While most actors who star in action movies generally prefer to rely on stunt doubles, Tom Cruise has always been a daredevil. Even at 61 years old, he loves doing his stunts. Every successive movie amps up his stunt work, and the result has led to terrifying cliff dives, dangerous scenes at high altitudes, and life-threatening scenes involving various vehicles.
Cruise is known for his daring attitude and his love for action movies, and it is why he remains such a popular lead character in multiple blockbuster franchises. Mission: Impossible and Top Gun both depend on Cruise as the lead man. That means ever-escalating stunts and some of Cruise’s work has been wild.
10Tom Cruise Used a NASA Plane in Zero Gravity
The Mummy
Release Year
IMDb Score
2017
5.4/10
Shooting a Hollywood production is, undoubtedly, a difficult endeavor. Every scene generally involves multiple takes, hours of memorization, and long hours. Tom Cruise’s zero gravity scene in The Mummy, however, was another story entirely. Cruise shot the zero gravity scene 64 times over two days and four flights.
While it is not one of his more dangerous stunts, given that he was in a NASA plane and had been thoroughly trained, it was still incredible determination. The Mummy may not have launched Universal’s dark universe as planned, but it showed that Cruise will always go above and beyond — even if it means floating aimlessly in space.
9Tom Cruise Could Have Lost an Eye
Mission: Impossible II
Release Year
IMDb Score
2000
6.1/10
Some of Cruise’s stunts simply appear dangerous and are actually perfectly safe. There was one scene in Mission: Impossible II, however, that was far from it. In one shot, a real knife falls perilously close to Cruise’s eye, and he stares it down as it stops just before striking home.
While there was a rig to ensure that he would not be hit, a single malfunction could have meant that Cruise would lose an eye. It was an extremely dangerous endeavor that did not appear on-screen to be quite as life-changing as it could have been. Even simple Tom Cruise stunts can be extreme.
8Tom Cruise Flew in a Helicopter Chase
Mission: Impossible — Fallout
Release Year
IMDb Score
2018
7.7/10
Tom Cruise is a trained pilot, but most trained pilots don’t navigate through falling helicopters while fighting two enemy combatants in the same vehicle. Ethan Hunt, the field agent who completes impossible missions, does. That means that Tom Cruise does. That would be why Cruise needed to pilot a careening helicopter through a chase sequence in Mission: Impossible — Fallout.
There are many great villains in Mission: Impossible, but stopping Henry Cavill’s August Walker meant putting Cruise through extensive training. Cruise needed to put thousands of hours of work into becoming a helicopter pilot. He flies through tight crevices, while other helicopters keep just feet away from him. It’s a wild — and dangerous — stunt that proves just how dedicated Cruise truly is.
7Tom Cruise Went Speedflying
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Release Year
IMDb Score
2023
7.7/10
Speedflying is a deceptively dangerous sport. While it appears to have few differences from skydiving or parachuting, it is much faster and much more deadly. The athlete moves at faster speeds and slides down a mountain while just feet away from deadly obstacles.
When Tom Cruise was filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, he added even more complexities to the stunt. He needed to fly close to the cameras, meaning that he could never stray too far from the mountain. Even while landing at incredibly high speeds, he needed to avoid a camera truck that sat mere feet away. It was a wild stunt even for Mission: Impossible which never appears quite so dangerous in the movie as it was in real life.
6Tom Cruise Jumped Off of a Motorcycle in Mid-Air
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Release Year
IMDb Score
2023
7.7/10
Driving a motorcycle off of a cliff is dangerous enough. Jumping off of that motorcycle is even more threatening. Yet even that wasn’t enough for the Dead Reckoning Part One producers, who then elected to have Cruise transition into a base jump. The stunt proved to be the selling point in Dead Reckoning‘s trailer, but it was a challenge for stunt coordinators.
The stunt took several levels of stunt work, as Cruise needed to perform every aspect of the death-defying jump. The crew constructed an enormous ramp to satisfy the necessary stakes of the jump. While Cruise performed much of the stunt, it was even more impressive that filming for the sequence began on the first day of production. It was wild enough, but it was just the start of Dead Reckoning.
5Tom Cruise Completed a Real-World HALO Jump
Mission: Impossible — Fallout
Release Year
IMDB Score
2018
7.7/10
Cruise has always wanted to leave his mark on Hollywood by setting and breaking records. While filming Fallout, he managed to set one of his own. Cruise became the first actor to complete a HALO (High Altitude, Low Open) jump on camera, and the team had to do it over 100 times.
The HALO jump featured Cruise leaping out of a plane and parachuting into enemy territory. He jumped from an altitude of 25,000 feet. To make matters worse, the crew needed to film at night, making the descent even more dangerous. The terrifying sequence was also made treacherous by the fact that Cruise could not jump alone, as a cameraman needed to follow. Had they collided, it could have had deadly consequences.
4Tom Cruise Broke an Ankle Jumping To a Building
Mission: Impossible — Fallout
Release Year
IMDb Score
2018
7.7/10
Most of Cruise’s stunts end with complete success, as the action star adds yet another incredible stunt to his portfolio. Unfortunately, Fallout saw the actor suffer a major stumble. While simulating a jump between two skyscrapers, Cruise smashed his foot against the other building and broke his ankle.
For a relatively simple stunt, it had long-term consequences, as Cruise needed to film the rest of Fallout while injured. Even after he hurt his foot during the stunt, he immediately ran on to continue the performance. Cruise’s real injury made the final cut, making the moment especially memorable.
3Tom Cruise Hung From the World’s Tallest Building
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol
Release Year
IMDb Score
2011
7.4/10
The Burj Khalifa is known as the tallest building in the world. Located in Dubai, it towers above everything around it and would be near-impossible to climb. Tom Cruise, however, managed to do it. While Ethan Hunt used only a pair of gloves, Cruise wore a harness that was attached to the building.
Cruise practiced the stunt on plexiglass, but he eventually transitioned to the real building. Unfortunately, his tight harness restricted circulation, leaving him with only a limited amount of time to complete the stunt. As always, Cruise succeeded and created an iconic moment in Hollywood history.
2Tom Cruise Hung From a Real Plane
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Release Year
IMDb Score
2015
7.4/10
Some stunts appear too incredible to even possibly be real, but Cruise always completes them regardless. Hanging onto the Airbus A400M is one of those moments. While strapped to a real plane with the help of a harness, Tom Cruise clung on for eight separate take-offs to complete one incredible Rogue Nation stunt.
Cruise did not wear a mask, nor did he have eye protection. Instead, he simply clung to the plane and felt the sheer force and winds of take-off from the outside. If there were any issues with his gear, Cruise might not have completed the landing. Thankfully, the actor landed safely, and the stunt was completed perfectly.
1Tom Cruise Spent Over Six Minutes Underwater
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Release Year
IMDb Score
2015
7.4/10
For most people, breathing is not optional. It is a required fact of life and spending too long underwater can genuinely threaten their lives. Most people are not Tom Cruise, who went through strict training to slow his heart rate to restrict his need to breathe. That effort produced an incredible Rogue Nation scene that put his life at risk.
Cruise spent six and a half minutes underwater — a record only surpassed by Kate Winslet, who stayed underwater for seven minutes and 14 seconds while filming Avatar: The Way of Water. Cruise stunned cast and crew members alike with his underwater performance, especially as he needed to complete a stunt while underwater. Tom Cruise managed to complete the stunt anyway, proving that he mastered the art of performing his stunts.
