Patron saint of theaters Tom Cruise will be at the center of a well-deserved retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI). IndieWire can announce that starting June 20, 22 of Cruise’s most iconic films will screen at the museum. Titled “Tom Cruise, Above and Beyond,” the retrospective festival will “capture the full range of Cruise’s charismatic star performances from the 1980s to present,” as the description teases. “Tom Cruise has been so central to our conception of Hollywood for so many decades that he’s more than a movie star — he encourages us to ask: what is it that makes a movie star? Cruise’s entire captivating career speaks to his legacy as a singular movie star, and all the contradictions— of mystery and emotional transparency, of relatability and untouchability, of strength and vulnerability— that entails.”
From ’80s classics such as “Risky Business,” “Top Gun,” “Cocktail,” and “The Color of Money” to ’90s genre benders like “The Firm,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Interview with the Vampire,” and auteur works “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Magnolia” — not to mention Cruise’s Oscar-nominated turn in “Born on the Fourth of July” — Cruise’s career is legendary. Festival highlights further include Ridley Scott’s “Legend,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders,” Barry Levinson’s “Rain Man,” Michael Mann’s “Collateral,” and Rob Reiner’s “A Few Good Men.” Both “Top Gun” and “Top Gun: Maverick” will screen, as well as “Tropic Thunder;” Cruise has teased more respective franchise installments for both.
The “Tom Cruise, Above and Beyond” festival concludes August 17. But that’s not all the Cruise programming this summer: The king of blockbusters will be back on the MoMI big screen for the annual “See It Big: 70mm!” festival at the museum. Both “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Top Gun: Maverick” will be presented in 70mm. The weekly “Summer Saturdays with Dolby Atmos,” presented by MUBI, additionally will showcase “Top Gun.” Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” franchise will also be celebrated with the “Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle” exhibition; Cruise is both the producer and star of the film franchise, which concludes with “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
While Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” career may be over (or, at least for now), the actor turned stuntman told The Hollywood Reporter that he has no plans to ever retire. “I will never stop. I will never stop doing action, I will never stop doing drama, comedy films — I’m excited,” Cruise said when asked about his former statement that like Harrison Ford, he will keep acting into his 80s. Cruise also had one amendment: “I actually said I’m going to make movies into my 80s; actually, I’m going to make them into my 100s.”
He added, “There’s been so many levels of reward with the filmmakers that I’ve collaborated with, the crews, the people, the cultures that we’ve worked in. Everything that I’ve learned and continue to learn about storytelling, about life, about leadership, about character and every aspect of filmmaking. It’s been exceptional, it really is exceptional. I feel very fortunate to be able to make the films that I make and I love it. I love just making movies.”
