Tom Cruiseis one of the last real movie stars. At a time when audiences are fragmenting into smaller and smaller niches and watching more films at home, Cruise is one of the few big names that is still able to draw massive audiences to theaters. Since his start in the early 1980s, the actor has appeared insome of the biggest blockbusters everwhile also proving that he can handle more than just action star roles.
The 1990s were a defining decade for Cruise, marking his transition from heartthrob to Hollywood titan. By the start of the decade, Cruise had already found fame with films likeTop GunandRain Man, but the next ten years would see him push further. As a result, the ’90s Cruise catalog is a fascinating blend of genres and performances, from pulse-pounding action and courtroom theatrics to period romances and even a vampire movie.This list will rank all nine Tom Cruise movies of the ‘90sbased on their quality, legacy, and the role they play in Cruise’s larger career.
9’Days of Thunder’ (1990)
Directed by Tony Scott
“I’m droppin' the hammer!” Cruise’s weakest movie of the decade is thissports drama/action flickmade withTop Gun’sTony Scott, though it falls far short of that movie’s fun charm. InDays of Thunder, Cruise plays Cole Trickle, a hotshot NASCAR driver with more instinct than experience.Nicole Kidmanenters the picture as Dr. Claire Lewicki, a neurologist and love interest who’s refreshingly more grounded than the standard romantic foil in sports movies. There’s some high-octane flair to be found here, butthe flick mostly leans into melodrama.
Aesthetically,Days of Thunderis solid. Scott captures the speed and chaos of the track with slick, kinetic energy, andHans Zimmer’s propulsive score gives the whole thing a pulse. Unfortunately, the story is underdeveloped, and the characters are pretty one-dimensional, despite the stars' best efforts. The result is basically justa revved-up vanity project, brought down by weak writing and generic dialogue. Cruise and Kidman are great to look at, but there’s not much else here.
Days of Thunder
8’Far and Away' (1992)
Directed by Ron Howard
“You’re a corker, Shannon. What a corker you are.” Here, Cruise dons an infamously thick Irish accent to play Joseph Donnelly, a poor tenant farmer in 1890s Ireland who flees British landlords and crosses the Atlantic with Shannon (Kidman), an aristocrat on the run from her oppressive family.Ron Howarddirectsthis Western romancewith a wide lens, capturing dusty landscapes, chaotic immigrant communities, and the promise of land in Oklahoma.
However, likeDays of Thunder,Far and Awayis a ton ofvisual splendor heaped on top of a flimsy story. The 140-minute runtime (170 in the extended edition!) is certainly bloated, the pacing is uneven, and the plot occasionally gets lost in action spectacle. Nevertheless,fans of Cruise and Kidman ought to get a kick out of it.Their chemistry is dynamic and lively, if nothing else (the couple’s real-life relationship was in its early stages at the time).
Far and Away
7’The Firm' (1993)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
“I discovered the law again. It was like a great truth that suddenly dawned on me.” Cruise anchors thisJohn Grishamadaptation as Mitch McDeere, a bright Harvard Law grad seduced by a too-good-to-be-true job at a Memphis firm. The supporting cast is stacked—Gene Hackmanplays a morally murky mentor,Jeanne Tripplehornbrings quiet strength as Mitch’s wife, and an Oscar-nominatedHolly Huntersteals the whole thing. Butit’s Cruise who holds everything together, selling Mitch’s gradual unraveling without ever making him feel weak. Here, the star dials back the charm and leans into paranoia.
Overall,The Firmunfolds at a controlled slow burn thanks toSydney Pollack’s steady direction, making it one of the stronger filmsbased on Grisham’s work. Still,it never quite rises above the source material, staying good rather than great. A lot of the problems probably come down to the script, which is padded and meandering, including more than its fair share of filler.
6’Mission: Impossible' (1996)
Directed by Brian De Palma
“Red light! Green light!” WithMission: Impossible, Cruise took his star power to the next level — literally, dangling from ceilings, sprinting through fireballs, andlaunching a franchise that would define the next two decades of his career. Cruise is the legendary Ethan Hunt, a top IMF agent whose team is ambushed on a botched mission in Prague. Framed for treason, Hunt must go rogue to uncover the mole and clear his name.
Directed by the stylish and suspense-savvyBrian De Palma,the first entry in theMission: Impossibleseriesisa cerebral, paranoid thriller where betrayal lurks around every corner.It’s more sophisticated than most blockbusters of its era (as well as many of its sequels). The director was a somewhat unconventional pick for the project, but he knocked it out of the park.Mission: Impossibleboasts some of De Palma’s very best set pieces, like the CIA break-in and the climactic pursuit scene.
