Tom Cruise Running Scenes, Ranked

Four decades, one gait, arms like knives.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A narrow Venice alley at night, a footbridge over a canal, a dropped feathered party mask on the stones.

    10. Venice After Dark

    Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One) · 2023

    After a party at the Doge's Palace, everyone chases everyone through Venice's alleys and over its bridges at night. Cruise was about 60 and did not look it from behind. One of the most expensive films ever made, at $291 million. Some of that was shoes.

  2. A heavy mechanical exoskeleton lying in wet sand on a smoky battle beach, the tide washing over it.

    09. The Beach, Again

    Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) · 2014

    Cage storms the same alien beach over and over, dying and resetting each time. The exosuits weighed about 85 pounds. Cruise compared it to Wile E. Coyote, which is correct. The only running scene on this list where he's mostly running toward death on purpose.

  3. A red silk tie and a law briefcase dropped on the platform of a Memphis monorail over the Mississippi River.

    08. Running from the Firm

    Sydney Pollack (The Firm) · 1993

    Mitch McDeere, a Harvard lawyer who learns his Memphis firm works for the mob, ends up fleeing killers on foot through the city and across the Mud Island monorail. Cruise in a tie, running like he's late for the bar exam. It made $270 million.

  4. A long empty Shanghai street at night lined with neon, a cell phone countdown timer glowing on the ground.

    07. The Shanghai Dash

    J.J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) · 2006

    Ethan has to cross Shanghai on foot to save his wife before a deadline, and the camera mostly just watches him go, flat out, block after block. J.J. Abrams's first feature, gotten because Cruise liked Alias. Pure distance running, with a bomb in his head for motivation.

  5. Three glowing wooden balls rolling down a futuristic chute beside a pair of discarded eyeballs in a sandwich bag.

    06. Everybody Runs

    Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) · 2002

    The marketing put it on the poster: everybody runs. Anderton, a cop framed by the future, flees his own department through auto factories, jetpack alleys and a mall with a precog in tow. Spielberg made a whole movie out of the premise Cruise had been running on for years.

  6. A cracked city intersection with a huge three-legged alien machine rising out of the pavement and drifting gray dust.

    05. The First Tripod

    Steven Spielberg (War of the Worlds) · 2005

    A crane operator runs through Newark as a war machine rises out of the street and turns the crowd around him to dust. Spielberg used real dust instead of blood. Here the running is the whole point, and also all a person could reasonably do.

  7. A completely deserted Times Square at dawn, billboards glowing blank, a single dropped coffee cup on the asphalt.

    04. Empty Times Square

    Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky) · 2001

    David runs through a completely deserted Times Square, a nightmare of being the last man in New York. Shot early on a Sunday morning in November 2000 with traffic blocked and a strict time limit from the city. The only time Cruise has run from nothing at all.

  8. A glass restaurant wall bursting outward with a wave of water, lobsters and shards flying onto a rainy Prague street.

    03. The Aquarium Escape

    Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible) · 1996

    Ethan blows up a Prague restaurant's giant fish tanks and runs out ahead of 16 tons of water and flying glass. De Palma tried a stuntman first; it looked fake, so Cruise did it, with real drowning risk. The franchise's whole business model, born in a lobster tank.

  9. A wall of orange sand swallowing a glass skyscraper city, a lone abandoned SUV with its headlights on.

    02. The Dubai Sandstorm

    Brad Bird (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) · 2011

    Minutes after hanging off the tallest building on Earth, Ethan chases a man on foot into a sandstorm swallowing Dubai, visibility about ten feet. Paramount screened it early for press at the BFI IMAX. Most people would have taken the rest of the day off.

  10. A gap between two London rooftops at dusk, a scuffed brick ledge on the far side and St Paul's dome in the distance.

    01. The Rooftop Sprint

    Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) · 2018

    Ethan chases a target across London rooftops, jumps a gap between buildings and hits the wall. Cruise broke his ankle on that jump, finished the take, limped out of frame, and they used it. Production shut down for about two months. He came back and kept running.

Honorable mentions

  • A yellow Los Angeles taxicab parked at night with a briefcase on the back seat and a silver Metro train passing above.

    Collateral

    Michael Mann · 2004

    The rare Cruise movie where other people do the running. He plays Vincent, a gray-haired hitman, chasing Jamie Foxx's cab driver through an office tower and onto a Metro train. Turns out being the thing chasing Tom Cruise is scarier.

Dishonorable mentions

  • An ancient sarcophagus wedged in a London Tube tunnel, sand pouring from its lid across the tracks.

    The Mummy

    Alex Kurtzman · 2017

    Cruise runs from a sandstorm full of debris through London, which he had already done better in Dubai. It lost an estimated $60 to $95 million, killed Universal's Dark Universe, and won him a Razzie. Kurtzman called it the biggest failure of his life.

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