2013 tom cruise sci fi movie

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Tom Cruise is one of Hollywood's most bankable movie stars, and throughout his long and illustrious career he's made a few notable forays into sci-fi, but how do his films in that genre rank from worst to best? Cruise is rightfully often thought of as one of the last of the old-school A-list movie stars. As franchises are more and more defined by their intellectual property, the list of actors who can bring in boffo box office with just their name is shrinking rapidly. However, a Tom Cruise film is always a major event.

Cruise has been around in the business for almost 40 years, building up a string of prestigious dramas and action films that made him an undeniable force in the industry. In the 1980s and '90s, he swung effortlessly from  Top Gun to  A Few Good Men ,  from  Mission: Impossible to  Magnolia.  He received box office clout and awards attention, and famously appeared in Stanley Kubrick 's final film,  Eyes Wide Shut .

Related: Why Tom Cruise Always Insists On Doing His Own Mission: Impossible Stunts

It may seem surprising that he didn't dip his toe in the sci-fi genre until after the turn of the century, first with Cameron Crowe's audacious mess,  Vanilla Sky.  However, that first foray started a trend that gave us some of Cruise's most interesting and surprising 21st-century performances. From his two collaborations with Steven Spielberg to the  Edge of Tomorrow,  here are Tom Cruise's sci-fi movies ranked from worst to best.

5. Oblivion (2013)

There's almost no movie star with a steadier hand than Tom Cruise, but not even he can right the wrongs of this visually dazzling but immensely boring music video of a film. Oblivion 's plot concerns a security repairman on an abandoned Earth and the chance meeting that will trigger his fight to singlehandedly save mankind. Director Joseph Kosinski, who also directed the problematic Disney sequel TRON: Legacy ,  shoots the whole film with the self-seriousness of a cerebral space epic, but one can almost feel Cruise itching to burst out of these somber restrictions and make it a full-fledged action film. Claudio Miranda's cinematography attempts to make up for a predictable plot, and the film's look goes a long way. No matter of aesthetics could disguise a film that can't decide whether it wants to swerve wildly off the rails or barely have a pulse.

4. Vanilla Sky (2001)

Tom Cruise and writer-director Cameron Crowe reunited to make this absolutely out-of-its-mind remake of the 1997 Spanish film  Open Your Eyes.  The plot is difficult to parse, but the basic gist is that Cruise plays a Manhattan publishing giant who attempts to utilize a bizarre, sci-fi version of therapy to bounce back after a traumatizing car crash. It's a big swing of a movie, and while it pales in comparison to the unsettling majesty of Cruise's Kubrick collaboration,  Eyes Wide Shut , it can proudly sit beside that masterpiece as one of the most interesting entries in the actor's vast filmography. It's as fascinating as much as it is largely unsuccessful, its psychological thriller underpinnings consistently playing second fiddle to its nightmarish imagery, the most famous example being Cruise running through a totally empty Times Square. This is a wild, out-there performance from the movie star, but a charmingly odd reunion for its director and star after  Jerry Maguire.

3. War of the Worlds (2005)

Early on in Spielberg's 2005 update of H.G. Wells'  War of the Worlds,  Tom Cruise has a full-on panic attack realizing that the dust that's covering him is actually the ashes of people vaporized by the invading, underrated, and horrific Spielbergian Tripod aliens . It's an early harbinger that Spielberg isn't interested in making just another popcorn movie.  War of the Worlds may remain Cruise's highest-grossing domestic hit, but that doesn't take away from the fact that this is one of the director's and star's bleakest, most deeply terrifying films. In fact, many Spielberg fans and critics have lumped this film, along with 2004's The Terminal and 2005's  Munich,  into an unofficial trilogy   focused on America's mood post-9/11. While the former is more heartwarming and the latter more awards-focused,  War of the Worlds  transcends both, and the "trilogy" moniker, to become one of the most harrowing and definitive American films about that terrible day 20 years ago. This is a movie filled with nightmarish and horror movie imagery, from a sea of floating corpses to the terrifying nature of the Tripods. Cruise's shocking ease at slipping into the shoes of a single dad everyman gives a grounding center to this blockbuster portrait of sheer terror.

Related: Every Tom Cruise Movie Where His Character Dies

2. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Instantly one of the most pleasant surprises of popular filmmaking in the 21st century, this Doug Liman-helmed actioner didn't just have the smarts to mash up the genre with  Groundhog Day , it also formed a remarkably electric pairing with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. Cruise is phenomenal, but the big surprise here is that he's kind of playing a big old scaredy-cat, ceding scene-stealing status to Blunt, who comes into her own as a full-blown, blockbuster-leading movie star here. Their chemistry is rock solid, the screenplay feels consistently fresh and genuinely funny, and Liman's direction keeps things moving with a refreshing dynamism that never lets the film's inherent repetition grow stale. Cruise has forever been one of the action genre's most outstanding performers, but it's arguable none of his blockbuster offerings have ever felt as surprising, as fresh, and as flat-out fun as  Edge of Tomorrow. W ithout a doubt, this is one of the best action movies of the decade  and certainly one of Cruise's best outings in the sci-fi genre.

1. Minority Report (2002)

Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg had been in talks to collaborate for years before  Minority Report , but few could have imagined that their first film together would be as moody and haunted as  Minority Report.  Filmed long before 9/11, the film's depiction of societal paranoia and surveillance, where futuristic cops can arrest people just for  knowing they're going to commit a murder, hit the zeitgeist in a chilling and downright uncanny way. That's partly due to the source material, a 1956 novella called  The Minority Report and written by Philip K. Dick , whose works have inspired other sci-fi tentpoles like  Blade Runner and  Total Recall.  However, it's the mash-up of Spielberg and Cruise, along with the chrome steel cinematography of Janusz Kaminski, which transforms the story into a  Maltese Falcon for the 21st century. Spielberg marries genre mastery to a world-weariness that clashes with his most trademark films and Cruise's typically sturdy performance brings a tragic heft, and lots of running, to this underappreciated screed against an America abandoning its principles.

Next: How Mission: Impossible 2 Changed Tom Cruise's Career (For Better And Worse)

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Visually striking but thinly scripted, Oblivion benefits greatly from its strong production values and an excellent performance from Tom Cruise.

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If nothing else, "Oblivion" will go down in film history as the movie where Tom Cruise pilots a white, sperm-shaped craft into a giant space uterus. The scene is more interesting to describe than it is to watch. Cruise's sperm-ship enters through an airlock that resembles a geometrized vulva. He arrives inside a massive chamber lined with egg-like glass bubbles. At the center of the chamber is a pulsating, sentient triangle that is also supposed to be some kind of mother figure. Cruise must destroy the mother triangle and her space uterus in order to save the Earth.

