Tom Cruise is (finally) an Oscar winner: Revisit his unusually influential four competitive nominations

Tom Cruise overcame the perceived Oscar curse at this year’s Governor Awards, where the veteran star and self-proclaimed champion of cinema received an honourary Academy Award for his lifelong contributions to the medium of film.

As Cruise proudly declared in his rousing acceptance speech that “making films is what I do”, his words dedicated to celebrating cinema, coupled with his appearance at the ceremony which was attended by many of his peers, old and new, the Cruise-mobile has once again hit full throttle, with every corner of the internet reverberating from the powerful film star’s latest reemergence.

The celebration of Cruise’s honourary accolade begs the question — what could his victory in a competitive category achieve?

While there may be a possibility for the Mission: Impossible alum cinching a late career Oscar win, the potential impact of his victory at this stage is probably reflected best in the impact of his four prior nominations, which resulted in varying levels of success for his own career and other times, the industry itself.

Nomination no. 1: Best Actor for ‘Born on the Fourth of July’

Tom Cruise received his maiden nomination at the 1990 Oscars for his wrenching portrayal of a real Vietnam war veteran, Ron Kovic, in 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July.

Beaten by Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in My Left Foot, Cruise suffered his first of four Oscar losses. With his career undeterred by the loss, the nomination only proved what everyone had known since Risky Business in 1983 — the star was destined for acting success.

However, Born on the Fourth of July was arguably the first film which greatly showcased Cruise’s acting chops, turning him into a prestige drama performer in the eyes of the industry, as opposed to a huge box office draw and just a pretty face.

While the then-rising star had delivered standout supporting performances when paired against incredibly seasoned actors like Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman early in his career, his first Oscar nomination paved the way for his collaborations with even more acclaimed filmmakers than he already had by that point — like being scouted by Stanley Kubrick to lead his final film, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, co-starring his then-wife Nicole Kidman.

Nomination no. 2: Best Actor for ‘Jerry Maguire’

Cruise’s sophomore nomination came at the Oscars held in 1997, where the star was once again among the lead actors.

Nominated for his endlessly funny and simultaneously emotional turn as the titular Jerry Maguire, a sports agent, Cruise was the only one among his category’s peers to achieve the feat for a mainstream, blockbuster release. He was joined by Ralph Fiennes for The English Patient, Woody Harrelson for The People vs. Larry Flynt, Billy Bob Thornton for Sling Blade, and the eventual winner, Geoffrey Rush for Shine — all dramatic performances.

Another Oscar loss left hardly a dent on the film’s shining legacy or Cruise’s growing legend, which had produced the fifth consecutive film of his career to cross the $100 million dollar mark at the box office in Jerry Maguire.

Nomination no. 3: Best Supporting Actor in ‘Magnolia’

Cruise’s famous collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson resulted in a supporting nod at the 2000 Oscars. Despite the apparent demotion in rank, he was the favourite to win for his performance as Frank T.J. Mackey, an incel-like character with a deeply wounded background, preceding the contemporary internet terminology by several years.

Michael Caine won the award that year for his turn in The Cider House Rules, memorably telling Cruise from the podium that had he won in the supporting category his “price would have gone down so far”.

Upon a closer look however, it can be argued that Cruise being nominated as a supporting actor greatly amplified the chances of future star performances in the category — despite his loss, the actor and producer’s legacy as Mackey is one of the more memorable aspects of Magnolia, largely due to the performance and the character’s wild nature, subsequently resulting in an inadvertent trend of male supporting performances which displayed far more creative freedom and pizzazz than their leading counterparts.

Famous leading men like Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt won their Oscars in the supporting category, for roles which greatly trumped those of the leading actors they were paired with — Leonardo DiCaprio in Pitt’s case, Mark Wahlberg in Bale’s, and in Ledger’s case, the performance was delivered by Bale himself, who won in the same category two years after his co-star’s posthumous victory.

Nomination no. 4: Producer for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Cruise’s final competitive nomination (for now) was the result of his work as a producer on Top Gun: Maverick at the Oscars in 2023, where the film was nominated for best picture.

Perhaps his most impactful of all the nominations, the sequel to his 1986 smash hit Top Gun became the means of his return to the awards discussion in the season following its release, during which every other star making the rounds at the awards circuit seized the opportunity to cozy up to Cruise, who had been largely missing from that scene for years.

Top Gun: Maverick was credited and celebrated for “saving cinema”, since Cruise expertly employed his influence to make sure that the film released in theatres rather than on streaming — as the norm had dictated since the Covid pandemic. The phenomenon was best reflected in a brief moment shared by Cruise and Steven Spielberg at the Academy luncheon in 2023, where the visibly enthusiastic director had told his two-time collaborator that he “saved Hollywood’s a**” with the decision to secure a cinema release for his film.

Maverick ended up grossing a whopping $1.496 billion at the global box office and, coupled with Tom Cruise’s endorsements for that year’s “Barbenheimer” cultural event, the film’s loss at the Oscars was perceived but as an anticipated development for an experience which proved to be much bigger than the award itself.