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All 44 Tom Cruise movies, ranked from worst to best

• Tom Cruise has done every type of movie you can think of over his nearly 40-year career.
• Here we rank every one from worst to best.
• See where his latest, "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One," ranks in his career filmography.

43. "Rock of Ages" (2012)

Somehow Cruise got roped into being part of this feature-film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. But leave it to him to lay it all out there.

Though the movie is unwatchable, Cruise provides its only memorable moments when his rock-star character belts out classic songs like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Wanted Dead or Alive."

42. "Endless Love" (1981)

Cruise's first appearance in a movie is this 1980s teen romance drama starring Brooke Shields that's best known for giving us the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie title song.

Cruise gets a brief bit of screen time as one of the male lead's friends. It's quite forgettable, but it's still better than "Rock of Ages."

41. "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" (2016)

Between "Mission: Impossible" movies, Cruise tried to kick off another action franchise by bringing the main character of the Lee Child novel series to the big screen.

Though the first movie just got over the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office, the performance (or lack thereof) by the sequel indicated no one wanted any more Mr. Reacher. It barely made $162 million worldwide.

40. "The Mummy" (2017)

Cruise was all set to be the Robert Downey Jr. of Universal's Dark Universe with the release of this movie and promises of more creature pictures to come. But playing a soldier of fortune who tries to stop an ancient Egyptian princess from taking over the world didn't grab audiences. It was another franchise not meant to be.

39. "Losin' It" (1983)

Still getting his legs under him in the movie biz, Cruise signed onto this teen comedy in which he's one of four friends who go on a hard-partying road trip to Tijuana in hopes of losing their virginity. Yes, even Cruise couldn't hide from the teen-sex-comedy genre when he started his career.

38. "Mission: Impossible II" (2000)

Man, John Woo deserved better than this. The legendary Hong Kong director took over the "Mission: Impossible" reins after Brian De Palma kicked things off with the first movie, but Woo didn't find the same success.

"Mission: Impossible II" did go on to become one of the highest-grossing movies of 2000, with over $546 million earned worldwide, but with its weak plot and character development, it has not aged anywhere near as well as the first movie (or the other movies in the franchise).

37. "Jack Reacher" (2012)

Though "Jack Reacher" was the first time Cruise worked with his longtime "Mission: Impossible" director, Christopher McQuarrie, and it features the legendary director Werner Herzog as the movie's villain, Cruise as Jack Reacher is a seen-it-before character who isn't exciting.

36. "Oblivion" (2013)

Here, Cruise attempted to go the sci-fi route in hopes of having a breakthrough "Minority Report"-like experience for the audience. But the story was nowhere as sharp, and its postapocalyptic vibe left us all feeling uninterested.

35. "Lions for Lambs" (2007)

Marking the first movie released by United Artists after Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner took over (the two left UA after a couple of years) was "Lions for Lambs," a tense drama set around the war in Afghanistan and directed by Robert Redford.

Cruise gave his all playing an agenda-pushing senator and has some strong scenes opposite Meryl Streep. But the movie is just dull.

34. "Far and Away" (1992)

Cruise and his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman, paired together in this 1890s-set epic directed by Ron Howard. The two play Irish immigrants seeking a fortune in America. Outside the lush photography, there isn't much to enjoy about this movie. And don't get me started on Cruise's awful Irish accent.

33. "Vanilla Sky" (2001)

At the tail end of Cruise's heartthrob phase, the director Cameron Crowe teamed with him again after their hugely successful collaboration on "Jerry Maguire" to make a very different love story.

Based on the Spanish movie "Open Your Eyes," Cruise plays a vain New York City media playboy who has a different outlook on life after being in a horrific car crash. Though Cruise, Cameron Diaz, and Penélope Cruz (who also starred in "Open Your Eyes") all give top performances, Crowe goes too weird with the story, leaving viewers out in the void by the time the movie gets into the home stretch.

32. "American Made" (2017)

Mixing action and dark comedy in telling the real-life story of the drug runner Barry Seal seemed like a nice pivot for Cruise, but at the end of the day, the director Doug Liman's movie is just too glossy to be taken seriously. (Accent update: Cruise delivers a tolerable Southern drawl.)

31. "The Last Samurai" (2003)

Cruise stars as an American soldier in 19th-century Japan who embraces the samurai culture. The movie went on to receive four Oscar nominations, but it's the kind of title in which one viewing is enough.

And on a side note: Wow, would this movie get hammered on social media if it came out today.

30. "Valkyrie" (2008)

Another release from the time Cruise was calling the shots at UA, "Valkyrie" sees him playing one of the rogue Nazi officers who attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

(Accent update: Cruise — and basically most of the other Nazi officers — decided to not even bother with a German accent. Good choice; the audience didn't even notice [ holds back giggles ].)

29. "Cocktail" (1988)

It's one of the movies in Cruise's career that ride fully on his good looks. Honestly, this movie should have just been titled "Sex." Cruise plays a hot New York City bartender who has dreams of making it big, and it's his hotness that's going to get him to the top. It's classic Hot Guy Cruise — who cares that the story is garbage.

28. "War of the Worlds" (2005)

Steven Spielberg teamed up with Cruise after "Minority Report" for this blockbuster remake of the classic sci-fi movie. Though it made a lot of money, it was dark in tone — maybe a little too dark. Be honest: Have you wanted to see this movie again?

27. "Knight and Day" (2010)

This is one of those movies that don't get enough credit. The director James Mangold cleverly takes all the common action-hero traits and has Cruise make fun of them. You might want to give this one another viewing.

26. "Taps" (1981)

Unlike in "Endless Love," Cruise really capitalized on this small role. As a military cadet who takes his responsibilities way too seriously, Cruise is a standout in the movie and showed audiences (and Hollywood executives) that he had leading-man potential.

25. "Mission: Impossible III" (2006)

J.J. Abrams takes over the franchise for this one and does an impressive job. It also helps that you have the talents of Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the villain. It's better than "Mission: Impossible II," so we're going in the right direction.

24. "The Outsiders" (1983)

Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the classic novel brought all the biggest names from young Hollywood together, and Cruise was right there in the mix. With Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, and Rob Lowe, the movie is pretty heavy-handed with the drama, but it's fun to watch all these amazing talents on the screen together.

23. "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" (2015)

Rebounding from the so-so performance of "Jack Reacher," McQuarrie jumps on the "Mission: Impossible" franchise and ups the action stakes. Yep, this is the one where Cruise hangs from the side of a giant plane taking off. The movie also got an extra jolt with the inclusion of Rebecca Ferguson in the supporting cast.

