellweger), not Cuba Gooding's wide receiver Rod Tidwell, Jerry is a character that everyone should love, existing in a film that everyone should watch.




3: Top Gun (1986). Directed by Tony Scott. Other Than Tom: Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards.

"Highway to the danger zone". That's what Top Gun is, as Kenny Loggins explains in the lyrics of his hit song from the movie. Tom Cruise is effortlessly charismatic as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, opposite a strong-minded and sizzling Kelly McGillis, who plays Charlie Blackwood. Again, like with most Cruise classics, it is eminently quotable, with one such line 'I feel the need... the need for speed' edging into the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movie Quotes (#94). Top Gun itself is fuelled by its 'need for speed', thundering along with excitement, expletives (mostly the 's' word) and exclamation. Again, with Cruise, he probably did more critically acclaimed fare, Born on the Fourth Of July comes to mind. However, Top Gun is more memorable, and it is the film that cemented Cruise (along with his pearly whites) as iconic. A critical eye will notice the film's dissolution from promising story into shiny, scintillating scenes that compete with each other, trying to appear as the most appealing. But who cares. Narrative aside, Top Gun is a blistering spectacle.


2: Rain Man (1988). Directed by: Barry Levinson. Other Than Tom: Dustin Hoffman, Valeria Golino and Bonnie Hunt.

Dustin Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1989 for his deeply felt and wholly authentic portrayal of Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant. In the subsequent years, critics, when discussing Rain Man, have always been quick to shine as brighter light on Tom Cruise's performance as they do on Hoffman's. Cruise is truly exceptional as the egotistical younger brother to Raymond, who has just become aware of his older brother's existence. This is due to Charlie learning that, after his estranged father's death, the bulk of his $3 million estate has gone to an unnamed trustee, which illuminates to Charlie that he has an unknown relative. The conversion from how Cruise, as Charlie, treats Ray in their first few days together, to how he minds Ray's fugue state in the film's most dramatic sequence is so very poignant. To see Cruise 'act' the deflation of an immeasurable hubris, to see him thaw empathy out of his original frosty self is miraculous. The film itself: a fine example of the effects of mental illness.


1: Magnolia (1999). Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson. Other Than Tom: Julianne Moore, Jason Robards and Philip Seymour-Hoffman.

The nucleus of Magnolia's magnificence is a sensational script, where PTA expertly constructs and connects a character road map of coincidence. We see an array of disturbed people episodically interlinked with each other, and how their lives eventually bridge together. The end of Magnolia sprouts questions of life that stretch beyond the ambit of this one film, the predominant query, is the impossible possible? Magnolia itself has had pages of essays dedicated to it, so instead, let's talk about the eponymous hero of our blog post. Tom Cruise, as Frank T.J Mackie, gives, for me, one of the greatest performances of the 90's. Here I am killing two birds with one stone, because this is not just Cruise's best film, it is his best role. As sadistic sex 'god' T.J Mackie, he steals every scene he inhabits. Magnolia is a masterpiece. It is not a "Tom Cruise" movie. It is an ensemble piece. Yet Cruise stands out with the biggest... character. A supporting turn that lingers in the mind longer than any lead role he ever had. His very best.