The Essentials: The 5 Best Tom Cruise Performances

Tom Cruise turns 50 today, and he’s probably had better birthdays. His latest film, “Rock of Ages,” was a box office disappointment, and on Friday, it emerged that Katie Holmes, his third wife and mother of his daughter Suri, was filing for divorce. Just as things were seemingly starting to get back on track after a difficult half decade — last year’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” was his biggest hit ever — it looks like the actor is hitting another rough patch.

And while we’ve had our fun with him, it’s frustrating, because behind all the craziness and rumors, Cruise is a solid gold movie star, and a good (to sometimes great) actor who all too often lets the bullshit overshadow his talents. To mark Cruise turning half-a-century old, we’ve picked out our five favorite performances from across his thirty-year career. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that there’s more of these to come, and fewer questionable public outbursts and scurillous personal rumors. And you can fight for your favorite personal Cruise turn in the comments section below.

“The Color of Money” (1986)
While works like “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas” receive more shine, one of the most undersung films in the Martin Scorsese oeuvre is his 1986 picture, “The Color of Money.” And while the true star of the picture is Paul Newman, reprising the role of Fast Eddie Felson in the sequel to “The Hustler,” also vastly underrated in the movie is Tom Cruise as the pompadoured, cocky upstart pool player Vincent Lauria who Felson takes under his wing, only to ultimately be betrayed by him. Arguably Newman elevates their tête-à-têtes, but Cruise answers the challenge in a big way. In his first serious dramatic role since becoming a star (released less than six months after “Top Gun” became a smash), he fares much better than Leonardo DiCaprio did in his first collaborations with Marty. As became his wont, he performed much of the pool sequences himself, giving it an a easy authenticity, and is every part the strutting, glorious embodiment of youth that Felson left behind long ago; the scene of Vincent doing his thing to the tune of Warren Zevon‘s “Werewolves of London” is still one of Cruise’s most iconic movie star moments. It’s intriguing to think of an alternate world where Cruise became a regular Scorsese collaborator in the way that DiCaprio has become; it’s clear from “The Color of Money” that he would have been right at home.