Tom Cruise’s 10 Biggest Movies, Ranked (According To The Budget)

Tom Cruise is perhaps the biggest movie star in the world, and he has remained as such for decades. Few actors are as charismatic as Cruise, and few actors have enjoyed such a consistently strong and popular career. Bursting onto the scene in the early 80s, Cruise quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s greatest leading men, and he proceeded to dominate every decade that followed.

Cruise has mixed it up, starring in both dramas and high octane blockbusters. It’s the latter he’s particularly known for, and most Cruise productions come equipped with an exorbitantly high price tag. These are some of the most expensive.

10 Tropic Thunder (2008): $92 Million

Tom Cruise isn’t in Tropic Thunder for long, but he makes one heck of an impression as Les Grossman. It’s not often that Cruise gets to flex his comedic muscles, but Ben Stiller gave him the opportunity in Tropic Thunder, and a nearly-unrecognizable Cruise predictably knocked it out of the park.

Despite being a comedy, Tropic Thunder came equipped with a hefty $92 million budget, which was undoubtedly due to the extravagant action scenes and an incredible cast of A-list stars including Cruise, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Matthew McConaughey.

9 Minority Report (2002): $102 Million

Minority Report was Tom Cruise’s first collaboration with director Steven Spielberg. While not one of Spielberg’s most popular movies, Minority Report was nevertheless critically acclaimed and is often regarded as one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s.

Like most science fiction movies—and like most Spielberg movies—Minority Report came equipped with a hefty budget, with most estimates placing it at $102 million. However, when adjusted for inflation, the budget is nearer to $150 million.

8 Oblivion (2013): $120 Million

It’s not often that Cruise ventures into science fiction, but he did it again in 2013 with Oblivion. Based on an unpublished graphic novel by Joseph Kosinski—and also directed by him—the movie stars Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, a drone technician who battles against alien threats.

As Oblivion depicts a futuristic, war-ravaged planet Earth, it required a slew of visual effects to accurately depict the landscapes. It’s estimated that the movie’s budget came in at a whopping $120 million.

7 War Of The Worlds (2005): $132 Million

The second Cruise-Spielberg collaboration, War of the Worlds was released in 2005 to a mixed critical reception. While most people loved the visual effects and scary alien invasion-themed story, many were torn on the quality of the movie’s anticlimactic ending.

Regardless, Spielberg’s filmmaking earned widespread praise. Working with a reported budget of $132 million, Spielberg and his team were able to craft one of the most convincing and frightening alien invasions in movie history.

6 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011): $145 Million

As expensive as Cruise’s science fiction films are, they have nothing on the Mission: Impossible movies. Serving as the fourth installment in the franchise, Ghost Protocol received widespread praise, mainly for Brad Bird’s kinetic direction—not to mention the iconic Burj Khalifa sequence. Thirty minutes of the film were shot with IMAX cameras, and principal photography spanned places like Budapest, Mumbai, and Moscow, resulting in a reported $145 million budget.

5 Mission: Impossible III (2006): $150 Million

Directed by J.J. Abrams, Mission: Impossible III was the movie that made the Mission: Impossible series the titan it is today. While the first two movies were relatively popular, it was Mission: Impossible III that proved the series could compete with the likes of James Bond, and its incredible action sequences heralded the even better action sequences that were to come. Funnily enough, this movie was actually more expensive than Ghost Protocol, costing an estimated $150 million.

4 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015): $150 Million

The Mission: Impossible series consistently one-ups itself, and Rogue Nation certainly continued that tradition. Serving as the sequel to Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation visited the likes of Austria, Morocco, and London. It also one-upped Ghost Protocol‘s Burj Khalifa sequence with Tom Cruise riding on the side of a military transport aircraft.

It seems as if all Mission: Impossible films are made within a tight budgetary window, as Rogue Nation was also produced for a reported $150 million.

3 Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018): $178 Million

2018 saw the release of the sixth Mission: Impossible film. Subtitled Fallout, many fans and critics agreed that it was the best Mission: Impossible film yet, and director Christopher McQuarrie signed on to do two more movies, one of them being Mission: Impossible 7, which is currently filming through the pandemic.

With an all-star cast of A-list celebrities and the most bombastic stunts of the series, Fallout came equipped with an exorbitant $178 million price tag, by far the most expensive of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

2 Edge Of Tomorrow (2014): $178 Million

In 2014, Tom Cruise starred in yet another science fiction film, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow (also known as Live Die Repeat). Co-written by Christopher McQuarrie and adapted from the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow is essentially Groundhog Day with aliens.

Cruise plays Major William Cage, a man who continuously “restarts” at the Heathrow Airport military base after dying in battle. Like Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Edge of Tomorrow was produced for a reported $178 million.

1 The Mummy (2017): $195 Million

Serving as a reboot of The Mummy franchise, this movie was intended to begin the extended Dark Universe, which would reboot all the classic Universal monster movies of old. Unfortunately, the movie was an abject failure that completely obliterated any plans or hopes of continuing the Dark Universe. While the exact budget is unknown, it is estimated that production costs ran as high as $195 million. This makes it the most expensive film of Tom Cruise’s career, and also his biggest bomb.

About The Author

Nathan Sharp
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Nathan Sharp is a writer from outside Toronto, Ontario. He has a love of movies and television, having enjoyed them for more than twenty years. His preferences include drama, action, and horror, with the former being a particular point of interest and fascination.

He also has a love of video games, particularly those of Rockstar.

Whether it be about film, television, or video games, Nathan loves a good discussion and has written hundreds of articles for Screen Rant.

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