Like director Joseph Kosinski's debut, " Tron: Legacy " (2010), "Oblivion" is a special effects extravaganza with a lot of blatant symbolism and very little meaning. It starts slow, turns dull and then becomes tedious — which makes it a marginal improvement over the earlier film. It features shiny surfaces, clicky machinery and no recognizable human behavior. It's equally ambitious and gormless.

"Oblivion" is set in the year 2077, 60 years after an alien invasion rendered the Earth largely uninhabitable. Cruise stars as Jack Harper, one of a handful of people left on the planet. The other survivors have long since relocated to Titan. Harper and colleagues remain as technicians, servicing robot drones that defend resource-gathering stations from alien stragglers.

Harper lives in a penthouse-like tower with his communications officer, Vica ( Andrea Riseborough ). Vica's eyes are permanently dilated. Like Olivia Wilde 's Quorra in " Tron: Legacy ," she often resembles a marionette.

Harper and Vica spend their days fixing drones, eating candelit dinners, and swimming in a glass-bottomed pool. Their boss, the creepily cheerful Sally ( Melissa Leo ), supervises them from an orbiting control center. In order to maintain the integrity of the mission, Harper and Vica's memories have been wiped; nonetheless, Harper is haunted by extremely cheesy black-and-white dreams of a beautiful woman meeting him in pre-invasion New York.

One day, Harper spots an antique spacecraft crashing into the countryside. He manages to rescue one survivor, a Russian astronaut ( Olga Kurylenko ) who looks exactly like the woman in his dreams. Harper brings her back to his tower. This incites jealousy and suspicion from Vica, who is both Harper's partner and his lover.

The astronaut has been in cryogenic sleep for the past six decades but refuses to disclose the nature of her mission to Harper and Vica until they recover her flight recorder. It goes without saying that the flight recorder unearths all kinds of secrets about Harper, Vica, and the alien invasion. It also creates one of the movie's more glaring logical errors, but that's a different story altogether.

The film's opening stretch is its one strong point —  a gradual, immersive build-up of details. It's a smart technique for science-fiction storytelling; it eases the viewer into the world of the film. The problem is that the world "Oblivion" introduces — an abandoned, depopulated Earth — is more interesting than the story it tells. Or, more accurately, the stories it tells, because "Oblivion," derivative to a fault, tries to be several science-fiction movies at once. It tries and it fails.

"Oblivion" is a political allegory about a lowly "technician" sending unmanned drones to hunt and kill a demonized, alien Other — until it forgets that it ever was. It's a wannabe mindbender that raises questions about its lead character's identity — except that the lead character is too sketchy to make these questions compelling. It's a story about humans struggling for survival in an environment controlled by technology — except it appears to be much more interested in the technology than in the humans. It's a rah-rah action flick — except its action scenes aren't very good.

The only thread "Oblivion" follows to the end is its "creation myth." Harper is an idealized man; he's good with a gun, good with his hands, good in bed, loves football and rides a motorcycle. Though most of the movie's characters are women, not one of them is able to do anything without Harper's help — not even the mother triangle that lives in the space uterus. Only his rugged-but-sensitive masculinity holds the key to humanity's survival. The movie reaches for profundity, but all it grasps is misogyny.

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Film credits.

Oblivion (2013)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity

126 minutes

Tom Cruise as Jack

Morgan Freeman as Beech

Olga Kurylenko as Julia

Andrea Riseborough as Victoria

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes

Melissa Leo as Sally

• Joseph Kosinski
• Karl Gajdusek
• Michael Arndt

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Oblivion: 14 Facts About Tom Cruise's 2013 Hit Movie That Are Worth Extracting

Say what you want about Tom Cruise when it comes to anything else, but there is no denying that he has an uncanny ability to find and attach himself to incredibly interesting projects. The talented actor then often uses his star power to help the film become a hit, and "Oblivion," the actor's sci-fi epic from 2013, is no exception. Though Joseph Kosinski was far from an amateur after his work on 2010's "Tron: Legacy," the director was still fairly new, but especially after talking with him, Cruise had all the proof he needed that the production would be a success.

The movie seems rather straightforward at first, following the hero Jack Harper (Cruise) in a somewhat serene post-apocalyptic world after a devastating alien invasion. Though as the tale progresses, the world Jack thought he knew is not what it seems, revealing massive twists and a deeper story of love lost and found beneath it all while the protagonist becomes embroiled in a tense battle for the survival of humankind. Here's everything you didn't know about "Oblivion."

The story was first a graphic novel

When Joseph Kosinski was first developing the story for "Oblivion," the director had no idea it would become an epic sci-fi action flick starring one of Hollywood's top actors. So as he initially wrote it back in 2005, the scale was decreased significantly. In an interview with Collider , he said, "I thought it would be my first film, so I wrote it as a contained cast. The Sky Tower was going to be the main setting. It was always the story of drone repairman Jack Harper and his journey of redemption."

Then in 2007, Kosinski hit a major roadblock as he strove to get the film made when the Writers' Guild went on strike, which forced him to alter his approach and make the tale into a graphic novel. The filmmaker explained to Empire , "It couldn't be written by anyone in the guild so the partnership with Radical Comics allowed me to continue working on the story by developing a series of images and continuing to refine the story more over a period of years." The material created during this period worked great as a pitch for the movie, but unfortunately, fans of "Oblivion" and comics will never get to see a finished product — Kosinski was only ever really interested in making the film, and he achieved that goal.

The director wanted to bring sci-fi back into the daylight

While Joseph Kosinski was growing up during the 1960s and '70s, the sci-fi classics that he loved to watch were bright and often colorful, such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Planet of the Apes," and "Star Wars," so that older style was heavily influential to the distinctive look of "Oblivion." When talking with Collider , he explained, "It felt like in the [1980s], after 'Alien,' which is one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, science fiction went into a very dark place of deep space and dark ships, and I liked the idea of bringing science fiction back out into the daylight."

Additionally, Kosinski told /Film he was inspired by the vivid illustrations of artists from his childhood like Chris Foss and Peter Elson. The result is a fascinating spectacle on screen, with the bright aesthetic overlapping a grim storyline that takes place after a cataclysmic invasion. The director told Collider, "I thought we've seen so many dusty, gray, green-brown post-apocalyptic worlds. It'd be fun to see something with some color and daylight and brightness and this world above the clouds."

