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Edge of Tomorrow

2014, Sci-fi/Action, 1h 53m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Gripping, well-acted, funny, and clever, Edge of Tomorrow offers entertaining proof that Tom Cruise is still more than capable of shouldering the weight of a blockbuster action thriller. Read critic reviews

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Edge of tomorrow   photos.

When Earth falls under attack from invincible aliens, no military unit in the world is able to beat them. Maj. William Cage (Tom Cruise), an officer who has never seen combat, is assigned to a suicide mission. Killed within moments, Cage finds himself thrown into a time loop, in which he relives the same brutal fight -- and his death -- over and over again. However, Cage's fighting skills improve with each encore, bringing him and a comrade (Emily Blunt) ever closer to defeating the aliens.

Rating: PG-13 (Intense Seq. of Sci-Fi Action|Brief Suggestive Material|Intense Seq. of Sci-Fi Violenc|Language)

Genre: Sci-fi, Action

Original Language: English

Director: Doug Liman

Producer: Erwin Stoff , Tom Lassally , Jason Hoffs , Gregory Jacobs , Jeffrey Silver

Writer: Christopher McQuarrie , Jez Butterworth , John-Henry Butterworth

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 6, 2014  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Nov 10, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $100.2M

Runtime: 1h 53m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: 3 Arts Entertainment

Sound Mix: Datasat, Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Major William Cage

Emily Blunt

Rita Vrataski

Brendan Gleeson

General Brigham

Bill Paxton

Master Sergeant Farell

Jonas Armstrong

Franz Drameh

Dragomir Mrsic

Charlotte Riley

Masayoshi Haneda

Terence Maynard

Cruel Sergeant

Noah Taylor

Lara Pulver

Madeleine Mantock

Christopher McQuarrie

Screenwriter

Jez Butterworth

John-Henry Butterworth

Erwin Stoff

Tom Lassally

Jason Hoffs

Gregory Jacobs

Jeffrey Silver

Executive Producer

David Bartis

Joby Harold

Hidemi Fukuhara

Bruce Berman

Cinematographer

Oliver Scholl

Production Design

James Herbert

Film Editing

Laura Jennings

Kate Hawley

Costume Design

Christophe Beck

Original Music

News & Interviews for Edge of Tomorrow

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Sunny Suljic’s Five Favorite Films

Rank Emily Blunt’s 10 Best Movies

Critic Reviews for Edge of Tomorrow

Audience reviews for edge of tomorrow.

The movie makes good paths between what happens now , why is that like it and little dramatic pinches of waiting for the next step of the stoty. It really is nice to watch and mostly very nice.

Very surprising film. Fun (and Funny), smart, well acted with very good thrilling action sequences. If you are a fan of sci-fi or action movies in general then this film is for you! Two Thumbs up!

Exceeded my expectations

"Edge of Tomorrow" is an exciting Sci-Fi film of 2014. "Edge of Tomorrow" has amazing acting from "Tom Cruise" and "Emily Blunt". The plot to "Edge of Tomorrow" is great; there are hardly any scenes that aren't entertaining to watch. The music in "Edge of Tomorrow" is thrilling; it makes scenes even more exciting. The special effects in "Edge of Tomorrow" are flawless, no green screens are visible, and C.G.I. is unnoticeable. I highly recommend you watch "Edge of Tomorrow" as it is an amazing Sci-Fi film of 2014. I give "Edge of Tomorrow" a 9/10.

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The Ending Of Edge Of Tomorrow Explained

One of the best sci-fi movies of the last decade ,  Edge of Tomorrow  (aka Live, Die, Repeat ) hit theaters in 2014, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, and while the film is a highly enjoyable mixture of pulse-pounding action, satisfying character development, and time loop-y antics, it also can be a little confusing. 

Featuring a Groundhog Day -like premise — in which United Defense Force media relations manager William Cage (Cruise) finds himself reliving the same horrific day over and over, aided by the only other person who's ever experienced this before, Rita Vrataski (Blunt) —  Edge of Tomorrow sings a familiar tune, but it can sometimes be a little difficult to follow all the lyrics. As a result, it's not unusual to finish the movie with a few lingering questions. The answers are there, but much like Cage's repeating day, it may take a few passes to figure out what's going on. Fortunately, we've re-lived this rewatchable sci-fi film a few times and feel well-equipped to help you navigate through its twisty ending.

