Top 5 Tom Cruise Films

Over the last couple of days I have seen a number of "5 Best Tom Cruise" articles posted on Associated Content. My initial reaction upon seeing the headlines was to glibly think to myself; did Tom Cruise even make five good movies? I mean isn't this a little like making a list of the world's 5 tallest midgets? (No "Tom Cruise is short" joke intended.)

I also wondered how can there be more than one list of five best Tom Cruise films. I mean, don't we have anything better to write about?

Well, apparently not.

So, upon further review and with the help of imdb.com I did discover that Mr. Cruise has in fact been in at least five good films. So here is my list (feel free to roll your eyes) of the five best Tom Cruise films according to a former Film and Media Studies minor at The Johns Hopkins University.

#5) A Few Good Men (1992)
Let's be clear about one thing, Jack Nicholson makes this movie. Without Jack A few Good Men would be a bad Lifetime movie. With Jack it is a fun and brilliant film. As for Tom Cruise's performance; well as far as I am concerned you could have replaced him with a talking chimp and it would not have made a bit of difference. Watching Jack being Jack is why you go see A Few Good Men.

#4) Minority Report (2002)
It's Steven Spielberg adapting a Philip K Dick short story. How can you go wrong with that? You can't even with Tom Cruise in the lead role.

#3) Rain Man (1988)
"Definitely time for Wapner." Dustin Hoffman is brilliant in this film Barry Levinson film. Tom Cruise is also in it.

#2) Magnolia (1999)
I guess it takes a rain of frogs for Tom Cruise to really act. Magnolia is a brilliant film by director Paul Thomas Anderson and I will be the first to admit that Tom Cruise did a great job in this movie. Cruise breaks his type cast in this film and does a great job with it. He plays the role well and you can actually forget that it is him in this film.

#1) Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Stanley Kubrick is a genius. After 400 days of shooting he was not only able to get enough usable footage of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (which must have been a feat in and of itself) but was able to edit it all together into a masterpiece of a film in which he cinematically portrays the feeling of sexual frustration. Rumor has it that Kubrick originally wanted to cast Steve Martin in the role that Tom Cruise played in the film. If that is the case I honestly say it is a good thing that Tom Cruise got the part!