Oblivion was Anthony Gonzalez's first time composing a film score

Joseph Kosinski did not just strive to create a standout look for "Oblivion"; he also wanted an original soundtrack to match, and he knew exactly where to look. Electronic music star Anthony Gonzalez of M83 had never worked on a film before, but Kosinski knew he was the right person for the job and convinced him to take it on. As the director revealed to Collider , he literally listened to the group's music while developing the story, so it would have been difficult to accept a score written by anyone else.

Ultimately, Gonzalez was pleased with what he and his co-composer, Joseph Trapanese, were able to produce, but it did not come easy. When interviewed by Pitchfork , he admitted, "It took us one year to work on 'Oblivion' with Joseph Trapanese, and I've been through all types of emotions. I almost quit. I couldn't sleep. I was so stressed out. I was on the verge of breaking down. We were touring a lot and I had to work on this at the same time." But the biggest issues stemmed from what the studio expected from him, as he added, "They needed something bigger, more orchestral; it was hard for me to be told that my music was too indie for the film."

Joseph Kosinski used his engineering and architecture background

Before Joseph Kosinski became a filmmaker, he had rather different career goals, but the skills he attained during those pursuits were certainly nice to have when working on "Oblivion." The director told Collider , "My background is in mechanical engineering and industrial design. That's what I went to undergrad for, and then I went to architecture school for graduate school thinking I was going to be an architect. I was always looking for a career that could combine my creative interests with my technical side, and it ends up directing films is the perfect combination." To highlight how his extensive education was particularly useful for this film, Kosinski added, "The Bubbleship and the Sky Tower were two elements of the story that I had a very clear image of from the start."

Without a doubt, the most valuable of all was his vast experience working with 3D modeling software while working on his master's degree. The director not only described to BuzzFeed how the models of the signature Sky Tower were a solid base for the production design team to work with, but he also provided examples of the impressive early sketches as proof.

The film required considerably little CGI

Universal must have been pleased with Joseph Kosinski's ability to film a sci-fi epic like "Oblivion" with a significantly lower budget than other similar movies of the genre. For comparison, the director told /Film , "'Tron' had fifteen or sixteen hundred visual effects shots in it and 'Oblivion' is eight hundred shots, so it's almost half. Because I was able to do so much in camera. Hopefully it feels like a big movie, which is what I always wanted to do, but we did it." 

The primary reason that Kosinski did not need to burn through as much cash as other productions was because of his clever use of front projection techniques, a method used previously by the renowned filmmaker Stanley Kubrick in "2001: A Space Odyssey." When talking with Film4 , he and Tom Cruise explained how no blue screens were used in the background of the Sky Tower, and instead massive screens projected footage of cloud formations that were shot for weeks atop the peak of a Hawaiian volcano. The result was both a beautiful sight for audiences and a far more immersive experience for the actors as well.

3D was too dark to use

For Joseph Kosinski's first sci-fi flick, "Tron: Legacy," the filmmaker shot some sequences in 3D, and the film was ultimately released in 3D as well. The process was still riding the wave of "Avatar," released just a year before. Fully familiar with the format, the director did briefly consider going that route again for "Oblivion" but quickly realized it made no sense because of the aesthetic he was aiming to achieve.

The 4K format, on the other hand, was a much better option for one key reason. Kosinski explained to Collider , "The brightness levels of 3D right now are a fraction of what 2D is. With 2D, you're at 14 foot-lamberts, and with IMAX, you're at 22 foot-lamberts. But 3D films are at 4. So, the brightness isn't there and also your eyes react differently. At low level, they don't pick up color in the same way so you just don't get the saturation, and I knew I wanted this to be a daylight science fiction film."

Morgan Freeman took his role to work with Tom Cruise

Though Morgan Freeman was thoroughly impressed with the script for "Oblivion," he had to be honest and admit that it was Tom Cruise's involvement with the film that was the biggest selling point for him. Freeman was a longtime fan of the actor, and both men had wanted to work together since they first met in the 1990s, so it was bound to happen eventually.

For Freeman, it was important that the duo's first film was something special and not just any movie. He explained to Collider , "If that were the case, I would have been in 'Mission Impossible' 1, 2 or 3. But when the right project comes along, there's sort of a domino effect. Everything falls into place. I think this was the perfect genre for me to be involved with Tom in, so I no longer resent not having done anything with him before."

The film went from Disney to Universal

Initially, Disney was set to produce "Oblivion" because of Joseph Kosinski's great relationship with the studio, but it did not take long for problems to arise. The director told /Film , "With Disney, it was interesting, because I was doing 'Tron: Legacy' and I was under option to them. So they bought it and then as the project developed and I started building it, it became clear when I kept pitching these elements, that it didn't quite fit inside the Disney envelope and I think people who see the movie now, it makes sense."

Fortunately for the filmmaker, Disney was not the only major player interested in the movie. Universal was more than eager to step in, especially since then-chairman Adam Fogelson thought the screenplay was one of the most beautiful he has ever read. The transition from one studio to the next went very smoothly, not just because Disney was on good terms with Kosinski, but it also helped that his former producer, Sean Bailey, had become the president of the studio in 2010.

A panel of scientists were consulted for accuracy

While Joseph Kosinski did benefit greatly from his engineering and architecture background when designing several key elements of "Oblivion," he did not rely solely on his own expertise. The director told Film4 , "I did consult with a panel of scientists at the beginning of the film just to kind of make sure that everything is rooted in science. The technology feels real."

The experts were brought on board not just to verify the accuracy of aspects he was more familiar with, like the Bubbleship, but more importantly, they were there to help figure out the effects of extreme changes to the global environment that occurred in the backstory. When talking with /Film , Kosinski said the panel was recruited to "discuss the geography, the climate, the change of what would happen to Earth if you destroyed the Moon and the changing of the tides." The director knew that such a catastrophic event would drastically alter the Earth, and could trigger all sorts of fallout disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and super volcanoes, so their input was vital in showing the results of that chaos in the most realistic way.

Tom Cruise let Jessica Chastain leave the film

Before production on "Oblivion" began, there was a major change in the cast that was possible due to the kindness of Tom Cruise. Jessica Chastain looked forward to starring alongside the actor, but when she was offered a role in "Zero Dark Thirty," she quickly decided that was an opportunity that she just could not decline. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter , she described how Cruise helped her out and explained, "Someone contacted him from my agency and said, 'Listen, she wants to work with you. And she would love to, but there is this other film, and it's so important.'"

Fortunately for Chastain, the request was not a problem for Cruise, and she was allowed to get out of her contract. The actress went on to add, "I really hope to find something in the future to do with him because I'm very grateful. [...] I've seen him afterwards. And I was like, 'Dude, you're awesome!'"

