(Welcome to
Mission: Impossible
franchise as we sprint toward the release of the seventh film in the franchise.)
There are two phases to the career of Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. In the first phase of his career,
Tom Cruise worked with exciting and distinctive auteurist directors, often being pushed to deliver daring and adventurous work. Not every film Cruise made in this phase was a creative success, but working with filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, Cameron Crowe, and Paul Thomas Anderson led the star to unlock deep wells of talent in genres as diverse as Gothic horror, ’50s teen drama, and romantic comedy.