Tom Cruise receives his first Oscar and delivers a moving speech

“Making films is not what I do, it’s who I am.”

Historic evening in Hollywood.

Last night, forty years after his debut, Tom Cruise finally received his first Oscar. An honorary Oscar was awarded to him at the Governors Awards on November 16 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. And as always with Tom Cruise, the moment was calibrated like a blockbuster climax: intense, sincere, spectacular.

The award was presented to him by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, with whom Cruise is currently filming a film (still untitled), expected for October 2026. It will be recalled that it is while filming The Revenant for Iñárritu that Leonardo DiCaprio had received his first (and only) Oscar for Best Actor… While waiting to be crowned one day in the official ceremony, the 63-year-old actor humbly accepted this statuette crowning his insane career. And on stage, the actor delivered a long speech full of emotion, paying tribute to those who make cinema possible, but also to what this art represents in his life.

“Cinema takes me around the world. It helps me appreciate and respect differences. It also shows me our common humanity… And no matter where we come from, in a room, we laugh together, we feel together, we hope together, and that’s the strength of this art. Making films is not what I do, it’s what I am.”

He then spoke of the birth of his passion, somewhere in a dark room of his childhood.

“My love of cinema started very early, as far back as I can remember. I was just a kid sitting in a dark room, and I remember this beam of light coming across the room. I remember looking up, and it seemed to explode on the screen. Suddenly, the world was so much bigger than the one I knew. Cultures, lives, entire landscapes were unfolding before me, and it sparked something. A hunger for adventure. A hunger for knowledge. A hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world. It opened my eyes to the possibility that life could go far beyond the limits I perceived then in my own.

It should be noted that before this honorary Oscar, Tom Cruise had already been nominated four times: best actor for Born on the 4th of July And Jerry Maguirebest supporting role for Magnolia and Best Picture for his work as producer on Top Gun: Maverick.

To greet Tom Cruise, we saw Jennifer Lawrence, Michael B. Jordan, Sydney Sweeney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson and Emma Stone on the red carpet. A shower of celebrity to pay tribute to one of Hollywood’s last superstars.