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Tom Cruise's 10 best stunts of all time, ranked

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Jason GuerrasioMay 28, 2022, 19:36 IST
Tom Cruise's 10 best stunts of all time, ranked

Tom Cruise in "Top Gun: Maverick."Paramount.

  • Tom Cruise does his own stunts and it's remarkable what he's been able to pull off.
  • Hanging on the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the world's tallest building, he's done it all.
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10. In "Edge of Tomorrow" Cruise acted in a suit that weighed up to 130 pounds.

10. In "Edge of Tomorrow" Cruise acted in a suit that weighed up to 130 pounds.
Tom Cruise in "Edge of Tomorrow."Warner Bros.

Cruise's 2014 fantastic sci-fi action movie featured a lot of grueling days in a massive costume.

Cruise's character repeats the same day while battling deadly aliens alongside Emily Blunt in the movie. And the armor worn for the film was heavy, with versions weighing between 85 and 130 pounds.

9. For the cargo-plane crash in "The Mummy," Cruise did the stunt inside a NASA plane that trains astronauts for zero gravity.

9. For the cargo-plane crash in "The Mummy," Cruise did the stunt inside a NASA plane that trains astronauts for zero gravity.
Annabelle Wallis and Tom Cruise in "The Mummy."Universal

In 2017's "The Mummy," Cruise finds himself stuck in a cargo plane as it crashes. To pull off a scene like this, actors would typically film it in a controlled setting like a sound stage surrounded by a green screen.

Not Cruise, though.

The star shot the scene in a plane that NASA uses to train astronauts.

The scene was filmed in the plane which had to go up to 25,000 feet to get the look that Cruise was in zero gravity. The plane then did a free fall for 22 seconds.

Cruise did the flight four times to pull off the scene.

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8. Cruise flew a helicopter in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

8. Cruise flew a helicopter in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."Paramount

For the thrilling helicopter-chase scene in the finale of "Fallout," Cruise spent 16 hours a day training to get to the required 2,000 hours to fly a helicopter on his own.

But Cruise didn't just fly the helicopter. He also pulled off a 360-degree corkscrew dive in it, which would challenge even the most veteran pilot.

7. Cruise is really in a F/A-18 jet for the flight scenes in "Top Gun" Maverick" and had to deal with the G-forces.

7. Cruise is really in a F/A-18 jet for the flight scenes in "Top Gun" Maverick" and had to deal with the G-forces.
Tom Cruise in "Top Gun: Maverick."Paramount

When you see Cruise and the cast looking like they are battling G-forces in the jets, complete with distorted faces, it's because they really were.

Cruise and the cast went through training so their dogfight scenes could look as realistic as possible — which meant sitting in the F/A-18 jets as they were spun around and took dramatic dives.

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6. Cruise climbed a 2,000-foot cliff in "Mission: Impossible 2."

6. Cruise climbed a 2,000-foot cliff in "Mission: Impossible 2."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 2."Paramount

In the opening scene of 2000's "M: I 2," Cruise is seen climbing a cliff. And yes, that's really him.

Cruise scaled the cliff in Utah with nothing but a safety rope. He also did a 15-foot jump from one cliff to another.

5. Cruise held his breath for six minutes for an underwater stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

5. Cruise held his breath for six minutes for an underwater stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."YouTube/Paramount/"Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation"

In one scene, Cruise's Ethan Hunt has to dive into an underwater safe to retrieve the computer chip that will lead him closer to the villain.

Along with having to hold his breath the whole time, he must keep away from a large crane that's circling around the safe.

For the scene, Cruise first jumped off a 120-foot ledge. Then, in a 20-foot deep-water tank, Cruise held his breath for six minutes.

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4. Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings while making "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

4. Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings while making "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."David James/Paramount

Tom Cruise loves to run in his movies; it's become his trademark. But his ability to continue running came into question after a stunt went wrong on the set of "Fallout."

While jumping from one one building to another, Cruise hit the wall of the building the wrong way and broke his ankle.

The accident halted production for months and doctors told Cruise his running days might be over. But, six weeks later, Cruise was back on set doing sprints.

3. Cruise climbed the tallest building in the world for "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol."

3. Cruise climbed the tallest building in the world for "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol."
Tom Cruise climbs up the side of the Burj Khalifa in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol."Paramount Pictures

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, and Cruise climbed it.

For "Ghost Protocol," the actor's climb got him up to 1,700 feet in the air.

He also fell four stories down by rappelling on the surface of the building.

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2. Cruise hung on the side of a plane as it took off for "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

2. Cruise hung on the side of a plane as it took off for "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."Paramount Pictures

Cruise clung to the side of a massive Airbus A400M plane as it took off and went up to 1,000 feet dealing with speeds of 100 knots.

To protect the actor, he was secured with a wire attached to the plane. He also had special contacts on to protect his eyes from debris.

Cruise did this stunt eight times.

1. Cruise did 106 skydives with a broken ankle to pull off the HALO jump in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

1. Cruise did 106 skydives with a broken ankle to pull off the HALO jump in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."
Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."Paramount

While Cruise was healing the broken ankle he sustained earlier in the "Fallout" production, he went and pulled off the most amazing stunt he's done in his career so far.

In the movie, Cruise's character and CIA tagalong August Walker (Henry Cavill) decide to do a HALO jump — a high-altitude, low-open skydive, in which you open your parachute at a low altitude after free-falling for a period of time — out of a giant C-17 plane to get into Paris undetected.

Cruise did this for real by executing the jump 106 times over two weeks, many of them done during golden hour, a very brief period of perfect lighting that occurs just before sunset.

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