One of Tom Cruise’s lasting legacies will be his willingness to go all in on big-time stunts, and that started way back with the original Top Gun. It may be the Mission: Impossible series that cemented that legacy, but it was his flight time before Top Gun (which you can watch again with a Paramount+ subscription) that got it all started. The movie, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year (wow, that makes me feel old), was the most talked-about movie of 1986.
Top Gun, which was recently re-released on the 2026 movie schedule for its anniversary, took in the most at the box office that year because America had a need for speed. Cruise was more than happy to chase the adrenaline rush of flying at Mach 2 in state-of-the-art Navy jets. His first flight didn’t go as you might expect, but I’m hardly shocked by his reaction.
