Tom Cruise's 10 Biggest Movies At The Box Office Besides Mission: Impossible

Tom Cruise's 10 Biggest Movies At The Box Office Besides Mission: Impossible - Screen Rant

Posted: 10 Dec 2020 07:30 AM PST

Tom Cruise remains one of the most sought-after actors in the industry. He's a living Hollywood legend after all, one who gives 100 percent commitment to his roles. In fact, Cruise is one of the few A-list actors who bravely choose to do their own stunts and over the years, fans have even kept record of all the dangerous moves he personally executed for the big screen.

As you know, Cruise is most known for his role as Ethan Hunt in the wildly successful Mission: Impossible franchise. That said, also has other films that scored big at the box office.

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10 Jerry Maguire, $273,552,592

Tom Cruise as Jerry in Jerry Maguire movies

In this 1996 hit, Cruise stars as a sports agent trying to build up his own management company after getting fired. Interestingly, the titular role wasn't intended for the actor initially. Instead, the film's director, Cameron Crowe, thought Tom Hanks would play the part.

That said, Crowe also told Empire, "But immediately, knowing how in demand Tom Hanks was, I had started thinking about Tom Cruise pretty early on." In the end, Jerry Maguire became one of Cruise's most iconic roles. The movie itself also became one of the best football movies of all time.

9 Oblivion, $287,916,633

Set in the distant future, the film stars Cruise as a security repairman who remains stationed on Earth after the planet was devastated following a war with aliens. When he rescues a stranger played by Olga Kurylenko from a downed spacecraft, it triggers an unexpected sequence of events.

Aside from Cruise and Kurylenko, the movie's cast also includes Melissa Leo, Andrea Riseborough and the legendary Morgan Freeman. During the film's premiere, Freeman told CBS News that he agreed to do the movie because he's been wanting to work with Cruise "since I don't know when."

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8 Austin Powers in Goldmember, $296,338,663

Cruise appears in the beginning of a movie where he supposedly stars in a film called Austinpussy that is directed by Steven Spielberg. The actor's cameo involves a scene where Cruise as Austin Powers becomes involved in a fight with a shooting helicopter.

He also shares the scene with Austinpussy leading lady Gwyneth Paltrow who plays Dixie Normous. While on The Rachael Ray Show (via People), Paltrow reflected on her cameo scene with Cruise saying, "He [Cruise] was an amazing kisser." Aside from Cruise and Paltrow, Beyonce, John Travolta, and Spielberg also appear in the movie.

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7 Top Gun, $356,799,634

There are a lot of reasons why Top Gun is considered the most iconic movie of the 80s. A lot of it has something to do with Cruise and his portrayal of Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.

According to co-star Val Kilmer, Cruise took his work on the set very seriously. "He was up nights learning lines; he spent every waking hour perfecting his stunts," Kilmer recalled while speaking with Entertainment Weekly. "His dedication was admirable." Cruise is set to reprise his role in the upcoming follow-up Top Gun: Maverick. Kilmer is set to return too.

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6 Minority Report, $358,824,714

In this futuristic movie where cops may catch criminals before the crime is even committed, Cruise plays an accused man who is determined to prove his innocence. Minority Report means a lot to Cruise because it's the first film that he got to work on with Spielberg.

The actor and the director have been meaning to work together for some time. And when it came to working with Cruise, Spielberg told BBC that the actor is "very experimental." "Tom was always encouraging me to explore along with him and find things for him to do that were new…"

5 Edge Of Tomorrow, $367,028,980

In this 2014 sci-fi movie, Cruise plays a military officer who seems to repeat his day over and over again. While seeking answers, Cruise eventually meets a soldier played by Emily Blunt. Together, they figure out how to get out of the time loop and defeat the alien forces that have come to ravage Earth.

During the production of the movie, Blunt revealed that she "almost killed" Cruise. In once scene, Blunt had to drive them and failed to brake in time. While speaking on Conan, Blunt recalled, "I left it too late, and so drove us into a tree."

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4 The Mummy, $409,953,905

The film's director, Alex Kurtzman, felt that it was necessary do a Mummy remake, believing that there should be "a proper, Universal Monsters monster movie." And when a filmmaker wants to go big, there's no better action star to attach to the project than Cruise.

However, having Cruise as the lead also presents a dilemma because fans have already become quite familiar with Mission: Impossible by then where Cruise always saves the day. And so, to convince them that he won't, Kurtzman to Slash Film that they decided to put him in a body bag.

3 Rain Man, $412,800,000

Perhaps, what many don't realize is that Cruise's character in this (year) movie is among the roles that actor Bill Murray nearly played. While speaking with Yahoo! Entertainment, the film's screenwriter, Bob Morrow, said, "I think what I heard was that Bill Murray just didn't read the script and Dustin did, and Dustin called and marked his territory."

When it became clear that Murray wasn't going to do the film unless he was Rain Man himself, the role of the brother went to Cruise. Following his performance in the movie, Rain Man became one of Cruise's best non-action movies.

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2 The Last Samurai, $456,810,575

In The Last Samurai, Cruise stars as an American military officer who was hired to train Japan's first army. From the very beginning, the film's director, Ed Zwick, knew that Cruise was the right actor to play the lead role because of his "adventurous" nature.

Zwick also told BBC, "He's willing to go to these places and I think he constantly wants to push himself in every way, physically and emotionally." Despite Cruise's dedication to the role though, The Last Samurai didn't exactly win critics over. Nonetheless, people still went to see the movie.

1 War Of The Worlds, $606,836,535

This 2005 remake is Spielberg and Cruise's second on-screen collaboration. They had been talking about what to do next while Spielberg was working on Catch Me If You Can and War of the Worlds was one of the projects that Spielberg brought up.

In the movie, Cruise plays a father desperate to protect his children (including a young Dakota Fanning) from aliens who are attacking Earth. But beyond this alien invasion plot though, Cruise told Indie London, "I wanted to make it a film that I could dedicate to my children…"

NEXT: War Of The Worlds: 5 Ways The 1953 Movie Is Better (& 5 Ways The 2005 Movie Is)

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