Andrea Riseborough was uncomfortable during filming

While many of the actors seemed to have enjoyed working on "Oblivion," that was not the case for all of the cast during filming. Andrea Riseborough admitted afterwards that even though she did not have a terrible time in the production, it was not pleasant overall. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly , the actress explained how the movie was shot far from home, which stirred up feelings of isolation since she only interacted with a few people at work most days. Plus, she also described the disorientation brought on by filming brightly lit, morning scenes well into the evening on the Sky Tower set.

Though the worst part of the production was the way Riseborough felt objectified during the shoot. In an interview with The A.V. Club , she said, "I think the thing I didn't enjoy about it ... was more on the studio side, the pressure to look a certain way. And I was never sure where it was coming from, but that was very important to people, how the women looked. That the women sort of looked attractive at all times." Performing with that in the back of her mind just made the experience feel awkward, as she added, "I don't really have the capacity to hold all of those things at once. Not in a way that I really like to work. And so I find that just detracted from... it just took up a lot of space and time."

The actors were attracted to the love story amidst the action

"Oblivion" may have stunning visuals, an intriguing plot, and scenes of intense action, but the love story underneath it all was another feature that helped draw more than one of the cast members to the project. When discussing the positive message of the movie, the first thing that Morgan Freeman told Collider was, "One of the themes that [stands] out in this film is the love story. It's not like one we've seen before."

The romance at its core was the one aspect that actress Olga Kurylenko, the love interest of Tom Cruise's character, liked the most about the film. When talking with Film4 , she admitted, "['Oblivion'] was quite human, and it had a beautiful, romantic story, which is very important for me as a girl. It's fun when things blow up, but it's also nice to watch a love story."

Oblivion marked the first time Tom Cruise had ever been to Iceland

For a movie star who has traveled all over the world and filmed in numerous exotic locales, it would not be surprising if places are constantly being knocked off of Tom Cruise's bucket list. And this was certainly the case when filming began for "Oblivion," as he told Rotten Tomatoes Coming Soon , "I couldn't wait to go to Iceland. I've never been there. First of all, it's just [an] absolutely stunning country, and when you get there, it's hauntingly beautiful."

The breathtaking landscape was enough to spark awe in the actor, but the experience of being there was made even more special because of the brilliant way Joseph Kosinski used the environment to augment the look of the film. Cruise was already impressed with what the director had planned. But witnessing his vision in action on top of the incredible natural beauty exceeded his expectations.

Tom Cruise joined the project because of the director

When Tom Cruise met with Joseph Kosinski, he was highly impressed with the filmmaker's vision for "Oblivion" and its fascinating story, so the actor got involved very early on, before Universal picked it up and the script was even still in its draft stages. But Cruise was convinced the project would be a success, as he said in a Live Media Group Q&A , "He's a guy who's a world creator, a true visionary." On top of this praise, the actor added, "He wanted a haunting beauty, a very unique aesthetic for the film, and I think that that world that he created, these characters he created, was something that I wanted to be a part of."

With the backing of such a huge star, Kosinski was no longer as limited as he thought he would be a few years before. The director was then able to expand his initial idea and keep the parts he liked most about the tale, but tell it on a much grander scale. Cruise must have loved him as a collaborator, since the duo reunited a few films later for "Top Gun: Maverick." But it was that 2013 film, Kosinski's visually stunning "Oblivion," that first hooked Cruise.

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Tom Cruise's Latest Headed For 'Oblivion'

David Edelstein

Joseph Kosinski's sci-fi adventure, starring Tom Cruise, is the most incoherent piece of storytelling since John Travolta's Battlefield Earth. It had critic David Edelstein crying, "What? What? " over the din of the explosions.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The Empty Thrill of 'Oblivion'

Tom Cruise stars in a mildly satisfying sci-fi epic that thinks it's smarter than it is.

The year is 2077, and weaponized drones zip along the Earth's decimated surface, hunting shadowy, cave-dwelling insurgents. Human technicians on the ground tend to the machines but don't control them; instead, a command center in space instructs where to go and who to kill.

The set-up for the first great, big-budget film about the moral implications of drone warfare? Ha, no. Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion is solely about how good Tom Cruise looks in sunglasses, how awesomely M83's music pairs with CGI cloudscapes, and how fun it can be to recreate the most vivid moments of sci-fi movie history. In other word, it's a movie of appearances—including, maybe more than anything else, the appearance of grappling with something bigger than itself.

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The premise seems weighty enough. Earth, we're told in voiceover, has been attacked by aliens called "Scavs," who blew up the moon and lured humanity into nuclear warfare. Mankind prevailed at the cost of the globe's habitability, so civilization headed skyward, leaving behind a skeleton crew to maintain giant water harvesters—as well as drones to fight off the few surviving Scavs. Cruise plays Jack Harper, a maintenance guy who got his memory wiped but retains a hokey, Cruise-ian patriotism. Early on, in perhaps the film's most awful scene, he stands in the ruins of football stadium and over-revently narrates the Big Game that happened there 70 years earlier so that it sounds like every big game before it: "Seconds left on the clock... the QB throws a hail mary... Touchdown! ."

The opening stretch—during which Jack and his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) investigate downed bots, Skype with their suspiciously smiley boss (Melissa Leo, communicating a lot with her body language though only ever shown from the shoulders up), and have sex in a glass-bottom swimming pool above the clouds—is slow but intriguing in the way it seems to be setting the stage for a mystery. Eventually, Jack finds himself face to face with a cigar-chomping stranger played by Morgan Freeman, and then, well, the movie really begins.

Or so it would like you to think. Oblivion presents itself as the kind of film that's vulnerable to spoilers, serving up some unforeseen revelation or twist every half hour or so. But its whats, hows, and whys just aren't that interesting. Tropes like rebellion, surveillance, cloning, identity, loyalty, and repressed memories pop up, but the movie never really asks you to think about them. All it asks is that you believe that love persists and good beats evil—stock themes for what, boiled down, is a stock storyline of a dude finding himself, rescuing a girl, and saving humanity.

That's fine, though. Forget its pretensions of mind-blowingness, overlook its dumber plot points and dialogue, and Oblivion makes for a fairly entertaining action epic. Kosinski, who wrote the graphic novel upon which the film is based, makes everything feel significant by piling on gorgeous visuals and M83's cartoonishly powerful score. And when he swipes from better sci-fi movies, as he so often does, he swipes well. One aircraft dogfight, for example, feels ported in from the original Star Wars trilogy—and actually approaches some of Lucas's X-Wing/Tie Fighter chases for thrill factor. So there are plenty of fun scenes here; I'll just never think about them again.