How do the Mimics' time travel abilities work in Edge of Tomorrow?

Understanding the ending of Edge of Tomorrow requires you to have been paying pretty close attention toward the beginning, because what exactly the extraterrestrial Mimics are doing gets explained pretty early on, and it goes by fast. As explained by Dr. Carter (Noah Taylor), a Mimic biologist, the Mimics are really like one giant, interconnected organism, with larger "Alpha" Mimics acting as the central nervous system and commanding the Mimic drones. These high-ranking Alphas then return information to be processed by the central "Omega" Mimic. However, each time an Alpha dies, the Omega rolls the clock back 24 hours, keeping all of their collective knowledge intact and enabling the Mimics to adjust their strategies in order to gain a definitive victory.

While the Alphas seem to be the decision makers of the Mimics, dictating the actions of the drones and determining their strategy, Carter hypothesizes that since the Omega essentially functions as the brain of the Mimics, the only way to stop the Mimic invasion is to destroy it. The problem is that thanks to their powers, the Mimics know about the military's biggest weakness, and they have a lot more experience than Cage and Vrataski in utilizing their time loop abilities to their advantage, so they're pretty adept at keeping the Omega safe and hidden.

What happened to Rita at Verdun?

There's a whole juicy prequel just waiting to be made in the story of Rita Vrataski at the Battle of Verdun, which we hear about in bits and pieces but never see. From what we learn at the beginning of the film, the human battle against the Mimics dragged on for five years before the United Defense Force (UDF) finally gained their first victory at Verdun, led by Sergeant Vrataski, who was later nicknamed "the Angel of Verdun." The popular version of the story is that Rita led the UDF troops to victory due to her abilities as an exceptional soldier, but the truth is, she had another advantage that no one knew about: She was living in a time loop.

The first time Vrataski fought the Battle of Verdun, she was killed. But similar to what would later happen to Cage in France, when Rita died, she also managed to take an Alpha with her, and their blood mingled together as they both kicked the bucket. So instead of staying dead, Rita woke up a day before Verdun, and she lived out that battle over and over, gaining a bit more ground each time before she died. After many repetitions, Rita started experiencing visions of the Omega, and she attempted to follow them in order to destroy the brain and defeat the Mimics once and for all. But in the course of finally leading the UDF to victory over the Mimics, she was badly injured and received a blood transfusion. Without the Mimic blood, she lost both the looping ability and the visions.

Why did the day start resetting for Cage?

The first time Cage was dropped into the middle of the battle in France, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He didn't even know how to turn off the safety on his gun. Yet he still managed to outlast most of the other members of his unit through sheer luck. However, Cage eventually wound up alone and on his back, surrounded by Mimics, including a giant, blue-tinged Alpha. In desperation, Cage grabbed for a UDF incendiary device lying beside him on the ground and fired it off right as the Alpha lunged for him.

Unfortunately — and fortunately — for Cage, while the resulting explosion was powerful enough to blow up the Alpha, it killed him as well. As Cage lay dying, his flesh burning away, the blood of the dying Alpha dripped into his open wounds, passing along its link to the Omega and giving Cage the same ability the Alphas have — when he dies, the day is reset, so he can learn from his previous actions and improve upon them next time. As with the Alphas, his consciousness was knocked back 24 hours in time. Since the invasion had taken place in the morning, he woke up on the preceding morning, when he first arrived at Heathrow military base.

Why did Cage think the Omega was in Germany?

Once Cage and Vrataski start working together, Rita preps Cage for what to expect: He'll keep looping over and over, and eventually, he'll start experiencing visions of the Omega. When that happens, the two of them can use Cage's visions to locate the Omega and destroy it. According to Vrataski and Carter, although the humans won at the Battle of Verdun, it was really a loss overall, because it caused Rita to lose the time loop ability before she could find the Omega and end the war. So Cage's main goal now that he has the ability isn't to help the UDF claim a victory at the invasion of France but to locate and eliminate the Omega once and for all. Based on Vrataski and Carter's research, that's the only way to end the Mimic threat once and for all.

