Easily one of Steven Spielberg’s most vicious films, and one of Cruise’s most convincing roles. As an absent blue-collar father who learns to love his kids after aliens attack Earth, Cruise wanders through a heat-ray-blasted landscape (containing more than a few discomfiting visual references to 9/11) with fear and confusion etched clearly on his face. And, always a bonus, he does that patented T-1000-esque sprint of his, utilized in films from The Firm to Vanilla Sky to Minority Report. Seriously — he runs in almost every movie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/-c0Myr_sYsE&hl=en&fs=1]