Well, one element might stick in my nightmares: the drones. Though there are aspects of better movies in their DNA as well, they're the freshest thing about Oblivion and scary in their own right. Their X-shaped "faces" are scrunched and pug-like. They dart around menacingly like wasps. Quickly, we learn to fear the firepower contained in the smooth orbs of their exteriors. If only anything else in Oblivion had as much going on below the surface.

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After the Apocalypse, Things Go Downhill

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By Manohla Dargis

• April 18, 2013

If only it were less easy to laugh at “Oblivion,” a lackluster science-fiction adventure with Tom Cruise that, even before its opening, was groaning under the weight of its hard-working, slowly fading star and a title that invites mockery of him and it both. The agony of being a longtime Tom Cruise fan has always been a burden, but now it’s just, well, dispiriting. You not only have to ignore the din of the tabloids and swat away the buzzing generated by his multiple headline-ready dramas, you also have to come to grips with the harsh truth that it no longer actually matters why and how Tom Terrific became less so. No one else much cares.

Mr. Cruise hasn’t made it easy. His screen presence has continued to grow ever-more self-serious, despite occasional attempts to lighten up, as in the recent would-be satire “Rock of Ages.” Midway through “Oblivion” I wondered when I had last believed there was something true in his laugh, something that felt either genuinely expansive or intimate, as in “Jerry Maguire,” or chilled with a hint of madness, as in “Magnolia.” Mind you, he doesn’t have many occasions to laugh in “Oblivion,” a gray post-apocalyptic tale with rainbow accents, yet when he does, it feels uncomfortably forced. In those moments, was he worrying that the movie wasn’t going to return him to the box office summit? He’s 50 years old and too young to be prepping for a slow fade, yet what are his choices?

Working with better directors — with filmmakers who know how to charm or force performances out of stars or perhaps say no to them — seems like a good place to start. “Oblivion” is only the second feature directed by Joseph Kosinski, after the 2010 release “Tron: Legacy.” That special effects-laden fantasy, a musty hero’s journey largely distinguished by the yawning divide between its poor quality and its $170 million price tag, was a flat line of a dud in almost every respect. It nonetheless made enough money to shore up an exploitable franchise property and spawn a sequel, and while this may not sound like much of an achievement, box office success or the perception of it can beget more opportunities in the movie business, which may help explain “Oblivion.”

Its story primarily unfolds in 2077, long after a cataclysmic war between earthlings and extraterrestrials. Nuked to all but radioactive ash, the Earth has been rendered nearly uninhabitable, and its remaining people have fled to a galactic shelter. The only ones left on the planet appear to be Jack Harper (Mr. Cruise) and his companion, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who live in a cantilevered aerie above the clouds that brings to mind a “Jetsons” sky pad. His job is to repair drones that patrol the facilities that extract resources for the surviving populace and that are under attack from the aliens, or Scavs, as in scavengers. She monitors him back at their place, waving her hands over a tabletop computer, while in full makeup and rocking some fabulous end-of-days-to-night dresses and heels.

The heels seem a strange choice given, you know, the whole doomsday thing, not to mention the glossiness of the couple’s floors. Then again, from the way she strips for some late-night nuzzling, her get-up does appear to have instrumental value, even if one misstep and she or at least an ankle would be a goner. A similar kind of tricky balancing act is inherent in science fiction, a genre that often employs recognizable details to tether readers and viewers in fantastical realms. It’s a form, as is often noted, that makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange, a narrative principle that Mr. Kosinski embraces again and again with niceties like Jack’s Yankee baseball cap and Jack and Victoria’s candlelight dinners.

The candles add atmosphere, as does that baseball cap. But because Mr. Kosinski hasn’t come up with a resonant idea to accompany them — a new or different way of looking at the world that exists and the world that might one day come into being — his retro flourishes prove as empty as the lunarlike landscapes. There’s an arresting moment, for instance, when Jack drives through a blasted-out terrain littered with ships partly submerged in earth, a vista that demonstrates Mr. Kosinski’s fondness for playing with negative space. The vision of a man existentially alone conjures up countless cowboys traveling through innumerable westerns and summons up the shock of the half-buried Statue of Liberty in “Planet of the Apes.” Yet again, Mr. Kosinski fails to build on his materials and the allusions soon fade.

All genre fictions build, self-consciously or not, on their progenitors. The problem with “Oblivion,” which is based on an unpublished graphic novel Mr. Kosinski wrote and used to pitch the studio, is that it’s been stitched together from bits and pieces that evoke numerous other, far better far-out tales and ideas, conceits and characters from the likes of Philip K. Dick, the Wachowskis, J. G. Ballard and Duncan Jones, specifically his elegant, elegiac movie, “Moon.” No matter how hard Mr. Cruise squares his jaw or flings his body over and against the scenery, and despite the presence of Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who trickle into the story to aid in Jack’s journey, “Oblivion” never transcends its inspirations to become anything other than a thin copy.

“Oblivion” is rated PG-13. (Parents strongly cautioned.) Zap-gun violence and skinny-dipping.

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10 years later, Oblivion is still Tom Cruise’s most underrated blockbuster

Top Gun: Maverick may have cemented Tom Cruise’s return to the top echelon of the Hollywood ranks last year, but that film is far from the only impeccably made blockbuster that Cruise has worked on in recent years. As a matter of fact, Cruise has been on a bit of a hot streak for well over a decade now, basically ever since his practical stunts in 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol helped put him back on viewers’ radars again

In the 12 years since then, Cruise has had a few misses here and there (we’re looking at you, Rock of Ages ), but he’s nonetheless managed to steadily rebuild his reputation among moviegoers with blockbuster hits like Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible — Fallout and cult favorites like Edge of Tomorrow . In 2013, Cruise also teamed up for the first time with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski for the original sci-fi adventure film, Oblivion . Unlike Maverick , though, Oblivion  received a lukewarm critical and financial response upon its release.

Ten years later, Oblivion doesn’t just seem undeserving of such a tepid response, but it feels like the kind of film that should be discussed far more often than it actually is. For that reason alone, Oblivion has earned the unfortunate distinction of being not only one of the most underappreciated genre films of the 2010s, but also the most underrated blockbuster that Tom Cruise has ever starred in.

Set on a future version of Earth that has been left dilapidated and terraformed by an alien invasion decades prior, Oblivion follows Jack (Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), a pair of humans who have been tasked with ensuring that the last of the planet’s resources are successfully stripped for the remaining survivors who have relocated to new colonies throughout space. When the film begins, their mission is nearly complete. Unfortunately, Jack has also begun to find himself overwhelmed by waves of nostalgia for the days before Earth was destroyed and plagued by memories of a mysterious woman, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), whom he doesn’t fully remember.