When Cage's visions do eventually start, he's able to use architectural clues to narrow the Omega's location to a dam in Germany. Cage and Vrataski spend the next many loops attempting to get from the beach in France to the dam in Germany, but once Cage finally reaches his destination, he's horrified to realize that the Omega isn't there after all. It turns out that his visions (and likely Rita's as well) weren't a glimpse into the Omega's consciousness but rather a carefully laid trap, in which they saw exactly what — and where — the Omega wanted them to see.

What were the Mimics trying to do with the visions?

When Cage shows up at the dam in Germany in search of the Omega, he's instead greeted by an Alpha and a drone, with the Omega nowhere to be found. While previous Mimics have killed Cage the instant they get a chance, these Mimics seem to have something else in mind. Instead of ripping him apart as usual, the Alpha merely wounds Cage, giving him a deep gash that bleeds profusely. As Cage watches his blood drip out of his body, he surmises that this is the Mimics' true plan, to lure him away from his allies and then steal back the power kept in his blood.

How exactly the Mimics were planning to take the power from Cage is never made entirely clear. After all, Cage has bled many times before as he died, and that's never caused him to lose the ability. So whether they were planning to somehow drain him of all his blood or whether the Mimics had another way to extract the power, we'll never fully know. What is clear is that the visions were never an advantage over the Mimics, but instead, they were consciously created by them in order to lead Cage and Vrataski into a trap. Perhaps each time one of the looping humans died, it deepened the link with the Omega, until the Omega was finally able to plant thoughts in their minds and manipulate their actions. In that case, Vrataski losing the ability at the Battle of Verdun may not have been the setback she thought it was and may have actually worked in her favor.

Where was the Omega actually located?

Although the visions of the dam in Germany proved to be a red herring, the Omega was still hunkered down in Europe, just in a different country. After Cage and Vrataski stopped relying on his visions to lead them where they needed to go, they managed to locate the Omega through a different method, using the direct link between the Omega and the Alphas (and, similarly, Cage) to pinpoint its location.

Ultimately, the real Omega is located deep beneath the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France. When Cage, Vrataski, and the rogue J-Squad arrive at the famous museum, the area is flooded by the Seine River, with the Omega located underwater. Typically, the Pyramid serves as the entrance to the museum, housing an expansive lobby underneath, but in Edge of Tomorrow , this entire area is in disarray following the Mimic attacks on Paris and the overflowing of the Seine. So while normally there's no water underneath the Louvre Pyramid, in Edge of Tomorrow , Cage has to swim the final distance down to the Omega.

What was the device that Cage got from General Brigham?

After realizing that the visions are not, in fact, a roadmap to the Mimics' greatest weakness (and in hindsight, why would they be?), Cage and Vrataski are forced to re-evaluate their strategy to destroy the Omega, and they decide instead to resort to a piece of technology Carter started developing back when Rita was the one caught in the loop, which he hoped would lead them to the Omega. Carter was never able to complete this transponder, since Vrataski lost the ability to loop before they could test it on her, and Carter subsequently lost his job and had his research confiscated by the UDF.

After getting fired, it appeared that Carter tried making a new transponder, but he told Vrataski it didn't work, possibly because of his lack of resources following his demotion or because he didn't have a subject with a link to the Alphas to test it on. So instead, they had to acquire Carter's original device, which was kept in a safe in General Brigham's (Brendan Gleeson) office. While the mechanics of the transponder are left a bit fuzzy, it works by making contact with the blood of an Alpha, through which it establishes a link to the Omega and determines the creature's location. Since Cage's blood has the same properties as that of an Alpha, Vrataski was able to use the transponder on Cage, which is how they determine that the Omega is under the Louvre.

Why didn't Cage want a blood transfusion?

