Here at Met Radio, we’re celebrating the year 2024 with a series of lists rounding up our favourites of the year! We’ve invited station volunteers and staff to share their top ten of anything that encapsulates their year in pop culture (or otherwise). New lists to surprise and delight will be dropping on the Met Radio website every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this December!
Okay, I see you looking skeptically at the title of this article. I know that some of you are probably not into Tom Cruise. I realize the guy is somewhat controversial. I’m aware that he’s a die-hard Scientologist, and hasn’t been so nice to all of his wives. I hear you!!!
And yet, and yet…
The man is a MOVIE STAR! Does anyone go harder in pursuit of cinematic excellence? Is there anyone more sincerely dedicated to bringing us big-screen spectacles? He’s quite possibly clinically insane, and I imagine he’s sort of bizarre as a person, but when I’m watching a Tom Cruise movie, I don’t actually care about that. I’m too busy having an excellent time!
As it happens, I spent quite a lot of time watching Tom Cruise movies this year. I had briefly considered writing a top ten list of my favourite films of 2024, but when I really thought about it, I realized perhaps the thing that truly defined my year in movie-watching in 2024 was… Tom Cruise? And so, I present to you: the Top 10 Films Starring Tom Cruise that I Watched in 2024.
#1 Mission: Impossible – Fallout
This is the first Mission: Impossible movie I ever saw. Little did I know I was starting with perfection! I re-watched it for the first time this year, and I’m pleased to say it holds up.
It’s worth mentioning that this movie picks up directly after the events of the fifth Mission: Impossible movie, so it’s sort of a nuts one to start with. Initially, you will not understand much of what is happening, or why! However, that does not matter. What matters is that Henry Cavill reloads his fists like a gun, and the film culminates in a gripping helicopter chase. There is pithy humour and double-crossing and genuinely thrilling action, and truly, what more could one want from a Mission Impossible film? While I don’t necessarily recommend this film as an entry point to the franchise (it is the sixth one), I do unequivocally recommend it.
#2 Mission: Impossible 2
A lot of people say this is the worst Mission: Impossible film, largely due to critiques that director John Woo went all in on the action but light on any sort of characterization. I would like to posit that those people are missing the point! Personally, I will cut a film a lot of slack if I can tell that the director had a VISION that they are going all-in on, for better or worse. There are a lot of Mission: Impossible movies, and sometimes they can blend together. But not this one! It offered us such iconic scenes as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) scaling a rock wall to meditate, an erotically-charged car chase followed by bathtub sex, and of course, clouds of doves flapping around an underground tunnel as Ethan engages in some truly cold-blooded killing. (I actually think there’s quite a lot of characterization going on, it’s just sort of out there and not in sync with the rest of the franchise.) M:I-2 may not be perfect, but you certainly can’t accuse it of being forgettable, and I had an absolute blast.
#3 Interview With the Vampire
A horny gay movie about the perils of eternal life and having Tom Cruise as your possessive ex-boyfriend! Delicious! I’m sorry if you don’t think that’s canon – have you WATCHED this movie?
#4 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Widely considered the best of the Mission: Impossible movies, this one was knocked down a few pegs for me because of the final scene, in which – spoiler alert!!! – all the main characters meet up on a pier in Seattle to drink a beer and shoot the shit. I hated it! In a movie where Tom Cruise scales the Burj Khalifa, this is the least realistic scene. Sure, Luther and Ethan are co-workers and buds and love each other deeply, but they don’t HANG OUT. What would they possibly talk about? Ethan Hunt is great in a crunch, but I bet he’s a terrible hang. He’s just too intense. Plus, why is Jeremy Renner still mooching around? Watching this crew try to capture an air of casual camaraderie is simply excruciating.
That being said, the scaling of the Burj Khalifa? VERY cool.
#5 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
At this point, I will admit that this list was mostly an excuse for me to rank the Mission: Impossible films. My roommate and I watched them all earlier this year, in the following order, which is deranged: Dead Reckoning (7), Ghost Protocol (4), Rogue Nation (5), Fallout (6), Mission: Impossible, M:I-2, III. (We didn’t know we were going to watch them all when we started.) I had a great time and I really recommend it as a viewing activity, although probably in a different order.
Anyways, this is a perfectly good entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise. Haley Atwell is a great addition to the cast, and the train sequence at the end is as thrilling as anything the series has ever done. I was less compelled, however, by our latest antagonist: a man named Gabriel who works for an AI named “The Entity”. It seems like he and Ethan have history, which I suppose will be revealed next year in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, but in the interim, I simply do not care about this man.
#6 Mission: Impossible
Watching this felt a lot like re-watching the first Fast & Furious film, where after watching them go to space and execute wild stunts on the Burj Khalifa (sound familiar?), you return to the film that started it all to be reminded of their humble beginnings. It was a pleasure to recognize the origin of many classic M:I tropes, and funny to see the way Ethan Hunt’s personality has evolved over the course of the series. Namely, he used to be way more fun! But I guess constantly facing death and saving the world sobers a guy up real quick.
#7 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)
This is not a film, it is a YouTube short released by Universal Studios to promote Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. But what a thrilling YouTube short it was! Tom Cruise is a maniac who does not fear death, and that’s all I have to say about that.
#8 Mission: Impossible III
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is excellent in this film, and that’s the main thing it has going for it. Otherwise, it is a somewhat rote outing in the Mission: Impossible universe.
I will say, unlike the beer-drinking scene in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which as detailed above I hated, I quite like the scene at the start of this film where Ethan has to pretend to be a regular guy at his engagement party. He’s pretending to work in traffic control or something?? Additionally: I would LOVE to know what a courtship with Ethan Hunt looks like.
#9 Top Gun: Maverick
Another re-watch for me. I loved Top Gun: Maverick on the first go-round, and it’s still very good on the second watch, but this is really a movie to be experienced on a big screen, or at least a medium screen, and definitely not on a plane screen, which is where I was watching it.
#10 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
This is a perfectly fun and fine movie! It just suffers, in my mind, for being the least distinctive of all the Mission: Impossibles. It gives us Rebecca Hall’s Ilsa Faust, a character I enjoy, and there’s cool action, as always, but otherwise, I must admit I am struggling to remember what happened here. It’s also possible that it’s my own fault for watching these movies extremely out of order? Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, a sub-par Mission Impossible movie is still a good movie.
See ya at the theatre in 2025 for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning!