22. "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (2018)

This "Mission: Impossible" could go down as one of the best action movies ever — its stunts and action sequences are that amazing. This time, McQuarrie gives us a deeper look at what makes Ethan Hunt tick and the values he lives by. But it's really the action that stays with you.

21. "Minority Report" (2002)

With its breakthroughs in CGI and tech, the first teaming of Spielberg and Cruise lived up to the hype. This movie was so advanced in its execution and what it showcased that it had a "Jurassic Park"-style ripple effect, in the sense that it has influenced countless action and sci-fi movies since.

20. "Tropic Thunder" (2008)

Though Cruise doesn't have a lot of screen time, his presence in this movie cannot be ignored. Playing a despicable movie executive named Les Grossman, he brings that patented intensity to a role that for most actors would have been a mail-it-in cameo role. In Cruise's hands, it's one of the best comedic performances of the early 2000s.

19. "All the Right Moves" (1983)

Two months after Cruise hit theaters with his first lead movie, "Risky Business," he was back again with this very different movie about a Pennsylvania high-school football player who clashes with his coach.

"Risky Business" showed that Cruise had no problem being the face of a movie, but "All the Right Moves" proved he could be more than the charming lead with good looks. This one showed he could be a serious actor.

18. "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (2011)

It's the movie that breathed life back into the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. It came five years after "Mission: Impossible III," and in that time Cruise struggled with an image problem and a string of underperforming movies. He had a lot to prove with this one. And with the casting of Jeremy Renner, Cruise probably sensed he could lose his beloved franchise if the movie didn't work.

However, Brad Bird's direction and Cruise's disregard for common sense — in this one he climbs the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai — put him back on top, as the movie became a global hit.

17. "Top Gun" (1986)

Before "Days of Thunder," Cruise and Tony Scott teamed up for what would become one of the actor's most iconic roles: the fighter pilot Maverick. What Cruise doesn't pull off acting-wise he makes up for with brooding looks and shirtless volleyball skills.

16. "The Firm" (1993)

In "The Firm," based on the best-selling John Grisham novel, Cruise gives a fantastic performance as a hotshot lawyer who signs on with one of the most prestigious US law firms only to find it has quite a dark side. The era of "Tom Cruise runs" really launched with this movie.

15. "Legend" (1985)

Ridley Scott's beautiful fantasy movie is still a marvel of moviemaking. The practical effects and production design put into this movie, made back when CGI was scarce, are a treasure. And at the center is a fresh-faced Cruise who tries to get his girl back from the villain who gave me the most nightmares as a kid, Darkness (played perfectly by Tim Curry).

14. "Collateral" (2004)

We really don't talk enough about this one enough. Michael Mann's slow-burn crime movie stars Cruise as a hitman who forces a cab driver (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around Los Angeles as he goes on his "jobs." The acting by both Cruise and Foxx in this movie is some of their best work.

13. "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023)

There are many things to love about the "Mission: Impossible" franchise: Its James Bond-like gadgets. Cruise's disregard for his life and safety when it comes to pulling off amazing stunts . But the biggest thing to love is that the films just seem to get better and better.

The first "M:I," directed by Brian De Palma, set the bar very high. However, since McQuarrie took the reins in 2015 with "Rogue Nation," the franchise has gotten a jolt in the arm. It seems to always outdo itself, and "Dead Reckoning" makes good on that promise.

The high stakes, the timely villain being AI, and, of course, Tom Cruise in the middle of some amazing thrills makes this film one of the best in the franchise.

13. "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999)

Cruise and Kidman teamed up again, this time under the watch of Stanley Kubrick in what would be his final movie. Both actors are pushed to the limits as the movie explores a marriage at a crossroads. Though "Eyes Wide Shut" is not close to Kubrick's best work, Cruise and Kidman are riveting.

12. "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022)

Thirty-six years after playing Pete "Maverick" Mitchell he returns to the role in the rare legacy sequel that's better than the original movie.

Though Tony Scott's landmark "Top Gun" made Cruise a superstar and became an instant 1980s classic, the director Joseph Kosinski has elevated the story with more death-defying dogfight jet stunts and a more compelling story.

This time Maverick returns to the Top Gun school to be a teacher of the new hot-shot pilots. But he must deal with his own demons as one of the students is the son of his best friend, Goose, who died in his arms in the first movie.

Cruise delivers one of his best performances in years.

11. "Days of Thunder" (1990)

It's pretty much everything you would think would be in a Tony Scott movie: lots of fast cars and big egos. Cruise is in his glory in every scene playing the hot-shot Nascar driver Cole Trickle (and Kidman appears as his love interest).

10. "Risky Business" (1983)

It's the movie that made Cruise a star. The coming-of-age story doesn't shy away from its mature storyline, and Cruise delivers a playful performance but also shows sparks of his dramatic chops that he'll showcase in the decade to come.

9. "Mission: Impossible" (1996)

Boy have things changed since the first "Mission: Impossible." With De Palma at the helm, the movie had its action, but it was encased in a tense whodunit thriller. Since then the action has only gotten bigger (and the story, well, less of a concern), but Cruise has always been fantastic as Hunt.

The first movie is his best acting work of the franchise. (Accent update: Cruise delivers another Southern accent while disguised at the beginning of the movie — one of those classic face-rip-off disguises. It's brief but effective in the scene.)

8. "Interview with the Vampire" (1994)

Cruise gives one of his best performances as Lestat, a vampire from the 1700s who finds a lot of drama in his undead life once he recruits Louis (Brad Pitt). (Accent update: His little hint of a French accent to stay true to the character's portrayal in the classic Anne Rice book is perfectly subtle.)

7. "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014)

Whether you want to call it "Edge of Tomorrow" or "Live. Die. Repeat.," it's just a really great action movie. With Liman directing and McQuarrie as a screenwriter, Cruise is surrounded by people he trusts to make a risky project: a soldier who relives the same day. But the MVP of the movie is Emily Blunt, who delivers a performance that makes Cruise kick it up a few notches.

6. "Rain Man" (1988)

Always at his best when he's playing a character with major conflict, Cruise plays a guy always looking to capitalize on the angles until he's finally in a situation in which he has to be on the level: building a relationship with his autistic savant brother (Dustin Hoffman).

5. "Jerry Maguire" (1996)

Receiving a best-actor nomination for his performance as a slick sports agent whose life turns upside down after having a moment of clarity, Cruise was, thanks to this movie, at his height of stardom and power in Hollywood.

4. "A Few Good Men" (1992)

Rob Reiner's courtroom drama has Cruise going up against Jack Nicholson, and it's pure magic. Yes, there's the "can't handle the truth" scene, but for us, it starts earlier in the movie when the two characters meet for the first time.

