Every Tom Cruise movie, ranked

How do you secure the bottom ranking? Having more than five writers work on the script and making no money at the box office is a good start. Not helping matters is the romance between two teenagers, which ends with Tom Cruise burning down one of their homes. 

Remember the Dark Universe? Me neither. Apparently, the folks at Universal had plans to make their own franchise but bailed once they saw a rough-cut of The Mummy. The movie has all the pratfalls of a D.C. comic: dim lighting, bad acting, and a star who can't outrun a bloated plot. 

We can all agree on one thing: this movie sucks. It's horrible, and the movie flopped mainly because director Adam Shankman mistook loudness for passion. But as Stacee Jaxx, the Axl Rose-like superstar who's drugged-out, sexed-out, and bottomed-out, Cruise almost saves it. His performance of "Dead or Alive" makes you want to give it another shot. 

Cruise should have taken the title as a sign and never gone back to Jack Reacher. The first one wasn't a hit, but the second one takes all the pep out of the first and replaces it with blandness. 

It's Top Gun set in the world of bartending, which means the only action happening here is in the bedroom. Cruise's only mission is to make girls swoon. He looks like a million bucks and shows off the charm that would make him a sex symbol in the '90s. But he isn't very good in the part and received a Razzie nomination for his performance. 

Anyone who has seen Cocktail will have difficulty going along with Losin' It. I mean, this is a movie where Tom Cruise has a hard time romantically. The sexiest man in the world is joined by two friends on a trip to Tijuana, where they try to find him a woman to sleep with. In reality, that would take about two seconds. But since this is a teenage comedy, we have to wait two hours for the climax. 

Robert Redford couldn't have asked for a better cast than Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Michael Pena, but he could have asked for a better script. The director's war drama boils down to a lot of dense, long-winded monologues about how screwed up our country is. It's basically an Aaron Sorkin movie without an Aaron Sorkin script. 

It seemed Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise were made for each other after Jerry Maguire, but then Vanilla Sky happened. Cruise plays a handsome, rich publisher who goes into a tailspin after his wife dies in a car accident. The entrance of Penelope Cruz changes things for a while, but then things start to get weird when Cameron Diaz shows up. None of it makes any sense, and I found myself scratching my head long after the credits rolled. 

The problems with Valkyrie have nothing to do with Cruise. He's great in the part of Colonel Stauffenberg. The problems are with the script, the direction, and the decision to have the Nazis speak English. 

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were a power couple who starred in three movies together. One is great, but the other two are missed opportunities. The idea of two immigrants falling in love against a backdrop of rolling hills sounded good on paper, but Ron Howard isn't able to elevate it above shallow Oscar bait.

Another Cruise and Kidman joint. Days of Thunder sees the stars reuniting with Top Gun director Tony Scott, who wanted to recapture the magic of their first collab on the streets of Daytona. The movie hit all the beats of their first outing — cocky heroes, loud music, cool montages — but couldn't make them soar.  

Long before people asked for the "Snyder Cut," people were asking for the director's cut of Legend. Hacked to pieces by the studio, the theatrical version of Ridley Scott's fantasy was about as silly as they come. Cruise plays a young man who quests to save a princess from the clutches of Darkness (Tim Curry). The director's cut eventually came out, and it's just as silly as the first one. 

Tom Cruise may be known for his great running posture, but if there's one thing he can't outrun, it's a bad script. It's a shame the worst movie in the MI franchise is directed by John Woo, who gave us some of the best action movies of all time. It's not his fault, though. The problem is a script that pins Cruise against a dull villain, a silly plot, and some of the most ridiculous action sequences of the 21st century. 

Oblivion is bland, and Cruise is bland in it. What works is a twist that keeps us intrigued even when the rest of the movie doesn't. 

Here's where the movies go up a notch. The Firm may not be a great courtroom drama, but it has all the elements of one. The tension is there, the dialogue is dense, and the performances draw us into the action. 

