Tom Cruise is, without a doubt, one of our finest living actors. Despite the fact that the phrase “movie star” is becoming increasingly obsolete in today’s Hollywood, Cruise remains a fantastic entertainer, a larger-than-life performer, and a true icon of the silver screen.
His presence transcends celebrity, and he has delivered memorable performance after memorable performance over the last nearly four decades, demonstrating his ability to traverse a number of genres—some with greater success than others.
Cruise’s cinematic career has gone from boyish 80s protagonist to classic leading man to action hero, and it’s a credit to his skill that he can be taken seriously in a dark, complicated drama directed by a filmmaker just as much as he can in a massive blockbuster franchise.
As a result, it seemed only fitting to revisit Cruise’s filmography, examine his whole body of work from Taps to Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and rank each film from worst to greatest. While this sounded like a straightforward enough task at first, as I dug deeper into Cruise’s filmography, I realized that he has done more genuinely terrific films than not.
It’s one thing to have a career as lengthy as Cruise’s, but the actor’s filmography is consistently strong—even the “worst” Tom Cruise’s films have some redeeming qualities.
Before we get started, keep in mind that this is a list of Tom Cruise’s films, not performances. As a result, the order I’ve given above pertains to the entire picture, not simply Cruise’s performance.