Movies starring Tom Cruise

On those rare occasions when a great motion picture reaches multiplexes, the film critic must add another aspect to his or her job description: that of cheerleader. It is incumbent upon those of us who routinely dissect movies to applaud the arriv...

Every time I think Hollywood has slipped beyond redemption, someone in the system produces a film like Jerry Maguire that renews my faith. Apparently, creativity is not dead in the mainstream movie market -- not entirely, at least. This is th...

With Magnolia, director Paul Thomas Anderson has segued into the realm of the three hour movie. It's an ambitious step to take - making lengthy, ensemble movies with tangentially related and occasionally interconnected storylines can be a risky en...

Several years ago, I recall reading an interview with British novelist P.D. James (the author of the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series) in which she was asked why it took her an average of three to four years to write a new book when other writers work...

Born on the Fourth of July is the middle chapter of Oliver Stone's so-called "Vietnam Trilogy." Begun with Platoon and concluded with Heaven and Earth, these movies are linked only by their connection to the war; they have no common characters. P...

It's a genuine pleasure to come across a motion picture like The Last Samurai - a rousing tale that combines high adventure with emotional effectiveness. This movie works because it never loses sight of the characters no matter how epic the scope ...

The Color of Money is a good movie, but perhaps not a good sequel. In revisiting the shady, obsessive world of former pool shark Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), Martin Scorsese provides us with a character so different from the one found in Rober...

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...

American Made is loosely – very, very loosely – based on true events. Ultimately, however, little of the real Barry Seal’s life has made it into the film, which is used by director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) and ...

Reliability. Of all the qualities one could ascribe to the Mission: Impossible movies, that one is the most cogent. This has especially been true since writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (who seems to be Tom Cruise’s personal screenwriter)...