Here are Tom Cruise's 11 best performances

There aren't a lot of Big Movie Stars anymore, but Tom Cruise is one of them.

Now, there's a difference between being a star and being good, and Cruise is proof of this. He's always a star, but he's not always good. He's never really bad, but he's certainly willing to coast on his looks and his persona. But when he stretches, he's a really good actor — underrated, in fact.

Cruise is kind of in between in his latest film, "Mission: Impossible - Fallout." He does the Tom Cruise thing — sprints, takes a punch, performs his own insane stunts, saves the world, etc. — and he does it well. But at this point, other than the degree of difficulty of the stunts, this kind of role isn't surprising.

His devotion to Scientology and his couch-jumping are too much for some people to get past. But if you can, you'll see an actor who is sometimes willing to go beyond his image and find something a little deeper.

With that in mind, here are Cruise's 11 best performances — not his best movies, and that's an important distinction. These are 11 times Cruise nailed it. And I really wanted to include "The Color of Money" in here. Dang, and "A Few Good Men." He's not bad. ...

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11. 'Interview with the Vampire' (1994)

Yeah, I can't believe this is on here either. Cruise was such a bizarre pick for playing Lestat, the vampire in Anne Rice's novel (you should read it) that Rice herself bemoaned the choice. Then, when she saw the movie, she praised it. Why? Because, even with that stupid ponytail, Cruise is really good, capturing the sexy weirdness of the character, and watching him with Brad Pitt is a lot of fun.

10. 'Rain Man' (1988)

Early in his career, Cruise wisely worked with great directors and great actors, typically playing the young, cocky kid with something to learn (just like real life). Here, he's teamed with Dustin Hoffman, who won an Oscar playing Cruise's older, autistic savant brother, whom Cruise kidnaps in order to inherit a fortune. Cruise plays a jerk maybe too convincingly, but you come around on the guy.

9. 'Risky Business' (1983)

Where Tom Cruise becomes Tom Cruise. I hate the stupid scene where he dances in his underwear to Bob Seger; I wouldn't buy Ray-Ban sunglasses for years in protest. But man, is it effective in establishing his character, Joel, who really wants to get into Princeton. He takes outrageous risks, they pay off and, well, Cruise seemed to follow his character's lead. Sometimes you've just got to say ...

8. 'Jerry Maguire' (1996)

A romantic comedy with broad appeal, which is another way of saying football fans could love it. Cameron Crowe's film about a cocky (there's that word again) sports agent who develops a conscience and is punished for it before establishing his own firm really captured audiences. Cuba Gooding Jr. won an Oscar as the only player who sticks with Cruise, although if I hear, "Show me the money!" one more time I'll hurl. Same goes for, "You had me at hello." (Sorry, Renee Zellweger.) But Cruise is quite good at doing something he's generally quite good at — a kind of stick-to-it-ness that pays off in the end.

7. 'Collateral' (2004)

When Cruise doesn't live up to expectations, it's typically because he's so careful about guarding his image he refuses to take chances. Not so here, in Michael Mann's thriller, in which he plays Vincent, a smooth hitman who kidnaps Jamie Foxx's Max, a cab driver, and forces him to drive him around for a night. Cruise doesn't typically play bad guys, which is too bad, because here he's good at it — ruthless and uncompromising (and exceptionally well-dressed).

6. 'Tropic Thunder' (2008)

What were we saying about taking chances? After the couch-jumping and whatnot, Cruise was easy to laugh at. So why not make people really laugh? Buried under pounds of makeup and originally supposed to be uncredited, Cruise goes full bore as fat, obnoxious studio head Les Grossman — in fact, he's so unrecognizable and so fully committed, it takes a while to figure out who he is. And he's hilarious.

5. 'Edge of Tomorrow' (2014)

This may be the ultimate Tom Cruise movie, because it hits on nearly every aspect of his professional persona. At the beginning of the film, he's a smarmy military PR officer who's never seen combat. He's thrown into a suicide mission, promptly gets killed ... and comes back. This happens again and again; with the help of a heroic Emily Blunt, he improves himself until, by the end, he's the heroic Tom Cruise we know and sometimes love. And he is fully invested in each step of that progress. A really good movie, and performance, and Blunt's great, too.

4. 'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999)

Cruise again works with a legend, in this case Stanley Kubrick in the director's last film. Cruise plays a doctor; he's cast opposite his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman, who admits she almost cheated on him. He goes on a journey through New York City, winding up at a bizarre orgy. (It plays out a little better than that may sound.) Here, too, Cruise goes against type — it's doubtful many people thought of him as the lead in an erotic mystery. Why doesn't he do this more often? 

3. 'Minority Report' (2002)

And now he works with Steven Spielberg. Can't he get Scorsese on the line sometime? Anyway, this a great, underrated film in which Cruise plays John Anderton, a police chief leading a team that can predict crimes before they happen — and make arrests accordingly. It's easy to think this is just another action role, but Anderton is also a grieving drug addict. Things go a little sideways at the end, but this is an example of Cruise working within his self-imposed limits and doing it really well.

2. 'Magnolia' (1999)

Doubtless this would be at the top of many people's list. Cruise shines in Paul Thomas Anderson's ensemble piece. He's good as misogynistic "motivational speaker" Frank Mackey; he's great when he finally confronts his estranged, dying father. Cruise is capitalizing on his image while sending it up, sort of. For what it's worth, this was his last Academy Awards nomination.

1. 'Born on the Fourth of July' (1989)

Oliver Stone won an Oscar for directing this biopic of Ron Kovic, a soldier paralyzed in the Vietnam War who becomes an anti-war activist. Obviously the subject matter is intense, but Cruise is up to it. He sheds the cover-boy looks and digs deep into the role, showing all the aspects of Kovic's character, and all the aspects of his own range and abilities. It's a tough movie. It's a terrific performance, Cruise's best.

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.