8 Tom Cruise Movies That Surprisingly Had Happy Endings

Summary

• Tom Cruise’s big action hits often have predictable happy endings, but some of his best movies find a way to give dark premises a happy conclusion.
• “Edge of Tomorrow” and “War of the Worlds” both start with seemingly hopeless situations, but end on a positive note.
• “Minority Report” and “The Last Samurai” surprise audiences with their happy endings after taking characters through grueling trials.

Tom Cruise has acted in a variety of films over the course of his career, including eight dark movies with surprisingly happy endings. Cruise has become firmly entrenched as one of Hollywood’s most prominent stars, and while he began his career acting in a wider variety of films, he now works primarily in the action genre. Cruise has won three Golden Globe Awards and been nominated for four Academy Awards in his career, and he is one of the highest-grossing box office actors ever.

A lot of his earnings come from his big action hits like the Mission: Impossible movies and Top Gun, and while these films are typically suspenseful and high-octane, they are usually somewhat predictable. Most of Cruise’s big action hits feel like they’re always going to end happily with the good guys beating the bad guys. What’s rarer, are the films that create some real jeopardy and feel like they may not necessarily end happily, but end up getting there anyway. Some of Cruise’s best movies manage to take a seemingly dark premise and find a way to give it a happy ending.

8 Edge Of Tomorrow — Released In 2014

Starring Tom Cruise as Major William Cage

Edge of Tomorrow is a science fiction action movie starring Cruise and Emily Blunt. Cruise plays Major William Cage, a public affairs officer who gets thrown onto the front lines of a war against a species of deadly aliens. When Cage dies killing a massive alien, he suddenly wakes up at the beginning of the previous day. He goes out to fight again, dies again, and the cycle repeats, making for a pretty dark premise. This premise might cause the audience to expect a similarly dark conclusion, but Edge of Tomorrow ends on a happy note, with Cage defeating the aliens and reversing his friends’ deaths.

7 Minority Report — Released In 2002

Starring Tom Cruise as Chief John Anderton

Minority Report is one of Cruise’s best sci-fi movies, and its harrowing tech-noir style makes the happy ending a bit of a surprise. The film takes place in a future where three psychics known as “precogs” are used to predict homicides before they can occur, allowing officers of the “Precrime” police division to apprehend criminals who have yet to commit a crime. The complex narrative takes Cruise’s character, John Anderton, through some grueling trials as he runs afoul of the organization he once ran, but surprisingly, it ends on a happy note with the dissolution of the Precrime unit and Anderton’s reconciliation with his wife (Kathryn Morris).

6 War Of The Worlds — Released In 2005

Starring Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier

War of the Worlds is a 2005 science fiction action film that follows Cruise’s crane operator, Ray Ferrier, who struggles to protect his children when a powerful alien race invades Earth. Ray endures merciless attacks from the alien war machines, hiding his children in various places and destroying one of the machines from the inside when his ex-wife is abducted. For most of the movie, it seems like humanity has no way of defeating the invaders, but they abruptly begin dying when exposed to Earth’s microbes, allowing Ray to reunite his family and conclude the story on a happy note.

5 The Last Samurai — Released In 2003

Starring Tom Cruise as Captain Nathan Algren

The Last Samurai is a 2003 epic period action film that follows Cruise’s troubled Civil War veteran, Captain Nathan Algren, who travels to Japan to train the Imperial Army to defeat an uprising of samurai. After being captured by the rebel samurai, Algren comes to share their point of view and joins them in fighting the Imperial forces. The samurai seem destined to succumb to the modern weaponry used by the Imperial Army, and they eventually do, but the movie ends on a surprisingly happy note when Algren convinces the Emperor (Shichinosuke Nakamura) to preserve Japanese heritage in the face of modernization.

4 Knight And Day — Released In 2010

Starring Tom Cruise as Roy Miller

Knight and Day stars Cruise and Cameron Diaz as Roy Miller and June Havens, respectively. Miller is a rogue CIA agent seeking to protect a perpetual energy battery from the crooked CIA agents chasing him. June becomes entangled in the conspiracy when the agents chasing Miller see them together in public and mistakenly assume she is part of his operation. June and Roy are chased relentlessly and seem as though they are going to come out of things on the losing side when Roy is shot and trapped in a hospital, but June manages to rescue him, leading to a happy ending as they drive off into hiding together.

3 Far And Away — Released In 1992

Starring Tom Cruise as Joseph Donnelly

The 1992 romantic Western, Far and Away, follows Cruise’s Joseph Donnelly and Nicole Kidman’s Shannon Christie as they leave their home in Ireland to seek a new life in the Land Run of 1893 in the American West. Circumstances seem determined to drive them apart, and after numerous setbacks, it seems like their story is bound to end badly for them. However, right at the end of the film, a dying Joseph is revived by the love of Shannon, and they claim their land together. Far and Away often feels like its being set up as a tragedy, allowing the happy ending to come as a real surprise.

2 Legend — Released In 1985 (1986 In The United States)

Starring Tom Cruise as Jack

Legend is a dark fantasy film that follows Cruise’s Jack, a green man of the forest, who seeks to prevent the Lord of Darkness from covering the world in eternal night. This extremely dark fantasy tale creates a somber feeling in the audience that makes it feel like there is tragedy in store. However, Jack manages to expel the Lord of Darkness into the endless void, saving humanity from eternal night. While the somewhat generic fantasy story might be expected to end on a similarly happy note, Ridley Scott’s brilliant cinematography creates a palpable feeling of darkness that puts that assumption in doubt.

1 The Firm — Released In 1993

Starring Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere

The 1993 legal thriller, The Firm, stars Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere, a newly graduated Harvard Law student who joins a corrupt law firm, straining his relationship with his wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and embroiling him in a sprawling conspiracy. Mitch becomes caught up with mobsters and crooked lawyers, losing his wife when he cheats on her, and becoming closer and closer to being killed or going to prison. Mitch’s predicament only seems to get progressively worse, so when he manages to outsmart the mob and crooked attorneys and reconcile with his wife, it comes as a genuine surprise.