Can you imagine if this came out today? Cruise plays a soldier who adapts samurai culture and saves the day in 19th-century Japan. It might as well be called White Savior: The Movie, but Cruise is excellent as the hero, and Ken Watanabe is superb as the hero's righthand man. Plus, who can forget those battle scenes? 

Cruise doesn't do a lot of movies these days outside of Mission Impossible. So it's a treat when he dives into something like American Made, a fact-based drama about a pilot who smuggles drugs for the government. The movie rides on Cruise's shoulders, and he sells every scene the same way his character sells information to the DEA: in style. 

Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the classic novel has more pretty faces than a perfume commercial. Cruise takes a backseat to stars like Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Emilio Estevez, but he does get to show off his good looks. More than that, he shows off his range as an actor in one of the film's most memorable scenes. 

Why would Cruise do another action franchise? Is Mission Impossible not enough? That's what most people thought when they got news of Jack Reacher, the latest action hero to take the shape of Cruise's slim, handsome persona. But once the movie kicked into gear, all doubts were off as audiences got sucked into a murder mystery.

Not everyone got what Cruise was putting down. Some people watched Knight and Day and saw another generic action movie, while others saw a movie about the actor's persona. This is a spoof first and an action movie second. Director James Mangold does a good job sending up Mission Impossible, and Cruise has a blast making fun of himself and everyone around him. 

In Cruise's first major role, he plays a hot-headed military cadet who takes his job a little too seriously. When he fires into a crowd of civilians with wide, crazy eyes, you can tell he was born to play more than just pretty faces. He can play anything you throw at him.  

Cruise delivers one of his best performances as Lestat, a vampire who finds a lot of drama when he recruits a man named Louis (Brad Pitt). Not everyone was on board with the casting of Cruise, but he won them over with this portrait of a lifeless sucker with a beating heart. There are a number of sexy moments between the actors. Plus, one of the bleakest endings in recent memory. 

The MI series rallied under the guidance of J.J. Abrams, who brought back the formula that made the original work. The movie starts with jokes, moves to action, introduces the villain, and ditches the plot so Cruise can run, jump, shoot, and swim. It's what fans pay to see and what Abrams delivers with aplomb. 

The best sports movies are less about sports than they are about people. In this one, Cruise plays a high-school football player who clashes with his coach, fights with his girlfriend, and wants to escape his town. It's a sensitive turn from Cruise — one he would go back to in The Color of Money.

Cruise does some of his best work as an everyday guy. In Steven Spielberg's adaptation of H.G. Welles' novel, he plays a divorcee who has to flee the invaders from space. The film starts with some nitty, gritty family drama, then shifts into a series of visceral set pieces that rank among Spielberg's best.

Cruise and Spielberg did another movie together three years earlier. With even more tension, a mix of dark themes, mysterious plots, and perverse characters, Minority Report saw Cruise doing his best noir impression. He plays a cop who solves murders before they happen and gets tied up in a case involving Colin Farrell.  

Like a great pool hustler, Martin Scorsese makes you think you're dealing with an average player and then hits you with the nine ball. The Color of Money doesn't seem like anything special. At first, it's another sequel that brings back a famous character (Paul Newman) and has them team up with an up-and-comer (Tom Cruise). Then the movie sneaks up on you in the third act and the tone shifts from sports drama to character study. 

Some things never change. The stakes may have gotten higher, and the action sequences may have gotten bigger, but the thrill of watching Ethan Hunt save the day has always remained the same. Even today, Brian De Palma's original has the power to make you drop your jaw. The scene where he breaks into CIA headquarters and dangles from the ceiling is peak Mission Impossible, and the opener on a train is what every MI installment has been trying to top. 

How do you top the train sequence? Oh, I don't know. Maybe scale the largest building in the world. Cruise took the franchise to new heights in this 2011 thriller, which was reportedly the last one he would do if the movie bombed at the box office. He was coming off the Scientology incident and did everything in his power to keep the franchise alive. 