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There is, of course, more to Jack and Victoria’s mission than meets the eye. In that way, Oblivion shares the same kind of mystery-driven structure as many of the popular sci-fi films that came before it — namely, Moon and Minority Report . The places it goes and the reveals it eventually delivers aren’t, by any means, revolutionary or unpredictable. However, while the film’s story suffers a little from its overfamiliarity, Oblivion makes up for its narrative shortcomings with a pace and overall level of technical craftsmanship that, frankly, feels increasingly hard to come by these days (at least, in films that don’t happen to star Tom Cruise).

The first act of Oblivion is, for the most part, an exploratory introduction to its futuristic, dystopian version of Earth. Viewers are invited to tag along with Cruise’s Jack as he flies across the planet’s torn but gradually healing surface, relives old baseball games in long-destroyed stadiums, and traipses with Riseborough’s Victoria through the film’s greatest creation: a floating Sky Tower that is constructed almost entirely out of translucent glass walls and floors. The film’s first act essentially culminates with a nighttime sequence between Cruise and Riseborough in the Sky Tower’s suspended swimming pool that is simultaneously sensual, hypnotic, and visually awe-inspiring.

Part of the reason why the film’s Sky Tower sequences are so visually stunning is that Kosinski and his cinematographer, Claudio Miranda (who also shot Top Gun: Maverick ), insisted on avoiding blue screen and green screen effects to create the set’s lighting and exterior environments. Instead, the pair worked with a special effects house to surround the film’s Sky Tower set with screen projectors that not only allowed Miranda to accurately light Oblivion ’s actors in real time. but also afforded the performers themselves the opportunity to see the same views as their characters. Miranda and Kosinski, in other words, put themselves at the forefront of the kind of on-set screen projector technology that has now been made popular by shows like The Mandalorian and films like The Batman .

Beyond the technically innovative nature of some of their behind-the-scenes methods, Kosinski and Miranda consistently manage to make Oblivion ’s postapocalyptic world feel both real and paradoxically lived-in. Despite how empty many of the film’s vast dystopian environments are, you can still feel the history behind every locale that Cruise’s Jack moves through, which just makes it easier to feel the same sense of nostalgia that drives so many of his actions throughout Oblivion .

There isn’t a single bad or lackluster frame in the entire film. Even if its story isn’t nearly as rousing or crowd-pleasing,  Oblivion  boasts the same kind of polished visual artistry that helped make Top Gun: Maverick stand out from so many of last year’s other blockbusters. It’s the same level of impressive technical precision that is, in fact, on display in nearly every movie that Kosinski has directed.

Oblivion , to its credit, packs more than enough thrilling action sequences into its relatively lean 124-minute runtime. What makes the film so rewatchable, though, is how well it manages to make you fall in love with its futuristic alternate reality. Like so many of the best movies that Cruise has ever made, the film relies heavily on its lead’s considerable star power and charisma. Fortunately, Cruise is up for that job. Oblivion is, consequently, able to occasionally shrug off concerns about plot progression in favor of moments and sequences that allow both Jack and those watching the film to pause and get lost in its sci-fi world.

On-screen, Oblivion ’s debt to the Space Age sci-fi stories of old is obvious. What’s more impressive is just how well the film manages to tap into the same pulp quality that made the sci-fi worlds of those stories so appealing in the first place. It’s a movie that is easy to turn on and get lost in, and it deserves to be remembered far more fondly than it seems to be these days.

Oblivion is streaming now on Peacock .

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History might not be everyone's favorite subject; in fact, many probably hated it back in school. However, a good historical movie can make history seem fascinating and enthralling. Unlike period pieces, which are set in the past, but usually tell fictional stories, historical movies are retellings of famous events in world history through a cinematic lens.

A great historical movie is the perfect marriage between reality and fiction, offering a compelling narrative set within a distinctive historical background. Sure, they might not exactly be accurate because fiction still needs to be entertaining. However, these movies are still enthralling and outright stunning visual spectacles that, quite literally, make history come alive. From classics set in the distant past to more modern takes on 20th-century events, these are the best historical movies in cinematic history. 10. Empire of the Sun (1987)

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1. After Earth

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5. Oblivion

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Tom Cruise is considered one of the greatest movie stars of all time, thanks to his tremendous work as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise, as well as his iconic roles in Top Gun and Risky Business . However, Cruise has also found success in big-budget sci-fi films, including a couple of them directed by Steven Spielberg.

While characters like Hunt and Maverick are portrayed as invincible men who can't be defeated, the protagonists that Cruise embodies in his sci-fi epics are vulnerable individuals who get caught up in complicated situations, such as going to war against alien forces, getting involved with murder cases, or trying to regain important memories. Cruise also has strong interactions with female characters in terms of working with them to understand the main conflict, which sometimes includes messing around with the conventions of time and space.

Updated May 26, 2022 by Mark Sammut: Tom Cruise is back in the headlines with the release of Top Gun: Maverick, and the sequel has garnered an incredible reception so far. Over the course of his storied career, the actor has tested his skills by diving into a wide range of genres and styles, including science-fiction. This article has been expanded to include more information about Tom Cruise's best sci-fi movies , including where they can be streamed. A section regarding the movie star's upcoming projects has also been added.

Vanilla Sky

This sci-fi picture reunited Cruise with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe, which also combines psychological thriller with romance. Cruise plays David Aames, a publicist with plenty of privilege who appears to have everything: a successful job, a beautiful partner, a nice home, a fast car, etc. However, when a car accident nearly kills David, he (and the audience) tries to solve a complex puzzle that questions what is real and what is fantasy (similar to Christopher Nolan's complex film Memento ).

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Along with having a heavily disfigured face and needing to wear a mask to help him heal, David also finds himself in a love triangle with two seductive women: his partner Julie (portrayed by a wild Cameron Diaz) and Sofia (played by Penélope Cruz). David also has reflective conversations with a psychologist (played by Kurt Russell), who tries to help David figure out if he murdered anyone after being charged with a murder he doesn't remember nor believe he committed. Like Memento or Inception , this feature is a test for its protagonist to question his sense of reality and to figure out what makes his life happy and enjoyable.

This action-packed sci-fi film features an apocalyptic future in which Cruise portrays Jack Harper, one of the last remaining humans on Earth in 2077 after alien scavengers destroy the Moon and leave the planet in turmoil. Harper uses combat drones to encounter all the scavengers left on Earth, but when he learns that the scavengers are actually humans trying to defeat the alien artificial intelligence threat called Tet (which controls the drones), Harper also discovers that there are clones of him (and several other humans) who are loyal to Tet and become a major threat to humanity.

