Tom Cruise is one of those actors that movie-goers seem to either love or hate, but in recent years the popularity of the action-loving star has seen a boost from some major franchise movies. Having already seen his Mission: Impossible movies become huge crowd-pleasers, the actor’s newest movie Top Gun: Maverick has seen him getting some of the highest critic scores of his career. As Top Gun: Maverick gets ready to finally make its theatrical debut, critic reviews have been universally full of praise for the nostalgic return of the franchise after more than 35 years, and that has given Cruise the highest average Rotten Tomatoes score of his career.
While Tom Cruise has been in the business for 40 years, the actor’s movies haven’t always been the sure-fire hits of recent years, with whole strings of movies dragging down his overall status. For that reason, his recent run of movies, and the current rating of Top Gun: Maverick, have helped to push the actor’s average score across his filmography to its highest position ever at 65.14%.
To put Cruise’s current rating in context, prior to his first big hit Risky Business, the actor’s average rating sat at 48.6%, and the release of that movie saw it jump to 55.83%. Since then the number has risen every decade, but after moving quickly up to 62.64% by the start of the 2000s, the actor has struggled to make a significant gain due to some very badly received movies counteracting some of the best-reviewed movies of his career.
Most notable of his recent movies, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and The Mummy gained only 38% and 16% respectively, but were subsequently canceled out by the highly rated American Made and Mission: Impossible – Fallout with a respective 85% and 97%.
Can Tom Cruise Continue His Winning Streak With His Mission: Impossible Conclusion?
Having often struggled to maintain a decent run of critically praised movies in the past, Cruise could well see his current streak of Fresh movies continue as he heads into the final two movies of the Mission: Impossible franchise. The original Top Gun only managed a rotten 58% score, and although the original Mission: Impossible was rated fresh it still only pulled in a 66% approval. However, since the arrival of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the Mission: Impossible movies have all landed with a score in excess of 93% and that is something that Cruise won’t want to let slip in the final two movies.
Top Gun: Maverick’s current 97% rating doesn’t look like it is going to head south anytime soon, and that means that if the 60-year-old brings the action for his two-part M:I finale, then he could not only push his average rating higher but could also bring his current Fresh streak to 5 movies. As one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, Tom Cruise may have produced some real clangers in his four-decade career, but his biggest hits have more than made up for it.