Tom Cruise should have won an Oscar for his role as the once-optimistic, now-shattered military veteran Ron Kovic. But then again, roles like these are built in a lab for the sole purpose of winning Oscars. Based on a true story? Check. A wig that makes him look worse? Check. A long monologue that can play over his acceptance speech? Check. Cruise may be great, but this is Oscar Bait 101.

A more nuanced performance can be found in this dark, twisted thriller from Michael Mann. Cruise plays a hitman with white hair who kidnaps a taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) and has him drive to multiple locations around Los Angeles. The bodies start to pile up like garbage bags, and it soon becomes clear that there's more going on than meets the eye. Much more.

Cruise and Kidman teamed up again, this time under the watch of Stanley Kubrick in what would be his final film. Both actors are superb, and there's no shortage of tense moments in this erotic thriller. That being said, the movie was never finished, and you can see the threads hanging from the black corset. For much of the runtime, we are drawn into this underworld of sex among bureaucrats, but the patches start to show in a busy third act. 

While Risky Business put Cruise on the map, Top Gun cemented his status at the top of Hollywood. Whether or not you take issue with the movie's politics, it's impossible to deny the charm of Cruise in this part. It's dripping off his body in every scene, and whenever he says something like, "I have the need...the need for speed," you can't help but pump your fists in excitement. 

Whether you want to call it Edge of Tomorrow or Live. Die. Repeat., it's a darn good movie. With Cruise in the role of a military officer who knows nothing about combat, the actor plays with his persona in a fun way. When he's thrust into battle, we expect him to kill a bunch of aliens with a smile on his face. Nope. Cruise is killed by the aliens, and then he's killed again and again in a Groundhog Day  scenario that doesn't change until he meets Emily Blunt. 

The sight of Cruise dancing in sunglasses and tighty-whities might be the most iconic image of his career. It's the moment that made him a star and one of many memorable moments in this teenage comedy.

Who would have guessed that the guy from Risky Business would go on to become the next Buster Keaton? The actor has come a long way from the teenage comedies that made his career. He's gone from the guy who flirts with girls to the guy who flirts with disaster. The stunts in Mission Impossible: Fallout are Keaton-esque, and the sight of him hanging off a ledge or jumping off a bridge is some of the most epic in movie history. 

Bathed in golden-hour light and highly-stylized action, Top Gun: Maverick is more than just fan service. It's a sequel that surpasses the original in every way. The stunts are better, the stakes are higher, the fights are cooler, the emotions are clearer, and the volleyballs are...footballs. Cruise returns to teach the next generation a thing or two about flying and might join them on a mission along the way. 

Tom Cruise goes head-to-head with Jack Nicholson, and the results speak for themselves. This is Cruise's best performance, showcasing all the different elements that make him a star. He's cocky, smart, charismatic, and good-looking but also wounded down deep. His character stands up for two marines who need help, and they get all the help they can get in a courtroom battle.

The movie was a major hit, took home Best Picture, and gave Dustin Hoffman his first Oscar. But somehow, Cruise got overlooked as the man who takes his brother on a road trip. As a salesman who only sees dollar signs, he eventually learns to see more in his brother than autism and money. He learns to see emotion. Not many actors can pull off that kind of transformation, but Cruise does it beautifully. 

The best comedic performance of the past 13 years goes to...Tom Cruise? Hiding under layers of makeup, Cruise stole the show as a profanity-spewing, Flo Rida-dancing studio exec in Ben Stiller's masterpiece.

Cruise steals the show from another ensemble. In a movie loaded with actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, and Julianne Moore, Cruise makes an impression. He roams around the frame like a hungry, sharp-toothed lion, ready to pounce on the weak men who come to him for advice. His chauvinistic motivational speaker is unlike any character we've ever seen, and Cruise makes sure you care about him despite his deplorable behavior.  

The ultimate Tom Cruise movie. Jerry Maguire is a blast to watch, with more quotable lines, charismatic performances, and timeless moments than we can count. Cameron Crowe's rom-com might have had us at hello, but it really had us at goodbye. Once the credits start to roll, you want to watch it again.