There are eye-opening images of a broken-down New York (including the New York Public Library in ruins, and the Empire State Building and city bridges left uninhabited and in darkness). As Harper, Cruise's character is reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's role in Total Recall due to the fact that Harper has dreams based on his past, which involve memories of previous missions he's had as a commander for NASA. Harper's dreams help him remember his true identity and the love he shares with his wife Julia (also a soldier). Along with Cruise's complex role, Morgan Freeman also stars as a rebel leader, and there are high-octane action sequences that include shootouts and chases involving big space aircraft.

War Of The Worlds

Steven Spielberg's adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel is intense and hard-hitting as Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a dockworker who is divorced and spends time with his children during a weekend gathering at his home. Ray is considered a flawed husband and father, but he is put to the test when blue spaceships with sting rays invade Earth to take out humanity. Ray does everything he can to protect his teenage son Robbie and young daughter Rachel from harm.

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While the effects involving the alien creatures are massive and loud, what makes this sci-fi feature effective is the drama surrounding Ray and his family. Ray proves to his kids that he is capable of providing safety for them, even if that involves bumps along the road (running out of food and water, trying to find shelter to keep warm, etc.). The paranoia surrounding the human characters also provides plenty of drama, especially in a scene where Ray has to fight numerous civilians who intend to steal his minivan or another moment in which a paranoid man (well played by Tim Robbins) believes everyone is going to die. The best action scene occurs when Ray is grabbed by one of the alien tripods but manages to slip a pack of grenades inside, destroying it before the pod can take him away.

Edge Of Tomorrow

The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman crafts a unique spin on time travel in this ingenious sci-fi picture involving William Cage, a U.S. Army Major who is skilled in providing public affairs to an army called the United Defense Force (UDF) in their fight against powerful aliens called "Mimics." However, when Cage is ordered to fight aliens with a squad in France, he fears for his life and ends up dying and repeating the same day over and over again ( a nod to Groundhog Day ).

This is one of Cruise's most vulnerable roles because his character isn't a professional when it comes to combat and fighting in a war. However, by reliving the same day repeatedly, Cage manages to get better at facing the aliens and anticipating their every move. His partnership with Sergeant Rita Vrataski (a tough Emily Blunt) is also engaging because as she helps him become a skillful warrior, Cage provides Rita with information about how to destroy the Mimics. While the film is most intense, there are comedic scenarios in which Rita kills Cage many times whenever he fails and messes up during training, or when Cage constantly meets the same members of a squad and memorizes their actions and personal histories.

Minority Report

Before War of the Worlds , Spielberg and Cruise collaborated for this sci-fi action thriller based on Philip K. Dick's short story of the same name. The story revolves around Chief John Anderton (Cruise), a cop who works for a police program that solves murders and crimes before they occur. When Anderton finds out that he is wrongly accused of murder, he becomes a wanted fugitive.

This is Cruise's best performance in a sci-fi feature because he manages to portray an intelligent but conflicted detective who intends to clear his name, as well as a husband who misses his wife. The scenes in which Anderton and his unit use advanced technology in his "Precrime" police program to track down would-be killers is fascinating because it's all so far ahead of its time, along with flying police cars and vehicles used in elaborate chase sequences when Anderton is a suspect being hunted down by fellow cops. The film effectively combines elements of the noir and chase film in a whodunit thriller with cool tech, along with strong supporting work from Colin Farrell and Max von Sydow (who aren't what they seem).

These sci-fi features are not only filled with action and/or psychological tension, but they also display Tom Cruise's versatility as an actor, portraying characters who go through tremendous obstacles. Audiences will have to wait and see what type of film Cruise will do in space with Elon Musk .

Upcoming Sci-Fi Movies Starring Tom Cruise

Throughout his career, Cruise has periodically dappled in science fiction, but he is not exactly synonymous with the genre. However, that might be set to change as the actor is reportedly working on two sci-fi projects, one of which is particularly ambitious.

SpaceX Project

In 2020, a rumor hit the rounds stating that Tom Cruise will be teaming up with Elon Musk's SpaceX to film a movie in space, specifically the International Space Station. Information regarding this project was scarce for quite a long time, but recent reports state that production is likely to start once the actor completes his work on the upcoming Mission: Impossible sequels.

Doug Liman is attached as the movie's director, and he also shares writing credits with Christopher McQuarrie. Universal Pictures will be handling the production. Nothing about the story has been revealed, so it remains to be seen whether this feature opts for a more grounded or extravagant tone.

Live Die Repeat And Repeat

A sequel to Edge of Tomorrow is in the pipeline, with reports even suggesting that the script is complete. Unfortunately, as exciting of a prospect as this is, the likelihood of it coming to fruition is not that great. Despite most key members showing interest in producing this follow-up, Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, and Doug Liman have struggled to align their schedules to make it happen. Live Die Repeat and Repeat is also likely to be an expensive undertaking, and while the 2014 release did not bomb at the box office, it was also not a runaway hit.

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Tom Cruise's best sci-fi with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes leaves Netflix next week

T here's nothing quite like a good sci-fi action movie to cleanse the palette after a hard week's work. But you don't have long to catch one of Tom Cruise's best-ever offerings in the genre.

Cruise is the definition of a box-office banker, but even he occasionally has movies that don't get the success they deserve, and Edge of Tomorrow is a perfect example – beloved by critics and audiences now, it still didn't exactly nail it in theaters. 

You can watch it on Netflix right now, though, but you don't have long to do so – it leaves Netflix in the US on 5 June, so the clock is ticking. 

That probably wasn't helped by marketing that couldn't figure out what to call the movie even after it had already come to DVD – you might have seen it as Live, Die, Repeat elsewhere.

Still, it's a veritable banger that very much deserves its stunning 91% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes , with audiences in lockstep giving it a 90% score, too. 

The movie casts Cruise against type, for once, as the initially unlikeable Major William Cage, a marketing expert for the US Army in a near-future war against horrifying alien invaders. 

When he's called to active duty for the first time, he unwittingly gets stuck in a time loop, living through a disastrous human defeat over and over. Realising that Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt in fine form) seems to understand what's happening to him, he tries to enlist her to help him. 

The movie tells a really fun, brisk and twisty time-bending story of finding the fine margins and making the best of yourself, and it has a whole heap of amazing action scenes that take advantage of the hulking exosuits that these future soldiers all wear.

It also looks great, and there's fun frantic direction from Doug Liman, who also helmed The Bourne Identity – so he knows a thing or two about shakycam. 

Netflix would doubtless back itself as the best streaming service for action movie fans regardless, but this is a movie that we think it'll sorely miss once it's gone, so be sure to check it out while you can. 

