By the end of 2025, Tom Cruise is going to be an Oscar winner (not for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, if you were wondering). It’s been announced that the movie icon will receive an honorary Oscar at the 2025 Governors Awards, with his commitment to the filmmaking community, theatrical experience and stunt community cited as reasons for the honor. But Cruise could have, and probably should have, been an Oscar winner a long time ago. The case for why is easy to see as Born on the Fourth of July is now streaming on Netflix.
If you’re not familiar with the movie and think Born on the Fourth of July is a “rah-rah” patriotic movie, you may want to bump the brakes. The movie is a Vietnam war drama about real-life veteran Ron Kovic, who was paralyzed in Vietnam and became an anti-war and pro-human rights advocate. The movie was directed by Oliver Stone, with him co-writing the script with Kovic.
