It's reached a point in his incredible career that Tom Cruise would hype up the audience by running just as much as he would by hanging off a plane. Seeing the cinema-saving star going so fast, even the cameras are struggling to keep up with him, is a must-have moment in his films now, earning a place in the "Mission: Impossible" movies checklist alongside a fuse being lit or Simon Pegg getting yelled at while he's giving IT advice. In honor of this trademark talent of the star moving like a Cruise missile on foot, one fan has taken to Reddit and managed to compile and rank every time he's run in his movies, and his top 10 instances are crammed with some iconic scenes.
Of his 44 films, Tom Cruise has managed to get caught running like he's mad at the floor an incredible 295 times, with the collective sprints in a single movie only growing as the years have gone by. For example, according to the detailed fan assessment, in his last film, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Cruise is seen running on 17 different occasions throughout the film, with each instance spread across the list, all earning their specific spot for very different reasons.
Not all of them are given detailed reasoning, with 285 being "safely running to a car" or 219 "running to a fight in Venice." Naturally, the higher the list's rankings, the more ironed out and unanimously adored instances appear.
For example, The Firm, which gave the world a first good look at just how fast this man could move via its iconic running sequence, rightfully found a place among the best of the best at nine. In contrast, Collateral, which holds one of Cruise's best performances ever, was a (ahem) runner-up for the top spot and earned particular praise for the improvisation during the scene. As the silver-haired lone wolf of a hitman, Vincent chases down his driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), and Cruise trips over broken glass and continues to kick into gear, highlighting how monstrous this character is. However, for the top entry, that is literally running leagues ahead of the rest, there was only one choice – the sprint through Shanghai in J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III.
Four Mission: Impossible movies filled out the top 10, but the third installment saw Cruise in a literal race against time to track down his then-wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). It's undeniably one of his best big-screen laps he's ever taken, and we can't wait to see him running through the streets of London and all the other top-secret locations we'll be visiting when Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning arrives in theaters on May 21, 2025. To see our ranking of every Mission: Impossible head, see if you choose to accept our list here.
