Tom Cruise's Most Critically Acclaimed Film Isn't Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick has been smashing all kinds of records for its star Tom Cruise, but you might be surprised to learn it’s not actually his highest rated film among critics.

The long-awaited sequel to the 1986 blockbuster saw Cruise reprise his role as Captain Pete 'Maverick’ Mitchell as he returns to the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor programme - also known as Top Gun - 36 years after the events of the first movie. 

The film has been a box office smash and has become the biggest box office opening of Cruise’s lengthy career.

According to ComicBook, Top Gun: Maverick had an opening weekend of $124 million (£98m) in the US and took $248 million (£196m) at the worldwide box office.

It also became the highest grossing film of 2022, hitting $1.06 billion (£820m) one month after its release, according to Deadline.

Top Gun: Maverick has become the second film to achieve such heights since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

And if that wasn’t enough, it was also revealed to be Cruise’s biggest film domestically - and is set to have pulled in a ​​domestic total of $572 million (£491m), following this weekend’s extended 4 July weekend, Collider reports.

Alongside that, fans were hailing it as the best film of the year and even the ‘best sequel of any legacy movie’. 

So you might be surprised to find out that Cruise actually has a higher rated film, according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. 

Paramount

While Top Gun: Maverick has a very impressive 96 percent critics’ score, it’s very narrowly beaten by 2018’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which has 97 percent. 

However, Top Gun: Maverick does retain top spot when it comes to audience score, with a near-perfect 99 percent compared to Mission: Impossible - Fallout’s not-too-shabby 88 percent. 

Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which also starred Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg and Alec Baldwin, was the sixth and latest instalment in the franchise. 

Fans may be pleased to know that there’s currently a two-parter – Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two – in the works with release dates of 2023 and 2024. 

Cruise has played the role of Agent Ethan Hunt since 1996 and its brought in a whopping $290 million (£240m) for the star, which is the most any actor has been paid for a single role in movie history. 

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Topics: Tom Cruise, Film and TV

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at UNILAD who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats.