The Top of Tom Cruise’s Best Performances Before Digger

Unrecognizable in Digger, the 64-year-old star delivers one of his craziest performances for Alejandro González Iñárritu. A look back at the actor’s career through his 10 best roles, which marked 5 Hollywood decades.

Will he finally win an Oscar for Best Actor for his spectacular incarnation of the eccentric Digger Rockwell? As Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film hits theaters, we look back at Tom Cruise’s best performances. These roles which, beyond the box office figures, have made his legend. A Top classified in chronological order.

Joel Goodson in Risky Business (by Paul Brickman, 1983)

Still baby Tom Cruise, but already a superstar! For two years in Hollywood (he debuted with a minor role in 1981 in Endless Love), the actor breaks the screen in the skin of this high school student who begins a passionate relationship with a prostitute played by Rebecca de Mornay. His young face and his devastating smile are a sensation. And his charisma explodes when he starts dancing in the middle of the living room to Ol’Time of rock’n’roll (sliding in socks on the polished floor)! He is only 21 years old and has already created a legendary scene, which will be pastiche in pop culture to the point of overdose in the decades that follow.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, in Top Gun (by Tony Scott, 1986)