When we talk about Tom Cruise, we're talking about action cinema. The actor's dedication to his craft is so great that he has (almost always) refused stunt doubles and dedicated himself to extreme training to personally perform the crazy stunts of his characters.
Stunts that, over the years, have become his trademark. Here are five of Tom Cruise's most daring films:
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Mission: Impossible - Fallout
- Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning
- Top Gun - Maverick
- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
As William Cage in Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise excels: here, the danger is not what we've come to expect from Ethan Hunt. We're not talking about stunts but about physical and acting commitment, and a lot of it is needed when you're an American army officer who has to fight against an alien race attacking Earth. The stunts aren't reckless and breathtaking: the clashes are confusing and chaotic, yet the tension is sky-high.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout is incredibly daring in terms of stunts. Ethan Hunt's HALO jump from 7000 meters high is one of the toughest stunts ever performed by the actor: it took 100 attempts to give the audience this epic scene. And we could continue with the list of absurd stunts in Fallout (like jumping from one building to another), necessary for Ethan Hunt to avert a nuclear tragedy, but Final Reckoning also holds its own with a resounding "NO" to CGI.
In Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise's character has to confront a very dangerous artificial intelligence, and to do so, he jumps from his biplane to another and throws himself into icy waters, giving us an absurd underwater scene (the making of this scene in Final Reckoning is crazy!). Normal business for Ethan Hunt: danger is his bread and butter. We've already talked about Tom Cruise's stunts as agent Ethan Hunt, but as Pete Mitchell, aka Maverick, the actor couldn't help but double down in Top Gun: Maverick. The film's objective was clear: everything depicted on the big screen had to be real. And Tom Cruise didn't need to be told twice, performing insane aerial stunts. Top Gun: Maverick blends action with nostalgia: Maverick is one of the Navy's best pilots, but now he must confront his past while training a new team.
If jumping from one plane to another isn't enough, Tom Cruise gave us the most daring moment of his career while climbing the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. No stunt double, just one man, one feat, and everyone holding their breath. The objective? In Brad Bird's film, the agent races against time to prevent a terrorist from launching Russian nuclear missiles. With a priority like that, climbing the Burj Khalifa seems like the only option.