The five best Tom Cruise running scenes
It’s right there in his Instagram bio that Tom Cruise has been “running in movies since 1981”, not that anybody is ever going to get the chance to forget.
As a powerhouse producer in his own right, anyone who pitches him a project better make sure there’s at least one scene that features him doing a spot of running because the evidence is there that it’s the easiest way to make it towards the top of the pile.
If there isn’t, then he’ll probably have one written into the script anyway, for no other reason than he can. Most people who run do so recreationally; a small few manage to do it professionally, but Cruise does it because it’s become expected of him.
There are dozens upon dozens of films to prove it, but the following stand out as the cream of the high-speed crop, making them the finest examples of Cruise’s obsession to ever grace the silver screen.
The five best Tom Cruise running scenes:
5. War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
It’s not hyperbolic to say that the first hour of Steven Spielberg‘s War of the Worlds is among his finest blockbuster filmmaking, making the movie’s disappointing slide down a cliff in the final stretch all the more disappointing as a result.
Cruise is on fantastically understated and achingly real form as beleaguered single father Ray Ferrier, who ends up covered in the dust of a hundred vapourised human bodies when he mounts his fast-paced escape from the extra-terrestrial invader that’s been woken from its slumber.
Sprinting through the streets and into buildings as chaos unfolds all around him, the look of sheer panic etched on the character’s face is rendered even more gripping by the empty items of clothing floating all around him as he powers his way through the dwindling throng and onto safety.
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018)
Cruise shattering his ankle at the very end of the scene has overshadowed an excellent example of his running acumen in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which takes him all over the streets – and rooftops – of London.
Given his close creative partnership with writer and director Christopher McQuarrie, this sequence, in particular, screams that it exists for the sole purpose of allowing audiences to watch Cruise indulge his running habit through a string of swooping aerial shots with famous landmarks in the background.
If that is the case, and it probably is, then it’s still hard to bear a grudge, considering he also makes a point of tackling stairwells, leaping from windows, and ultimately suffering a very serious injury for the sake of a foot chase that goes on longer than it needs to but is unmistakably Cruise nonetheless.
3. The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993)
An early example of how Cruise will take any excuse to burst into a sprint on-camera, a pivotal part of Sydney Pollack’s legal thriller is predicated entirely on just how fast he can go.
The answer is, of course, very, with the leading man’s Mitch McDeere refusing to be slowed down by the oversized coat favoured by the average well-to-do professional, despite the adverse effect it inevitably has on aerodynamics.
Mitch chases his wife down the street, mounts a daring escape from his own place of work, and launches himself out of a window onto a truck that just so happens to be placed directly below his point of exist and isn’t carrying knives, broken glass, or even anything sharp.
2. Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)
When Cameron Crowe managed to have the entirety of Times Square shut down for filming, there was no chance that Cruise wasn’t going to use it as an opportunity to run as fast as he possibly could through such an iconic location.
The defining shot of Vanilla Sky, the existential fantasy immediately hooks the viewer by dropping one of the most recognisable faces on the planet into one of its most densely-populated areas and notable tourist traps, only for not a single soul to be found anywhere.
An argument could be made that the scene would be just as effective were Cruise’s David Aames to take a casual stroll and try and make sense of his predicament, but that isn’t how the star tends to operate when the chance to run presents itself.
1. Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006)
The quintessential scene of Cruise running, there is absolutely no reason for it to be in J.J. Abrams‘ Mission: Impossible III other than to take off the shackles and let him go at full pelt.
There were a thousand different ways of getting Ethan Hunt to his next destination, but in a creative decision that’s got the star and producer’s fingerprints all over it, it was decreed that lengthy unbroken shots of him pumping his arms and picking up the pace was the only viable option.
So self-indulgent that it flirts with self-parody while somehow stopping short of winking directly at the audience – all of whom are aware of how much he loves to run on-camera – Mission: Impossible III comfortably takes the cake as the apex of Cruise’s cinematic running.