Thanks to the incredible dialogue by Aaron Sorkin, both actors subtly trade off with each other, but it's the fire being held back that makes the ending when they are face-to-face again so memorable.

3. "Magnolia" (1999)

No matter what you think of Paul Thomas Anderson's epic look at family, love, and forgiveness, it's hard to dispute that it has the most powerful performance of Cruise's career.

Playing a pickup artist who uses his talents to build a public-speaking career, Cruise appears as we've never seen him before. Anderson and Cruise connected over dealing with the loss of their fathers and use that darkness to create the character of Frank T. J. Mackey.

2. "The Color of Money" (1986)

Paul Newman won only one Oscar in his iconic career, and it was for this movie. But you have to give a big assist to Cruise.

Playing the protégé to the pool player "Fast Eddie" Felson — the role Newman first played in 1961's "The Hustler" — Cruise is a cocky player, and you can never tell whether he's on the level with Felson. Cruise proved once again that he's more than just a pretty face.

1. "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989)

Cruise got an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the veteran and activist Ron Kovic, who was paralyzed fighting in Vietnam. Oliver Stone traces Kovic's journey from being a wide-eyed soldier thinking he's doing what's right for America to coming home from the war to find everything has changed. Including the way he views his own country.

Cruise has never been better as he delivers a tour de force performance that still gives us chills.

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Tom Cruise Before He Was Famous: His First 5 Films

Jessica kiang.

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From tiny, acne-ridden, squeaky-voiced acorns, massive oaks of megastardom can grow. Not literally, of course, in Tom Cruise ‘s case (obligatory height reference), but in every figurative way possible, he is an enormous presence in Hollywood, as a producer, as a celebrity and most importantly as a greenlight-giving, budget-busting, bona fide movie star. For better or worse, we’ve few enough left of those. For anyone who grew up watching movies any time in the eighties, nineties or even noughties, Tom Cruise is simply a fact of life: an immovable object; a mathematical constant like Pi, that we’ll never quite get to the end of defining. His movies succeed, his movies fail (all judged on the warped power-of-n matrix of the tentpole), but Tom Cruise TM endures, and will be jumping out of a building on a movie screen near you very soon, if he isn’t doing just that, right now.

But the ubiquity of his brand has its downside. Familiarity can breed contempt, and in between films, the rumor mill that surrounds Cruise — his family life, his Scientology, his dating practices, the fact that there was a guy wheeling a heater along the red carpet behind him at a recent Dublin premiere — gets on our nerves as much as anybody’s. But a funny thing happens: as much as we may be irritated by Cruise’s persona outside his films, between that Cruise/Wagner logo flashing up and the end credits rolling, for maybe just that 120 minutes, he almost always manages to remind us once again just why he’s the biggest star in the world. Almost always.

A little in contrast to our fairly positive review , for this writer’s money, this weekend’s “ Oblivion ” is not the best showcase of Cruise’s tentpole talents (we’re excluding things like his highly atypical but totally brilliant turn in “ Magnolia ” for the purposes of this conversation). Even in poor films like “ Knight and Day ” we’ve found ourselves liking and rooting for the Cruise character because as self-serious and self-absorbed as he may seem to be in real life, Cruise can deliver charm onscreen like no one else. And aside from being a star, he’s actually a good actor , so if he’s given a character who’s a gruff, sarcastic but noble loner (“ Jack Reacher “) or a serious but dedicated master-of-disguise superspy (“ Mission: Impossible “), and a director engaged enough, that’s exactly what you get. But in “Oblivion” he’s given very little character, and what quirks he’s allowed fall rather flat under Kosinski’s direction (it’s not so much that he has a directorial tin ear for these things as he seems simply uninterested — he’s more likely off with the production designer arguing over which white swatch is whiter).

Which is all our long way of saying that, noticing how “Oblivion” didn’t work that Cruise juju on us, we started to think about the films that did, and about where it all started. So to mark the release of this $120 million sci-fi spectacular (that would never have gone ahead were it not for the star’s heft behind it), here’s our rundown of the paltry five films that Tom Cruise, seemingly destined like a rocket for the stars, made when he was a nobody.

“ Endless Love ” (1981) Cruise has one scene in this mindblowingly mawkish, and actually super skeezy teen melodrama from Franco Zeffirelli , and it’s notable for him already being shirtless (and otherwise only wearing sports shorts) and for his speaking, or should we say squeaking, voice. Complete with goofy high-pitched giggle, it is a voice that, while recognizably his, you can literally never imagine delivering “I want the TRUTH!” or “I feel the need…” or “You’ve never seen me very upset,” let alone “Respect the cock. Tame the cunt” for anything but comic effect. Over the course of his next movies, he’s clearly training his voice  never to do this again and he totally retires that snicker, so we’re glad this scene still exists, if only to provide hope for awkward adolescents everywhere. The film, oy vey, stars an unbelievably gorgeous, angel-faced Brooke Shields (her first role after “ Blue Lagoon ” which seriously rewired the prepubescent hormones of an entire generation) and Martin Hewitt (nope, no idea) as a sexually active 15- and 17-year old couple who are just super duper in love. So much so that when nooky is suspended due to parental interference he just can’t take it and resolves to impress his way back into her bed by saving the family home from a fire that he himself has set. This is an idea he gets from a story told by the Tom Cruise character, incidentally. This foolproof plan goes wrong and he goes to prison for arson. When he gets out he is still super duper in love with Shields, but unfortunately kind of a little bit sorta also causes the death of her father and gets sent down again. News was it was going to be remade with Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde . Yay. 

“ Taps ” (1981) The same year as his “ Endless Love ” cameo, Cruise got a much more substantial role, and the first of many, many uniforms, in “ Taps ,” a Harold Becker movie (“ Sea of Love ,” “ Malice “) that’s stood the test of time quite well. It makes a great study of the randomness of nascent stardom too, as Cruise is actually the second or third lead to equally early-days Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn , with Giancarlo Esposito in support. The story is rather ploddingly told, but it’s a compelling tale of young men being taught militaristic ideals without having the wisdom to apply them properly, with tragic consequences. When their Academy is threatened with closure, and their Commanding Officer ( George C Scott ) hospital-bound after a shooting accident brings on a heart attack, the cadets, led by their newly-promoted Cadet Major (Hutton) decide to resist the authorities trying to shut them down, eventually taking up arms. Cruise’s character is the hothead, while Penn’s is the more thoughtful, but the film is really Hutton’s, and watching it, then crawling under a rock for 30 years, you’d be sure that he would be the one with the bigger career right now. But if Hutton is subtle, delivering a very mature portrayal of misplaced honor and thwarted loyalty, Cruise is impressive even if his character is more one-note. And he does get to go briefly berserk at the climax, reminding us of those performances of his later career in which bloodlust or outright insanity lurk just below the surface. It’s a “ Lord of the Flies “-style allegory, so it’s not exactly believable, and it takes too long to get where it’s going, but in “Taps,” we get the first glimpse of the Cruise of the future. And it’s only his second film.

