REMINDER: Get your Tom Cruise movie rankings in before Tuesday, July 16! It’ll be fun! No sliding around in your underwear is necessary.
It’s a question that has caused cinema fans to lose countless hours debating: What is the best and worst of any given film franchise?
ScreenAge Wasteland aims to find common ground by asking its community to participate in a collaborative ranking of Tom Cruise’s filmography. The 44 eligible movies are:
- 1980s: Endless Love, Taps, The Outsiders, Losin’ It, Risky Business, All the Right Moves, Legend, Top Gun, The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July
- 1990s: Days of Thunder, Far and Away, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia
- 2000s: Mission: Impossible 2, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Mission: Impossible III, Lions for Lambs, Tropic Thunder, Valkyrie
- 2010s: Knight and Day, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Rock of Ages, Jack Reacher, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, The Mummy, American Made, Mission: Impossible – Fallout
- 2020s: Top Gun: Maverick, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
How to Participate
Submit your ranking of Cruise’s filmography to info.screenagewasteland@gmail.com by Tuesday, July 16.
All you have to do is order the movies you’ve seen from best to worst. Also, include a sentence or two (no longer than a paragraph please) for each movie (your favorite part, why it is great/terrible, etc.) that makes your personal Top 20. This does NOT mean to only submit a Top 20. If you’ve seen thirty, submit thirty. We are simply asking for writeups only from everyone’s top 20.
Here’s an example of what a response might look like for Pixar’s A Bug’s Life:
- Surely most people put this at the bottom of their list? For all I know A Bug’s Life is much better than I remember, but I think it was forever cursed as being “not as good as Toy Story.” I sure as hell know it is better than Antz though.
NOTE: As long as you have seen at least half of Cruise’s filmography you can participate. Just rank the ones you have seen. Do not rank those you haven’t. The scores will be adjusted depending on how many you rank.
NOTE: We are not ranking any documentaries he narrated, any movies he produced but did not act in, or any movie where he only appeared in a cameo (i.e., Austin Powers in Goldmember).
Once the deadline has passed, we’ll tally up the various rankings, cherrypick the best responses for each film, and put together a massive collab ranking before the end of the month.
Are you up for the task? Comment below or email to confirm your involvement.
Thanks in advance to everyone who participates. If we could, we would run over to you like Cruise and hug you.