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10 Tom Cruise Movies That Could Use a Sequel Like 'Top Gun: Maverick'

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Tom Cruise will be back on the big screen with the upcoming Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (July 12). The three-time Oscar nominee has built a successful late career with this highly successful franchise, producing numerous sequels to one of his most iconic films. However, his filmography has several other acclaimed movies that could use a sequel, especially after last year's record-breaking Top Gun: Maverick .

Top Gun: Maverick has made a big splash at the box office, making $1.023 billion. It proves that people will still go to the movie theaters if something is playing; they are willing to pay to see it instead of finding something to stream.

Top Gun may be a 30-year-old movie, but it is a movie that fans are willing to pay and see, and because of the success of Top Gun: Maverick , there may be other Tom Cruise movies that need a sequel.

Updated on June 30, 2023, by David Caballero:

10 'risky business' (1983).

Risky Business is the movie that launched Tom Cruise into 80s superstardom and cemented him as one of the decade's biggest draws. The future movie star plays rich teen Joel Goodsen, who explores his sexuality and turns his home into a brothel during his parents' vacation trip.

Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay 's Lana had great chemistry in Risky Business . Having these two characters cross paths again almost 40 years later would be interesting. What kind of work does Joel do now? Is Lana up to something interesting these days?

Watch on Paramount+

9 'The Color of Money' (1986)

The Color of Money is a Martin Scorsese movie that doesn't get the accolades of other films like Goodfellas , Taxi Driver , or The Departed . Many people don't know that The Color of Money is a sequel to the classic film The Hustler , also starring the late and iconic Paul Newman .

It would have been interesting to see Paul Newman and Tom Cruise on screen again. However, revisiting Cruise's character Vincent Lauria would still be great. Is he still arrogant and cocky like he was when he was younger, or has he matured? Does he hustle solo, or has he now become the mentor?

Watch on Tubi

8 'Cocktail' (1988)

The often mocked and critically reviled Cocktail is a movie that Tom Cruise probably wishes was forgotten. But despite all the hostility this film has received, it made a lot of money on its original release and has some excellent mixing drink scenes.

Cocktail is a movie that would probably be a better reboot than a sequel. Maybe cast Austin Butler as Cruise's character, Brian Flanagan. A sequel could be enjoyable, though. Was Brian Flanagan's business a huge success or a big flop? Did Brain and Jordan's ( Elizabeth Shue ) marriage work out, or are they now divorced?

Watch on Hulu

7 'Rain Man' (1988)

Barry Levinson 's 1988 drama Rain Man stars Cruise opposite Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman . The plot follows Charlie, a carefree young man who reunites with his brother Raymond, an autistic savant, following their father's death. Rain Man was a major box-office success and won several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hoffman.

A sequel to Rain Man could be interesting to explore, especially considering its bittersweet ending. Did Charlie and Raymond stay in touch despite the challenges? However, any potential follow-up would receive considerable criticism, considering Hoffman, a neurotypical actor, would be portraying a character with autism.

6 'Jerry Maguire' (1996)

Cruise delivers arguably the best performance of his career in Cameron Crowe 's 1996 sports romantic comedy Jerry Maguire . The actor plays the titular role, a sports agent who starts his own management business, joined only by Dorothy Boyd, a young single mother. With only one client to his name, Jerry falls in love with Dorothy as he tries to make his business work.

Jerry Maguire is among the all-time best romantic comedies . Cruise gives his most heartfelt, earnest performance as the slick and spirited Jerry Maguire, creating a compelling and sympathetic figure audiences fall instantly in love with. A sequel would be ideal, allowing fans to see how Jerry's business went and how his relationship with Dorthy developed.

5 'Magnolia' (1999)

Paul Thomas Anderson 's Magnolia isn't everybody's cup of tea; thus, a sequel might not be a particularly great idea. But a movie about an aging Frank TJ Mackey could be compelling. Cruise shocked and won over audiences by playing the misogynistic character Frank TJ Mackie. He is a charismatic jerk who teaches desperate guys how to get laid with his motivational speeches and products.

Cruise delivers career-best work in Magnolia , and it would be interesting to revisit a character like TJ Mackey over 20 years later. Has he changed? Is he still a jerk, or did his encounter with his father in Magnolia change him?

4 'Minority Report' (2022)

Cruise stars in Steven Spielberg 's 2002 sci-fi action thriller Minority Report . Set in a future where a police organization can stop crimes before they happen using clairvoyants known as "precogs," the plot centers on John Anderton, a man on the run after being accused of a crime he hasn't committed yet.

A chilling movie about the dangers of surveillance , Minority Report is among Spielberg's most interesting and thought-provoking efforts. A sequel could explore the fate of the prisoners released at the film's ending while following the precogs' stories. Cruise and Samantha Morton would return, ideally with Spielberg's involvement.

Watch on Showtime

3 'Tropic Thunder' (2008)

Ben Stiller directed and starred in the 2008 war comedy Tropic Thunder . The plot centers on a group of arrogant actors shooting a war movie without realizing they have been dropped in an actual war. Cruise plays the scene-stealing supporting role of Les Grossman, the film's vulgar producer.

Tropic Thunder is among the 21st century's best war comedies . Cruise delivers an outrageous performance as the over-the-top and profane Les Grossman, becoming one of the film's most memorable aspects. A sequel focusing on Grossman would allow Cruise to flex his comedic muscles while delivering another scathing satire of Hollywood.

2 'Knight and Day' (2010)

Cruise stars opposite Cameron Diaz in James Mangold 's romantic action thriller Knight and Day . The story revolves around the quirky June Havens, a woman who becomes accidentally involved in a dangerous plot after meeting the charming Roy Miller in an airport on her way to her sister's wedding.

Benefitting from Cruise and Diaz's electric chemistry, Knight and Day expertly blends romance with action and humor. A sequel would continue June and Roy's story, perhaps showing them on another globe-trotting mission together. Audiences hardly need a reason to see these two movie stars together, especially if they're kicking bad guys' butts!

1 'Edge of Tomorrow' (2014)

Doug Liman 's ambitious and cerebral sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow stars Cruise and Emily Blunt . The plot follows Major William Cage, a PR official with no combat experience, who finds himself trapped in a time loop after being sent to battle during a violent alien invasion.

Cruise and Blunt are perfect together, with the actor delivering one of his most unexpectedly vulnerable performances. The film ends with a decisive victory for humanity; however, Edge of Tomorrow 's weighty plot leaves several possibilities open, and making a sequel would be an easy and rewarding task.

Watch on Max

NEXT: Essential Tom Cruise Movies, Ranked

• Top Gun: Maverick (2022)