5’Jerry Maguire' (1996)
Directed by Cameron Crowe
“Show me the money!” Cruise turns inone of his most iconic performanceshere as the title character, a high-powered sports agent who has a moral epiphany and impulsively writes a mission statement that gets him fired. With one loyal client (Cuba Gooding Jr.’s charismatic Rod Tidwell) and one loyal colleague (Renée Zellweger’s quietly luminous Dorothy), Jerry must rebuild his life, reputation, and soul from the ground up.
This isCameron Croweat his most sincere and emotionally literate, writing characters that bleed hope, fear, and insecurity. Beyond its workplace satire,Jerry Maguiresucceeds asan emotional love story, elevated by the incredible chemistry between Cruise and Zellweger (the latter is unusually vulnerable in this one). Gooding Jr. also delivers an Oscar-winning supporting performance loaded with quotable lines. In the end,Jerry Maguirecontributed a lot to the zeitgeist, from Cruise slipping around in his socks to the immortal “You had me at hello.”
Jerry Maguire
4’Interview with the Vampire' (1994)
Directed by Neil Jordan
“Don’t be afraid. I’m going to give you the choice I never had.“Neil Jordan’s adaptation ofAnne Rice’s bestseller isa lavish, operatic affair, soaked in candlelight and existential dread.Brad Pittplays Louis, the brooding narrator who’s turned into a vampire and spends the next century regretting it. Cruise, on the other hand, relishes every second of his screentime, turning the decadent, bloodthirsty Lestat into a flamboyant force of chaos. He brings an impressive amount of menace and swagger to the role.
Interview with the Vampirewas an important step forward for the vampire subgenre, even if it has some narrative shortcomings and a few less-than-perfectly cast characters. Where it succeeds is with itsmoody, philosophical reflectionsand a handful of genuinely eerie set-pieces. Acting-wise, Cruise chews the scenery with gusto, but the highlight is probablyKirsten Dunst. She plays her challenging part, that of a young girl tragically turned into a vampire, forced to mature psychologically while remaining forever in a child’s body.
interview with a vampire
3’Eyes Wide Shut' (1999)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
“No dream is ever just a dream.” By farCruise’s most cryptic and underrated project of the ’90s,Stanley Kubrick’s swan song sees the star taking on the role of Bill Harford, a Manhattan doctor who stumbles into an erotic odyssey after his wife (Kidman) confesses to a fantasized infidelity. What follows isa dreamlike descent into desire, jealousy, and identity, where masked rituals and psychological unraveling blend into a haze of neon-lit ambiguity.
Eyes Wide Shutwas divisive on release, to put it mildly, with some dubbing it a masterpiece and others dismissing it as a complete trainwreck. Those walking in expecting a conventional erotic thriller — especially given the marketing and tabloid fascination surrounding its release — were understandably baffled by its slow-burning existential drift. Instead, viewers were hit withan ambiguous, challenging mysterythat’s more about insecurity and illusion than eroticism. Nevertheless, Cruise’s performance is commendable. He’s believable as someone who is psychologically frail and utterly lost.
Eyes Wide Shut
2’A Few Good Men' (1992)
Directed by Rob Reiner
“you’re able to’t handle the truth!“Rob Reinerwas truly on fire in the late ’80s and early ’90s: pumping outStand By Me,The Princess Bride,When Harry Met Sally…,Misery, andA Few Good Menin quick succession. The latter is built like the stage play it originally was —tight, talky, and bristling with moral tension. Cruise plays a Navy lawyer with a reputation for plea deals, thrust into a case involving two Marines accused of murder.
The film’s spine isAaron Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue. Even if you’ve never seenA Few Good Men, you know the quote. That courtroom showdown between Cruise’s Lt. Daniel Kaffee andJack Nicholson’s Col. Jessup is the stuff of movie legend.Cruise’s character development is terrific in this film; Kaffee transforms from a slacker to a moral crusader, and every step of the journey feels authentic. The film’s themes of the fog of war, ends justifying means, and the balance between security and the rule of law continue to resonate today.
A Few Good Men
1’Magnolia' (1999)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
“These strange things happen all the time.” Cruise’s best movie of the 1990s isMagnolia,Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling, operatic epic about fate, regret, and human messiness, Cruise gives one of his most vulnerable and volatile performances plays Frank T.J. Mackey, a grotesquely charismatic motivational speaker who teaches emasculated men how to reclaim their dominance through a barrage of toxic masculinity. He’s a kind of proto-Andrew Tate, a showman with a damaged psyche.
It’s the kind of role most A-listers would run from, but Cruise charges into it with fearless abandon.He and Anderson slowly strip the character bare, revealing the grief and trauma beneath the bravado. The climactic hospital scene with his dying father (Jason Robards) is raw and moving. Surrounded by an all-star ensemble —Julianne Moore,Philip Seymour Hoffman,William H. Macy— Cruise still stands out. As a whole,Magnoliaremains incredibly ambitious, representing a time when its director was still young and hungry, even if its reach occasionally exceeds its grasp.