“ The Outsiders ” (1983) If “ Taps ” gave Cruise a taste of what it would be like to be part of a generation of upcoming actors, he hit the motherload by getting cast in Francis Ford Coppola ‘s “ The Outsiders ,” alongside Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane . Based on S.E. Hinton ‘s novel of the same name, the film is certainly beautiful to look at, and wants to be epic in scope and sweep, but somehow the story doesn’t quite have the grand heft and thematic resonance it really needs. But does it really matter when the cast is this pretty? Again, Cruise takes a less central role than those actors he would soon and forever eclipse in terms of star power, but it is notable from his point of view, because here, despite some spitty, snarly play-acting, greasy hair and snaggly teeth, we discern for the first time Cruise’s heartthrob potential, even in amongst so many heartthrobs. They play a gang of underprivileged kids who are involved in a rivalry with a wealthier gang that spirals out of control when one of the richer kids is killed in a brawl, and as such this also marks a rare time that Cruise would play a true outcast, a reject (as opposed to a principled loner) — future roles may have given him a blue-collar background, but defining Cruise characters are almost always successful in adapting to, and ultimately winning within whatever social circle they aspire to. But while Cruise may be overshadowed in terms of screen time and performance this time out by the likes of Macchio and Howell, especially, according to Lowe, already back then, he was displaying the “traits that would make him famous. He’s zeroed in like a laser.” Lowe also recounts how even this early on, his agent and future production partner Paula Wagner was a hugely important figure in Cruise’s life. Retrospectively it’s tempting to ascribe a good deal of the efficient upward trajectory of his early career to her guiding intelligence — sheer luck and raw talent can’t wholly account for zero-to-hero in just five films, after all.

“ Losin’ It ” (1983) But if with ‘ Outsiders ‘ and “ Taps ” Cruise might have been in danger of being pigeonholed into the “volatile friend” supporting role, his next two films would be in one of the defining genres of the era — the teen sex comedy — and would put paid to any such notions. “ Risky Business ” would of course be his breakout, before “ Top Gun ” three years later would rocket, or fighter jet him to superstardom, but prior to that came “ Losin’ It ,” the justly overlooked “one crazy night”-style story of a bunch of high school kids heading to Tijuana for an evening of debauchery. No prizes for guessing what the “it” is that these boys are hoping to lose. Really, in tracing the evolution of Cruise into the star we know today, “Losin It” is most notable for being the first time he really had the lead role, even if that doesn’t clearly emerge until a little later in the film. So of the three friends who go on the trip, Dave ( Jackie Earle Haley — apparently born looking about 35) is the wildcard motormouth who can’t keep it in his pants, Spider ( John Stockwell ) is the goodlooking jock who gets into fights and tries to bribe policemen while Woody (Cruise) is the sweet, slightly nebbish friend who chickens out of losing his virginity to a prostitute and is instead deflowered in a much more romantic manner by the young housewife ( Shelley Long ) to whom they gave a lift to TJ for a quickie divorce. So it’s a romantic lead of sorts, inasmuch as this sort of film ever provided one of those, but it’s Haley’s wired, twitchy, OTT performance that steals what little there is to take here. A sort of interesting moment happens at the end when Long’s husband reappears, but it’s way too little too late in what is otherwise a tiresome palaver of a film, featuring a neat line in casual racism and a pretty revolting sexist streak that may have been par for the course at the time, but dates the film badly now. The real surprise here is that Curtis Hanson is the director. So it’s not only an early low point for Cruise, then.

“ Risky Business ” (1983) And so we come to the end of our journey, with a little film you may have heard of: “ Risky Business ” — only the third of four films that Cruise would release in 1983 (the last being “ All The Right Moves “). The story of a privileged, Princeton-bound teen who gets into trouble while his parents are away and, with the help of the call girl he falls for ( Rebecca de Mornay ) hits on the wizard scheme of running a one-night brothel to pay off his various debts, on paper it’s not the most promising of star-making vehicles. But Cruise really goes for it, and somewhere around the time he slides into the living room sporting nothing but socks, a pink shirt and a candlestick/microphone, it appears the world woke up to Tom Cruise TM. It helps that the film, though it roughly shares a genre with the same year’s vastly inferior “ Losin’ It ,” is an altogether sharper, tighter, better-written affair (writer/director Paul Brickman seldom gets enough props for that), so that it comes across more as satire than slapstick, spicing it’s caper-ish antics with some fairly pointed commentary. And Cruise is really very good in it, navigating the trickier aspects of his character’s moral ambivalence with ease, and turning in a confident performance that would set up the cocksure but charming persona he would default to time and again in the coming years, most notably with “ Top Gun .” In fact, it’s the first evidence we really have of the central conundrum of Cruise’s star image: in anyone else, that air of smugness — the expectation that the world will give him what he wants because it owes him — would be totally off-putting. But maybe Cruise’s greatest talent is knowing just when to pull back from the brink of all-out arrogance and show us something real, or goofy, or awkward underneath the bravado. It’s those moments, which catch the light like the flaws in a diamond, that stop us from despising his character here and in future incarnations. And that’s maybe as close as we’re going to get to explaining his long-lasting appeal: Cruise can behave like an asshole, he can win the way assholes win, but he gives us just bare-minimum-enough of a glimpse inside to let us believe he’s not, in fact, an asshole. Cue Moms wanting to rescue him; cue teenage girls sighing over the tenderness they spy within; cue teenage boys furiously taking notes. Cue stardom .

The rest is, of course, movie history. Next up, in 2014, Cruise will be jumping out of buildings in 3D in service of yet another sci-fi epic in Doug Liman ‘s “ All You Need Is Kill ,” which sounds kinda like “ Groundhog Day ” with warring aliens ( proper synopsis here ), potentially to be followed by Rupert Sanders ‘ “ Van Helsing ,” and/or Guy Ritchie ‘s “ The Man From UNCLE ” before the probably Christopher McQuarrie -directed “ Mission Impossible 5 “ arrives in 2015. Nope, Cruise ain’t going nowhere. Except maybe out the window of that skyscraper one more time.

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• How Don Johnson Channeled His Love for the Water Into a New TV Series

The famed "Miami Vice" star and powerboat champ takes on a new waterborne role as the captain of a cruise ship in "Doctor Odyssey."

