The film became the biggest-grossing film of 1986. Cruise followed up on the tremendous success of Top Gun with a string of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including The Color of Money (1986), co-starring Paul Newman, Rain Man (1988), co-starring Dustin Hoffman, and director Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July (1989), for which Cruise received an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

Cruise married the actress Mimi Rogers in 1987; the couple divorced in 1990, the same year in which Cruise made the race-car drama Days of Thunder with a young Australian actress named Nicole Kidman. Though the movie was formulaic and a relative failure among critics and at the box office, the two lead actors had real chemistry. On Christmas Eve, 1990, Cruise and Kidman were married in Telluride, Colorado, after a whirlwind courtship.

In 1992, Cruise proved once more that he could hold his own opposite a screen legend—in this case his heavy-hitting costar was Jack Nicholson—in the military courtroom drama, A Few Good Men. Demi Moore also starred. Over the next several years, Cruise made a few moderately well received movies, including The Firm (1993) and Interview with a Vampire (1994), co-starring Brad Pitt, before breaking out again in 1996 with two huge hits—the $64 million blockbuster, Mission: Impossible, which Cruise also produced, and the highly acclaimed Jerry McGuire, directed by Cameron Crowe. For the latter, Cruise earned a second Academy Award nomination and a second Golden Globe for Best Actor.

Cruise and Kidman spent much of 1997 and 1998 in England, shooting Eyes Wide Shut, an erotic thriller that would be acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick’s final film before his death in 1999. The movie was released in the summer of 1999 to mixed reviews. In 1999, Cruise appeared in the critically acclaimed ensemble film Magnolia, turning in a much-talked-about performance as a self-confident sex guru that earned him a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2000, Cruise starred in the long-awaited smash hit Mission: Impossible 2, alongside Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, and Ving Rhames. Upcoming projects include Vanilla Sky, with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruise, and Minority Report, a project directed by Steven Spielberg.

Cruise is a devoted member of the Church of Scientology. He and Kidman divided their time between homes in Los Angeles, New York, Colorado, and Sydney.