The BFI announces that it is celebrating actor and producer Tom Cruise with its highest honour, a BFI Fellowship.
The Fellowship recognises Cruise’s achievements as an extraordinary, versatile actor whose career has spanned everything from critically acclaimed dramas and romances to dark thrillers and high-octane action films. It also recognises Cruise’s huge contribution to the UK film industry as a producer who is intricately involved in every part of the movie-making process, and has chosen to shoot numerous films, including many Mission: Impossible films on location in London, Birmingham, North Yorkshire, the Lake District, the Peak District, and more, supporting significant growth of our film industry and infrastructure, showcasing and investing in British craft expertise and bringing a huge influx of jobs, skills, and training to people across the UK. In addition, such productions support next generation UK talent, with BFI Film Academy and BFI Future Skills programme alumni having worked on the last two Mission: Impossible films.
During his career Cruise has built a long association with the UK, working here many times with filmmakers including Ridley Scott (Legend), Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut), Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire), Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) and Christopher McQuarrie (the Mission: Impossible franchise). The Fellowship also acknowledges Cruise’s long-standing support for the cinematic experience, urging audiences to seek out not only his films but all films on the big screen wherever possible, while bringing in hundreds of millions in box office revenue worldwide.
“I am truly honoured by this acknowledgement,” says Cruise. “I’ve been making films in the UK for over 40 years and have no plans to stop. The UK is home to incredibly talented professionals — actors, directors, writers and crews, as well as some of the most stunning locations in the world. I’m grateful for all the BFI has done to support UK filmmaking and this incredible art form we share.”
BFI Chair Jay Hunt said: “We are thrilled to be honouring Tom Cruise with a BFI Fellowship. Tom has brought so much to the UK as a producer through choosing to make many of his films on our shores, where he is welcomed by our crews who step up to help make his cinematic visions a reality. In doing so, he also supports our studios and puts our locations on a world stage, in the process creating jobs and inspiring the next generation of film talent. He is, of course, also simply one of the world’s great actors and a true movie star, delighting audiences as the action hero and romantic lead and then surprising us with brave, leftfield roles where his versatility and talent shine through.”
The BFI Fellowship will be presented to Tom Cruise at the BFI Chair’s Dinner in London on Monday 12 May, hosted by BFI Chair Jay Hunt. The day before the Fellowship presentation (Sunday 11 May) the BFI will host a special event that Cruise will attend for public audiences, including film students who are looking to break into the industry: Tom Cruise in Conversation at BFI Southbank will see Cruise will talk about his long and illustrious acting career, sharing insights into his craft, including thrilling stunts done for real, his approach to making such awe-inspiring films and his work as a producer. The events and Fellowship form part of a month-long BFI celebration of Cruise’s film career, with a season of 27 films featuring Cruise screening at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX throughout May 2025 – full details of the season will be announced soon.
Tom Cruise is a globally recognised cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema in a career spanning more than four decades, collaborating with some of the most respected filmmakers in recent history, from Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, Brian De Palma and Cameron Crowe to Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ed Zwick, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, J.J. Abrams, Robert Redford, Brad Bird, Doug Liman, Joe Kosinski, Christopher McQuarrie and Alejandro González Iñárritu. A three-time Oscar® nominee for performances in Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, and three-time Golden Globe Award® winner for the same films, Cruise has seamlessly moved between all-American action star, romantic lead, and malevolent antihero during the course of his career.
With early breakthrough roles in the 1980s, in films such as Risky Business, Top Gun, The Color of Money and Rain Man, Cruise cemented himself as one of the most exciting young actors working in Hollywood. A raft of critically acclaimed work followed, including a blistering turn as real-life anti-war activist Ron Kovic in Born of the Fourth of July, the principled but inexperienced Navy defence lawyer Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men and the iconic antihero of Interview with the Vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt. However, it was the role of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, that arguably became Cruise’s most famous role to date, kick-starting a thirty-year franchise that has continued to reinvent and reimagine the possibilities of cinematic spectacle, fuelled by Cruise’s own daredevil stunt work, ever since he first conceived of a remake of the 1960s TV series. In between seven further Mission: Impossible sequels, all of which were produced by Cruise and, from Rogue Nation onward, written and directed by Cruise’s frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, as well as reprising his role as Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell for Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise has continued to choose edgy and surprising roles that challenge audiences’ expectations of who he is as an actor – from a misogynistic dating guru in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and a vicious hitman in Michael Mann’s Collateral, to a cowardly and inexperienced army officer in Edge of Tomorrow and an American pilot who became a drug smuggler in the 1980s before turning DEA informant in American Made.
Tom Cruise will be joining the distinguished ranks of other BFI Fellows including David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Ousmane Sembène, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu and, most recently, Tilda Swinton, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Spike Lee and Christopher Nolan.