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Johnson shared the character’s flowing locks, his sockless, casual-cool vibes and his adventurous lifestyle, racing powerboats offshore, counting sunsets with Jimmy Buffet and falling in and out of love with a string of models and actresses.

They were men’s men in a time when that implied a swaggering, take-life-by-the-throat bravado that few were questioning.

Except maybe Johnson. “I saw Sonny Crockett as the undoing of the American male,” he says on a video call from his home office, dressed in a white “LA” ball cap and a grey hoodie. “The law-and-order part of Sonny’s job was overwhelming, impossible to keep up with, and it’s kind of debilitating when you can’t make a difference. By the end of the fifth year, the character was so dark, and it was affecting my soul.”  

This is relevant because in a life and career defined by water and boats, Johnson is back at the helm, playing the role of Robert Massey, the captain of a luxury cruise ship on Doctor Odyssey . The show features a string of guest stars who come aboard for episodic tales. That may sound familiar, but it’s definitely not The Love Boat . “It’s more like The White Lotus on a ship,” Johnson says. “It’s about what happens when people lose control. [Writer/producer] Ryan Murphy is a genius at figuring out what people want to see.”

“I think the interesting question in all this is, would there be there a place for that guy in this world?”

That’s a question he might never have asked himself if he hadn’t become a world-famous actor and ’80s sex symbol, albeit through an unlikely route.

On the third day of his senior year in high school, Johnson arrived at business class vowing to keep his eyes open. He’d dozed off the first two days, and his teacher—“she had a voice like Thorazine”—threatened ejection.

Johnson needed the class to graduate, but “my butt barely hit the seat, and I was sawing logs,” he says, his familiar smile wrapped by a whitening goatee. He got tossed, and the only other class available was a speech and drama section. “And I couldn’t just sign up,” he says. “I had to audition.”

That didn’t sit quite right. Johnson had grown up bouncing between Kansas and Missouri, which resulted in a “thick hillbilly accent,” a devotion to sports, and extensive time in the outdoors “with my dad and my uncles and my grandfather hunting and fishing,” he says.

Acting didn’t resonate among those social circles. But lacking options, he showed up at the audition, and the teacher, Dr. Sharon Pyle, not only admitted him to the class, she immediately cast him as Tony in “West Side Story.” Suddenly, he was not just acting, but singing and dancing, too.

“She saw something in me I didn’t even see in myself,” he says. “She started throwing all this wild stuff at me—Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Sartre, Tennessee Williams, and others. Not the rest of the class, just me and this one girl.” She also gave him daily diction worksheets that unbent his accent.

What followed was a decade-and-a-half of small theater productions and bit parts in movies and TV shows, until, in 1984, he landed Miami Vice . The show grew so big so fast that Johnson soon needed round-the-clock security. “When we were on location, it was not uncommon for us to walk out of our trailers and find police tape holding back a crowd of 10,000 people,” he says. “I couldn’t really go out or do anything.”

He escaped by water.

“I did all the boat work on the show, right from the start,” he says. “I even did the stunts, but not the crashes, because only the bad guys crashed.” He smiles. “I just had a feel for it. Any time I get on a boat on the water, it’s like, Oh, I got this .”

The show maintained several versions of its signature Scarab and “the producers made the horrible mistake of giving me one of those boats to use on my own,” he says. “I spent a lot of my time offscreen doing that.”

The craft’s 330 horsepower MerCruiser sterndrives pushed it to 70 mph, a taste of speed that left Johnson searching for more. In 1986, he drove a brand-new 43-foot Scarab in an 1,100-mile race up the Mississippi river that he won. He later worked with Wellcraft to design a “Don Johnson signature edition” of that boat.

By 1988, he turned his attention to offshore racing, taking the wheel on a 46-foot Scarab with three turbocharged engines and surface-piercing drives. After an up-and-down season, Johnson’s boat finished strong to take the APBA World Championship in the superboat category and he was named Top Driver.

At the end of the season, he teamed with Revenge boats and designed and oversaw the production of a 50-foot catamaran called Team USA. “It had four big-block Chevy truck engines bored and stroked into race engines that produced 1,100 foot-pounds of torque each, which is insane.”

The boat had four eight-inch exhausts above the waterline and was so loud that, he says, “the first time I turned it over, it broke every window in the shops along the water in Key West.” Its first speed test flirted with 150 mph. “We hit 149-point something on the open ocean,” he says. “At that point it’s basically an aircraft. You’re just touching down from time to time and holding on for dear life.”

With Johnson flying back and forth between shooting locations and race sites, Team USA performed well but he failed to repeat as champ, even as he burnished his rep as fearless and aggressive. “I was fearless because I was good,” Johnson says. “Boat racing required serendipity and amnesia, because you had to block everything out and focus on the task at hand and hope nothing went wrong.”

Nothing did, but as the ’80s ended, so did the world in which Sonny Crockett and, to some extent, Don Johnson held a central role. Miami Vice was cancelled in 1991. Johnson stopped racing that year, too.

Johnson’s relationship with the water survived though. “I became good friends with Jimmy Buffett,” he says. “And one of the reasons was that I liked the water and Jimmy liked the water. We loved to be on it fishing, loved to be on it floating, even loved to be on it just sitting.”

He brings up his boys while returning to the question of what a latter-day Crockett would look like today. “There’s a place for that guy—but modified ,” he says. “My sons hunt and fish and ride motorcycles, they have the adventure bug, but they’re not wild and crazy like I was. They do it in disciplined ways and they have fun. The big difference is the opportunity for growth and maturity we’ve been offered to accept from women. I have an abiding respect for women. They’ve taught me to be less toxic and more mindful.”

After telling the story of Key West’s broken windows, Johnson leaned toward the screen. “Of course, these things tend to get embellished over time,” he said. “I’m guessing just one window cracked.” He laughs a laugh that suggests it very well could have been none. The anecdote contains the echoes of a very different time and place, but it’s better this way—it’s entertaining but more honest, more real. Modified.

“ Doctor Odyssey” debuts Sept. 26 at 9 p.m. on ABC and streams on Hulu.

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Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass star in the 2016 film 'Blue Jay.'

October is right around the corner, which means I’m readying myself for a horror movie marathon. But I recently watched an amazing romance on Netflix (it’s the first film you’ll find on my list), and I can’t get it out of my head. So in light of that awesome film, I’ve decided to cull together ten great romances on Netflix—some comedies, some dramas, but all love-affirming tales—that I think are worth checking out. So if you, like me, are looking for something a bit lighter before we delve into the bloody madness of horror movies next month, then check out one (or more) of the following movies. These are what I believe to be the ten best romances available on Netflix.

