MINDS FAR MORE powerful than yours and ours have tried to figure out what drives Tom Cruise. For four decades, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has been in the big leagues of Hollywood stars, a bankable vessel of A-list charm and heroism who maintains a tight grasp on his celebrity image and whose work splits the difference between relentlessly pushing himself and classic audience satisfaction. Back when the ’80s became the ’90s, he graduated from the cocksure hits of Risky Business and Top Gun to the acclaimed schmaltzy dramas Rain Man and Jerry Maguire. Flash forward to today, and he’s made it a point to leave the Scientology bad press and memes behind him, instead homing in on and assuming the crown of “Mr. Movies.” He’s the key authorial voice on all his projects, he’s amassed 30 years of white-knuckle, keenly supervised action movies, and thanks to the dynamite success of Top Gun: Maverick in a poor pandemic box office, he’s been dubbed by many as “the last movie star.”
But that’s not the Tom Cruise we see in Digger. In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film, Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an aging, foul-mouthed oil tycoon who must save the world when one of his rigs triggers a terrifying environmental catastrophe. With saggy prosthetics, a quirky Southern accent, and a thoroughly unpleasant demeanor, Cruise is upending his audience’s expectations by playing the least likely character to try to save the world, taking swipes at a few satirical targets along the way. But the excitement around Digger isn’t down to Cruise taking on his first weird role. Rather, it’s a return to the subversive material that Cruise used to pursue to shake up his career.
Peppered throughout Cruise’s filmography are dark, psychologically probing dramas, not to mention strange misfires that give insight into his mythicized work ethic and memorable comedy roles that cast him in a humiliating new light. To mark Digger’s release, we put together a list of the best subversive Tom Cruise movies that, together, bring us closer to Hollywood’s most unique leading man in unexpected ways.
10. The Color of Money (1986)
Years before Cruise would initiate his own old-timer vs. young buck legacy sequel, he played an upstart youngster against Paul Newman in this Martin Scorsese-directed sequel to pool hustler classic The Hustler. Cruise plays Vincent, a vain, conceited brat who shoots pool like a boss but is a far cry from the sophisticated swagger of Newman’s Fast Ed Felson. Cruise’s toothy grin and gelled hair make Vincent a very punchable rival — Timothée Chalamet is definitely channeling him in Marty Supreme’s pool hustling scene — and the role is perhaps the origin point of the obsession with peak performance that would later define Cruise’s entire ethos.
