Movies starring Tom Cruise

2015 has been a banner year for action-oriented spy movies. One early entry, Kingsman: The Secret Service, was a Valentine to '60s British titles. A similar claim could be made about the upcoming The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In November, James Bond wi...

After 30 years and eight films, there’s a sense that the Mission: Impossible film series (itself a reworking of the venerable and popular 1960/70s TV series) may finally be played out. Since Christopher McQuarrie came on board and revitalized th...

For those who didn't get enough of James Bond late last year when The World Is Not Enough blazed its way into theaters, Mission: Impossible II offers a chance to once again get shaken and stirred. Oh, the film isn't an official entry into the dura...

Mission: Impossible III provides lots of action, but too little excitement. It generates lots of pyrotechnics, but too little heat. And it offers lots of Tom Cruise, but too little Ethan Hunt. In short, if you're yearning for a flashy, leave-you...

When Universal Pictures remade The Mummy in 1999, they wisely opted for a radically different tone, shifting from the atmospheric horror of the 1932 original to a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style adventure motif. Now, for the third major film to b...

We don't get many idea-based science fiction films these days so, when one comes along, it represents a welcome change of pace from the fantasy space opera that has co-opted the genre. Despite being tarted up with enough action to stave off boredom...

Rain Man is an oddball buddy/road movie that nearly drowns in a tsunami of sentimentality and predictability. An unabashed crowd-pleaser, the 1989 Best Picture Oscar winner has aged poorly, its marginal likability fading like an old Polaroid s...

For Tom Cruise, 1983 was the year of his Ascension, although the Coronation would have to wait until Top Gun in 1986. Before 1983, Cruise was regarded as an up-and-coming actor, someone to watch. But with the double-barreled success of the teen r...

Rock of Ages, based on the musical play of the same name, is a celebration of '80s excess and, especially, music. Featuring roughly two-dozen covers of (mostly) Top 40 hits by Sytx, Def Leppard, REO Speedwagon, Whitesnake, Starship, Pat Benatar, Gu...

Top Gun is an ‘80s testosterone fix – a celebration of machismo and a recruiting film for the U.S. Navy. Typical of Jerry Bruckheimer/Don Simpson at their peak, the movie embraces masculine tropes to create a patchwork narrative that is almost...