The 10 Best Romantic Movies On Netflix

Falling in love like in the movies (2023).

The first movie on our list concerns the very make-up of romantic movies. The main character of Falling in Love Like in the Movie is Bagus (Ringgo Agus Rahman), a scriptwriter who pitches an idea for a black-and-white rom-com based on an experience he shared with his high school love Hana (Nirina Zubir). This meta-narrative shifts between Bagus’ past relationship with Hana, who had just lost her husband, and his current feud with producer Yoram (Alex Abbad), who pushes for a more marketable film. As Bagus pursues his artistic vision, tensions between his personal life and filmmaking ambitions arise, lending to the film’s meta aesthetic that blurs the lines between the film’s actual plot and the film-within-a-film being created. Directed by Yandy Laurens, this movie film’s visual playfulness, which features a constant shift between color and black-and-white, offers a self-referential take on romantic movies, ultimately illustrating how cinema can both mirror and differ from real life.

La La Land (2016)

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On one side of this timeless romance we have an aspiring actress named Mia (Emma Stone, who won an Oscar for her performance), and on the other we have a struggling jazz musician named Sebastian (Ryan Gosling). But together in the magical land of Hollywood, they’re about to find out what love truly means—the good...and the bad. After they meet, Mia and Sebastian inspire one another to chase after their dreams, despite the constant setback they face. And as their careers take off, they must learn to balance their relationship with the pursuit of climbing that professional ladder. In the end, La La Land reckons with the painful reality of pursuing one’s dreams, and how sometimes love, as much as it can inspire, can ultimately get in the way of our aspirations. A stylist, nostalgic, experience stuffed to the brim with music and color, this honest yet bittersweet story from director Damien Chazelle combines the optimism of romance with the melancholy of life’s compromises and missed opportunities.

Blue Jay (2016)

While Jim (Mark Duplass) is in town to renovate and sell his late mother’s house, he and his high school sweetheart, Amanda (Sarah Paulson), unexpectedly run into each other in Alex Lehman’s beautiful black-and-white film Blue Jay . As they spend the day together, they reminisce about their shared past and the time they had spent together, gradually rekindling emotions they once shared. As they revisit the moments and places form their past, unresolved feelings resurface as well, and they reflect on how their lives have changed since they split. Their short time together is a quiet, introspective exploration of what happens when people revisit their past and how time shapes love and loss. Intimate and minimalistic, this black-and-white drama filled with naturalistic dialogue offers a reflective, meditative depiction of love that delves into the complexities of rekindled relationships and the impact memories have on our selves.

Us and Them (2018)

Us and Them tells the tale of Xiaoxiao (Zhou Dongyu) and Jianqing (Jing Boran), two strangers who meet on a train while traveling home for the Chinese New Year. Over the course of decade, in a narrative that constantly shifts back and forth between past and present, their relationship evolves from a fleeting connection into a complex deeply emotional bond, as they navigate love, career struggles, and the challenges of building a life together. Through flashbacks and current struggles, this weaving story from Taiwanese singer-actress Rene Liu (aka Milk Tea) captures Xiaoxiao and Jianqing’s ups and downs, showing how their individual ambitions, as well as pressures from society, impact their relationship over time. This realistic movie captures the bittersweet spectrum of romantic connection, featuring expressive visual contrasts that juxtapose the vibrant beginnings of love with the muted tones of later challenges.

Muriel’s Wedding (1994)

Meet the star of director P. J. Hogan’s film Muriel’s Wedding , Muriel Heslop: a soilly awkward woman who feels stuck and limiated in her small Austrailain town. In this offbeat and super colorful comedy set to the tune of ABBA’s bouncy pop music, she dreams of leaving such an unsatisfying life behind and finding happiness by getting married to Mr. Right. After stealing some money to attend a tropical vacation, Muriel (played by Toni Collette in an all-time great performance) reinvents her self with the help her new friend, Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths). They move to Sydney, where Muriels’s obsession with getting married leads her into a series of predicaments that challenge her worldview, her vision of what makes life worth leaving. Through this journey, Muriel leans about self-worth and what it truly means to be happy, beyond the fantasy of weddings and what society expects of you. Quirky with an undeniable strand of dark humor, this heartfelt story is the definition of cathartic joy.

Carol (2015)

It’s 1950s New York, and Therese (Rooney Mara), a young aspiring photographer, and Carol (Cate Blanchett), an elegant, wealthy woman going through a difficult divorce, meet each one another at crucial crossroads in their lives. Despite the constraints of their time and social prejudices, these two women form a deep emotional connection that quickly turns into a love affair. As their relationship intensifies, they are forced to confront the messiness of their looked-down-upon love, including Carol’s custody battle for her daughter and the risks associated with love between two women in a conservative era. This romantic drama from Todd Haynes is, per the director’s style, elegantly composed as it meticulously captures the essence of New York City in the mid-20th century with lush, atmospheric cinematography. The movie’s tender, restrained approach results in an absorbing undercurrent of tension and desire that permeates this sad yet entrancing love story.

Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003)

I would feel remiss not including a Bollywood musical on this list, and I see no better suitor than the uplifting yet heartbreaking story of Kal Ho Naa Ho , which translates to Tomorrow My Never Come. This film from Nikkhil Advani centers on a romance between Naina (Preity Zinta) and Aman (Shah Rukh Khan). While living in New York City, Naina, a young uptight student living with her widowed mother, disabled brother and hostile grandmother, struggles with her own unhappiness. But when her new neighbor, the cheerful and optimistic Aman, enters Naina’s life, he begins to change the way she sees the world. Soon, a love triangle between Naina, Aman and Naina’s classmate Rohit (Saif Ali Khan) unfolds, all while Aman keeps a life-threatening heart condition a secret. This vibrant and dramatic experience features a fantastic blend of comedy, romance and deep drama that’s expected of Bollywood films.

On Body and Soul (2017)

Love at first sight? How about love at first dream. That’s the case in On Body and Soul , which tells of the ethereal romance between Endre (Morcsányi Géza) and Mária (Alexandra Borbély), two workers in a Hungarian slaughterhouse who discover they share they same dream each night, where they meet as deer in a peaceful forest. While shy and removed in their waking lives, this strange shared dream slowly brings them closer together. As they learn to communicated in reality, their relationship deepens, and they confront emotional barriers that have kept them from love and connection in the past. Quiet and visually poetic with its dreamlike approach, this film from Ildikó Enyedi contrasts the cold, sterile environment of the slaughterhouse with the serene, natural imagery of our central couple’s shared dream, producing in a a haunting atmosphere that’s both longing and vulnerable, that focuses on the characters’ inner worlds and their struggle to connect in an emotionally detached environment.

