Tom Cruise finally gets his (honorary) Oscar moment: Here’s his complete awards history
Tom Cruise's next mission, should he choose to accept it, will be to collect an honorary Oscar.
The 62-year-old actor has been announced as one of the recipients of the 2025 Governors Awards alongside choreographer-artist Debbie Allen, production designer Wynn Thomas, and singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, the latter of whom will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The awards will be handed out on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles.
Cruise rose to fame in the 1980s as the star of several teen movies before blowing up in Top Gun (1986) and becoming one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. He followed with a string of popcorn films that included Interview With the Vampire (1994), Minority Report (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), and the Mission: Impossible franchise (eight films between 2000 and 2025). While those types of films rarely result in trophy wins, Cruise still has a storied awards history that goes back decades.
The Oscars
Cruise has been nominated at the Academy Awards four different times: Born on the Fourth of July (Best Actor, 1989), Jerry Maguire (Best Actor, 1996), Magnolia (Best Supporting Actor, 1999), and Top Gun: Maverick (Best Picture, 2022). He lost those respective contests to Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot), Geoffrey Rush (Shine), Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules), and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The actor attended his first three ceremonies with then-wife Nicole Kidman (watch his live reactions to losing here, here, and here). However, he sat out the big show on March 12, 2023, when he was nominated as a producer for Top Gun: Maverick. But he wasn't shunning his peers; he was busy filming Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning overseas and simply couldn't get the time off.
In a show of support for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cruise did appear at that year's Oscar nominees luncheon on Feb. 13, 2023, where he snapped photos with everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis to Austin Butler to Malala Yousafzai.
The Golden Globes
While Cruise failed to win at the Oscar, he kept scoring at the Golden Globes. Within an 11-year period, he earned three trophies for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire, and Magnolia. He has four additional Globe bids to his name for Risky Business (1983), A Few Good Men (1992), The Last Samurai (2003), and Tropic Thunder (2008).
For his first victory in 1990, a baby-faced Cruise, just 28 years old, chuckled at the podium, "I'm so nervous here, hold on one second." He then thanked his fellow Born on the Fourth of July filmmakers and "all the Vietnam vets," including Ron Kovic, whom Cruise portrayed in the film. Watch the clip:
In 2021, after a Los Angeles Times report uncovered several improprieties involving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (which at the time owned the Golden Globes) and also that the organization had a lack of diversity within its membership (including no Black members), Cruise returned all three of his trophies in protest. It was the most high-profile repudiation of the HFPA, which faced a boycott led by other celebs like Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo. Due to the controversy, the ceremony did not air in 2022. (The Golden Globes Awards were later sold to Dick Clark Productions in 2023, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge and Penske Media, which owns Gold Derby.)
The precursors
Cruise has a single nomination to his name from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, an influential precursor to the Oscars. He was up for Born on the Fourth of July, but lost to French actor Philippe Noiret (Cinema Paradiso).
Cruise has been nominated three times at the Screen Actors Guild Awards: for Jerry Maguire as an individual, and for Magnolia as an individual and as part of the ensemble. He has yet to win a SAG Award, which is voted on by his peers in the acting community.
At the Critics Choice Awards, Cruise received the Distinguished Achievement in Performing Arts trophy in 2005, that group's version of a lifetime achievement award. He has been nominated competitively four times with the critics, for starring in Jerry Maguire, Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015), and Top Gun: Maverick.
Cruise has claimed two Producers Guild of America statuettes, for Mission: Impossible in 1997 as most promising producer, and in 2023 for his career achievement in producing.
The fun stuff
For anyone who thinks that awards shows are simply too snobbish, this section is for you.
Cruise has been honored with a plethora of other trophies throughout his career, including the Bambi Award for Valkyrie (for using his passion and initiative to carry out ambitious and courageous film projects to the screen); the Generation Award at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards; the 2002 Peabody Award for America: A Tribute to Heroes, which honored those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks; the Wannabe Award at the 2001 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards; Best Actor trophies at the 1990 and 1994 People's Choice Awards; and Man of the Year at Harvard's 1994 Hasty Pudding Theatricals.
Tom Cruise receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1986 pic.twitter.com/WKS66qvMZf
— tom cruise archive (@bestoftomcruise) July 15, 2023
Hollywood visitors can snap photos of his star on the Walk of Fame, which he received in 1986. It's located across the street from the famous Chinese Theatre.
And, last but not least, Cruise has "won" three Razzie Awards throughout his career, which no doubt keep him humble. He claimed Worst Screen Couple for Interview With the Vampire (with Brad Pitt), Most Tiresome Tabloid Target (with Katie Holmes), and Worst Actor for The Mummy (2017).
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