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Finally, the sixth place slot likely goes to one of the most classic popular movies of all time, Top Gun. Ah, that young Val Kilmer, and that song. But it was Cruise who arguably stole the show as the maverick…um, Maverick. The young, wild, good at heart, man’s man air force pilot who wants the girl and the glory. Yeah, the story is trite in that sense, but Cruise pulls it off with his charming smile and his disaffected delivery. In any case, Top Gun is a classic of 1980s cinema, bar none. Adjusted for inflation, it is still Cruise’s most successful movie of all time.

On to the main event.

5. Collateral (2004)

One of the few times that Tom Cruise has not played the hero is in the crime thriller Collateral. Instead, a handsomely salt-and-peppered Cruise is a hitman who takes on an unwitting Jamie Foxx as his cab driver while he embarks on a night of crime. The movie, without Cruise, may have been another forgettable Liam Neeson-type shoot-them-all kind of product. Instead, Cruise is notable for his steely delivery and his positively evil gesturing. It becomes clear, in fact, that behind Cruise’s devilish smile is a darker personality, that the line between the charm and the hate is thin, and that he is entirely in control of it. Cruise’s character even wavers between the two, in a key scene where he charms Foxx’s elderly mother into liking him.

But Cruise is all business and no compassion in this well-reviewed movie, which was also a box office success, even though he is not likely to reprise his out-of-type casting as a villain any time soon.

4. Magnolia (1999)

I hesitated before putting Cruise’s supporting role in this cast-of-characters film on the list, but it deserves it all the way. Cruise plays the enigmatic con artist and self-help guru Frank Mackey, who has a tortured relationship with his father and his trophy wife, and who feels traumatized by being abandoned by his mother.

In one of the few movies in which Cruise does not appear as a debonair character (instead, he dons a crazy beard, hair, and outfit), he also gave us perhaps a preview of what was yet to come in his real life: a couch-jumping maniac who is kooky and weird while undeniably smart. Perhaps it was because of the ease of essentially playing himself, but Cruise once more demonstrated that he is a serious actor able to display a wide range of emotions and evoke a diverse array of feelings. Magnolia is, after all, a dark comedy as much as it is a straight drama, and it is admirable that Cruise was able to deliver so poignantly in yet another genre.

For his turn, Cruise received his to-date last Oscar nomination but lost to Michael Caine’s facile portrayal of the enigmatic doctor in The Cider House Rules. While Caine is a fine actor, the fact that Cruise lost to the only one of the nominees who already had a statuette and who gave, easily, the worst of the five performances, shows that there is a serious contingency in the Academy that does not like him.

For shame, because the versatility he exhibited with his performance in Magnolia will resonate in his favor, later.

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