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (2011)

One of the great romantic duologies of recent years, the first part Don’t Go Breaking My Heart introduces the love triangle between Yen (Gao Yuanyuan), a young analyst working in Hong Kong who recently broke up with her boyfriend, and her two suitors, Sean (Louis Koo), a wealthy investment firm CEO, and Kevin. (Daniel Wu), an architect who suffers from alcoholism. Both enamored by Yen, Sean and Kevin vie for her attention in increasingly creative ways as Yen tries to choose the man who truly complements her. Directing team Wai Ka-fai and Johnnie To’s glossy and playful film employs slick cinematography that captures its modern, urban as it depicts love amidst the dynamic cityscape of Hong Kong. Light, charming and humorous, this Shakespearean romantic comedy, is uplifting yet doesn’t shy away from capturing the ultimate complexities of relationships, and in the end delivers a healthy mix of joy, frustration and longing that naturally comes with love.

Big Eden (2000)

The final film on our list is Big Eden , which tells the story of Henry Hart (Arye Gross) , a successful New York City artist who returns to this rural Montana hometown to care for his ailing grandfather. While home, Henry, who is fearful of losing his last remaining family member, reconnects with the people from his childhood, including his high school crush, Dean (Tim DeKay), who recently returned to Big Eden with his kids after a divorce, and a quiet local store own who harbors feelings for Henry, Pike (Eric Schweig). As Henry struggles with the impending death of his grandfather while balancing feelings stirred up by his visit home, this warm and idyllic film from director Thomas Bezucha presents a small-town fantasy world where the entire community is accepting and supportive of one’s journey of self-discovery. Its tone of positivity and inclusivity might seem cloying to some, but others like me will find the film’s sweet, lighthearted approach to be a breath of fresh air.

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The 10 Best Stanley Kubrick Movies With Great Acting, Ranked

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Any discussion about the greatest filmmakers of all-time would be incomplete without mentioning Stanley Kubrick , who is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking leaps forward in the history of the medium. What’s most impressive about Kubrick is that he was not bound by one genre; within his filmography, he created the definitive space opera classic, one of the scariest horror films ever made, several highly influential war epics , an “ahead of its time” erotic thriller, and a brilliant work of social satire that grows more relevant with each passing day.

Kubrick routinely got excellent performances out of his actors, and his best films would often force popular stars to act against type. While Kubrick is a filmmaker known for being obsessed with technicals, his films would be nothing without their great characters. Here are the ten best Stanley Kubrick movies with great acting, ranked.

10 ‘Spartacus’ (1960)

Starring kirk douglas and laurence olivier.

Spartacus is one of the more controversial films of Kubrick’s career , as he famously disowned the film because he was not awarded the final cut. It’s understandable that Kubrick’s more ambiguous themes may have brushed up against the more politically allegorical writing of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo , but nonetheless, Spartacus is a rousing historical epic that features a star making turn from Kirk Douglas.

Douglas perfectly conveys the honor and nobility of a proud warrior whose dedication to seeing that all men are free makes him an inspirational revolutionary hero. Although a lesser film would exclusively focus on the singular actions of the titular character, Spartacus explores the wider scope of Roman politics through a supporting role by the great Laurence Olivier , who delivers one of the best performances of his career since his initial breakout in Hamlet and Rebecca in the early 1940s.

The slave Spartacus survives brutal training as a gladiator and leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic, as the ambitious Crassus seeks to gain power by crushing the uprising.

Rent on Amazon

9 ‘The Killing’ (1956)

Starring sterling hayden and coleen gray.

The Killing is one of Kubrick’s most influential films , as the notion of an immersive crime thriller about a heist gone wrong would influence modern classics such as Reservoir Dogs, Out of Sight, Good Time, and How To Blow Up A Pipeline . While the craftsmanship behind the camera is a large reason why the film was so successful, The Killing proved once and for all that Kubrick had the capability to balance an ensemble.

Despite the relative brevity of the film’s running time, The Killing does a great job at fleshing out each of the criminal characters that are involved in the robbery, giving the audience room to question which of the anti-heroes they should actually be rooting for. While all the performances are excellent, it's perhaps Sterling Hayden ’s role as a grizzled career criminal that is the biggest stand out.

The Killing

Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.

Watch on Tubi

8 ‘Paths of Glory’ (1957)

Starring kirk douglas and ralph meeker.

Paths of Glory was unlike any other war film , as it attempted to redefine the notion of “heroism” through the story of a respected French leader in World War I who defies orders so that his men can be protected, which sparks outrage from his superiors. While their relationship would get more contention by the time that Spartacus went into production, Douglas and Kubrick worked together very well in Paths of Glory .

Despite the impressive trench warfare scenes that provide the film with its context, Paths of Glory works best when Douglas is able to give monologues about ethics, morality, and the oaths of brotherhood that he swore to the soldiers under his command. Although Kubrick is a filmmaker whose work is occasionally accused of being “emotionally stale,” Paths of Glory is quite overwhelming on a character level thanks to the diligence that is expressed through Douglas’ performance.

Paths of Glory

After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.

Watch on Prime Video

7 ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ (1964)

Starring peter sellers and george c. scott.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is quite simply one of the funniest movies ever made , as Kubrick offered a chilling look at what actually goes along behind-the-scenes in a congress of world leaders when critical decisions are made about nuclear testing and international conflict.

Dr. Strangelove or: HowI Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb succeeds thanks to the all-time great performance by Peter Sellers , who appears as multiple different characters within this wild satire. Although this is a technique that would later be adopted by Eddie Murphy in Coming to America and Sacha Baron Cohen in both of the Borat films, seeing Sellers commit to the bit with such gravity was relatively groundbreaking in 1964, serving as yet another example why Kubrick’s foresight was so radically ahead of its time.

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black-and-white satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb parodies the growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Starring Peter Sellers, the plot revolves around a US Air Force general who orders a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union against the wishes of the government.

6 ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (1987)

Starring matthew modine and vincent d’onofrio.

Full Metal Jacket is a very subversive film about the Vietnam War that explores the nature of dehumanization and radical nationalism. Kubrick made the brilliant choice to divide the film into two unique segments; one half focuses on a cowardly private ( Vincent D’Onofrio ) as he is faced with insults and abuse by his training sergeant ( R. Lee Ermey ) whilst in boot camp, and the other centers on Private Joker ( Matthew Modine ) as he ventures deep into North Vietnamese territory.

D’Onofrio is absolutely heartbreaking in his limited capacity , and shows just how challenging the training process can be. Ermey gives one of the definitive “training sergeant” performances that has certainly inspired many subsequent characters in war films ever since. While Modine has always been an underrated actor, Full Metal Jacket offered him the opportunity to show the talents that he had as a leading man.

Full Metal Jacket

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Watch on Paramount Plus

5 ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)

Starring malcolm mcdowell and patrick magee.

A Clockwork Orange is perhaps the most controversial and divisive film of Kubrick’s career , which is certainly saying a lot considering that his films were frequently met with backlash over their explicit content. A Clockwork Orange received an X-Rating and w as banned in Kubrick’s home country of Great Britain due to the excessive scenes of violence and sexual assault involving the character of Alex ( Malcolm McDowell ), a young man who leads a gang and attacks wealthy targets.

McDowell’s chilling performance is simultaneously harrowing and heartbreaking ; although it is clear that Alex is a character that is in need of serious mental health resources in order to properly become reintegrated within society, the film shows how a totalitarian future wants to berate him into conforming to the law by using any means of torture and abuse that is at their disposal.

A Clockwork Orange

In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.

4 ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975)

Starring ryan o’neal and patrick magee.

Barry Lyndon is a historical epic like no other , as it focuses on one of the most unlikeable protagonists in screen history. The great Ryan O’Neal of Paper Moon and Love Story fame is cast against type in the titular role of an Irish scoundrel who switches sides several times over the course of a chaotic war between England and France. It becomes increasingly fascinating and infuriating to see how little attention Barry pays to the oaths that he has sworn, as it becomes more than obvious that he is willing to serve whatever party suits him best in the given moment.

O’Neal carries himself with a faux sense of honor that makes Barry even more despicable; although the tragedy that he eventually experiences is quite cruel, it’s one that feels quite cathartic when considering the despicable actions that he has proven himself to be capable of.

Barry Lyndon

A charming Irishman named Barry Lyndon ascends the ranks of 18th-century British society through cunning and opportunism. As he navigates the complexities of wealth, marriage, and social status, his ambitions lead to both success and personal downfall, portraying the rise and fall of a self-made man in a period drama.

3 ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)

Starring tom cruise and nicole kidman.

Eyes Wide Shut is perhaps the most intensive production of Kubrick’s entire career , as the film went over budget and was only barely finished before Kubrick tragically died of a heart attack in 1999. The brilliance of the film was that Kubrick cast the real-life couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as sparring partners who begin to suspect that the other one is being unfaithful.

Cruise is cast against type as an egocentric, dogmatic, and jealous husband who is riddled with anxiety and anger whenever he begins to suspect that the truth is being concealed from him. The brilliance of Eyes Wide Shut is that Kubrick understood that there was some inherently dark comedy within the story; getting to see one of the most famous couples in the world air out their grievances with one another offered some surprisingly humorous moments.

Eyes Wide Shut

A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.

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2 ‘The Shining’ (1980)

Starring jack nicholson and shelley duvall.

The Shining is often cited as one of the greatest horror films ever made , even though the supernatural elements are relatively obscure until the very end. The Shining offers an intimate look at what is is like to life with an abusive partner who is not willing to listen to reason; with Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson created the embodiment of a toxic male who takes out his personal and artistic frustrations on his family, and blames them for his personal failings.

Nicholson’s name has now become synonymous with the film itself, but Shelley Duvall was never given enough credit for how brilliant her portrayal of Wendy was in The Shining , as there is a quiet strength that she conveys within the film’s most terrifying moments. Although it was a performance that was met with mixed responses at the time, Duvall’s performance has held up as one of the greatest “scream queens” ever.

The Shining

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future. 

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1 ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)

Starring keir dullea and gary lockwood.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece of speculative science fiction that has predicted many real-world developments, such as the continued study of outer space and the more advanced development of artificial intelligence. While it’s a film best remembered for its trippy "stargate” sequences that end the story, it's important to note the performances by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood as the two astronauts that begin to suspect that their trip is in danger.

It would be impossible to discuss the legacy of 2001: A Space Odyssey without mentioning Douglas Rain , whose vocal performance as the malevolent android HAL is one of most terrifying villains in film history, and one that has been homaged and parodied countless times. While this type of vocal work is often overlooked by voting bodies, Rain’s performance was truly worthy of an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

2001: A Space Odyssey

After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.

KEEP READING: The 10 Most Thrilling Slasher Movies, Ranked

• Stanley Kubrick

Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Endless Love

Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between teenagers Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy. Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between teenagers Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy. Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between teenagers Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy.

• Franco Zeffirelli
• Scott Spencer
• Judith Rascoe
• Brooke Shields
• Martin Hewitt
• Shirley Knight
• 87 User reviews
• 19 Critic reviews
• 30 Metascore
• 3 wins & 18 nominations total

Top cast 62

• (as Jimmy Spader)

• Mrs. Switzer
• Mr. Switzer

• (as Jeff Marcus)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Brooke Shields said she was still a virgin when she filmed this and had no sexual experience. So for her intimate love-making scene with Martin Hewitt , director Franco Zeffirelli kept grabbing her toe and twisting it off camera to provoke a reaction that would look like an orgasm. Shields revealed later that it hurt, and it humiliated and traumatized her so much, she "really shut down after that".
• Goofs At night, as David is starting the fire, when the wind in the trees is shown, day-for-night filming fails to hide that the sunny blue sky can clearly be seen through the foliage.

Jade Butterfield : You know what I keep thinking about? A night in the house. I was a little girl, and then I saw David all alone. And I don't know. I just... I wanted to go to him. Was that wrong? I wasn't a happy little girl anymore. Something changed. The first time in my life I was me.

Ann Butterfield : Life goes on. We change.

Jade Butterfield : But it hurts. It hurts so much.

Ann Butterfield : Oh, Baby, it all happened so fast for you. When you live a lifetime you'll understand it.

Jade Butterfield : But he loved me. He loves me! No one will ever love me as much.

Ann Butterfield : Many people will love you. You'll see.

Jade Butterfield : But not like that. Not like David.

• Connections Featured in I Love the '80s Strikes Back: 1981 (2003)
• Soundtracks Endless Love Performed by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie Lionel Richie courtesy of Motown Records Written and Produced by Lionel Richie PGP Music/Brockman Music (ASCAP) Administered by Intersong Music

User reviews 87

• Kirpianuscus
• Feb 2, 2018
• How long is Endless Love? Powered by Alexa
• July 17, 1981 (United States)
• United States
• Ljubav bez kraja
• Kaufman Astoria Studios - 3412 36th Street, Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA (studio interiors)
• PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $9,700,000 (estimated)
• $31,184,024
• Jul 19, 1981
• $32,492,674

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 56 minutes

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