According to Vrataski, the only rule Cage must abide by while he loops is that if he gets injured, he has to make sure he dies. She tells him that the way she lost the looping ability was through a blood transfusion, causing her to conclude that blood is the key to the ability. Many times throughout the film, Vrataski is in fact the one to kill Cage when he becomes injured, ensuring that he resets.

It's never clear exactly how much blood Cage could afford to lose while still holding onto his ability to reset. Based on his other injuries throughout the film, he could definitely spare at least a little blood without risking his link with the Omega, and it's unlikely that a transfusion would've replaced every drop of his blood. So it seems most likely that while some of Cage's blood did in fact remain in his body, the transfusion diluted it to the point where the Mimic link was severed.

How did Cage defeat the Mimics?

After receiving a blood transfusion following his theft of Dr. Carter's transponder from General Brigham's office, Cage and Vrataski realize they're all out of resets. That evening is their very last chance to find the Omega and prevent the UDF invasion in France, which is a trap set by the Mimics that will result in absolute defeat for the humans and the loss of countless lives. Knowing they won't get another shot at this, they enlist the help of J-Squad, who helps Cage and Vrataski steal a UDF plane.

They fly to Paris, where the area around the Louvre is completely overrun with Mimics, and all of J-Squad winds up sacrificing themselves in their quest to get Cage and Vrataski inside. Once they've finally made it in, Vrataski offers to provide a distraction that will allow Cage to cover the remaining distance to the Omega, knowing that neither one of them has any hope of making it out alive. As an Alpha kills Vrataski, Cage is able to get to the edge of the water covering the Omega and begins to swim down to it, holding a belt of grenades. The Alpha follows him and stabs him through the chest, but before Cage dies, he pulls the pins of the grenades and drops them down to the Omega, which dies in the explosion.

As the Omega dies, it attempts to restart the day again, similar to what it does when an Alpha dies. But it would seem that the Omega can't reset itself, and instead of giving the Mimics a do-over, it instead transmits its own death back 24 hours, killing all of the Mimics a day before the Omega itself was killed.

Cage said he lost the ability to reset ... so why did he reset at the end?

Throughout the whole movie, Cage and Vrataski firmly believe that if Cage ever receives a blood transfusion, he'll lose his reset ability for good, which is why they always ensure that he dies each time they don't complete their goal. So when he and Rita get into a car accident following their theft of the transponder from Brigham's office and Cage is given blood, they both assume they're literally on their last life. That's why they pull in J Squad — they want the best possible shot at accomplishing their mission, because it's the only chance they have left.

But then ... Cage resets after all! Apparently, after reaching the Omega and getting skewered by the Alpha, Cage held onto life just long enough to get bathed in the Omega and the Alpha's blood when the grenades went off, giving him the ability all over again. Having that blood in his system when he died meant that when the Omega attempted to reset the day, Cage got reset, too. However, unlike the Mimics, whose survival was tied to the Omega, Cage is a human, and his life doesn't depend on the Omega being alive. So while the Omega's attempted reset resulted in the deaths of all the Mimics 24 hours prior, Cage wasn't affected by the Omega's death and merely got another do-over he hadn't been expecting.

Why did Cage reset to a different point in Edge of Tomorrow's ending?

By the end of Edge of Tomorrow , we've seen Cage reset dozens of times, always at Heathrow military base on the morning before the invasion in France. But at the end of the film, Cage wakes up in a helicopter on his way to his meeting with Brigham, before he was ever sent to Heathrow and, thankfully, before Rita or any of the members of J-Squad were killed. The different reset point can be confusing after watching Cage always return to the same time previously, but it makes sense as long as you understand that Cage lost the reset ability before the end and then regained it.

See, the first time Cage died, he reset to the day before that initial death, placing him at Heathrow the morning before the invasion on the beach. Think of that point in time at Heathrow kind of like a video game save point. Every subsequent time Cage died, no matter how much time passed between him waking up and that particular death, he always reverted to that original save point. However, to extend the video game analogy, when he lost the reset ability, it was basically game over. The second time he gained the Mimic ability, he had to spin up a new game, which established its own unique save point, a day before he killed the Omega. Since the Omega died in the early hours of the morning before the France invasion, Cage reset to the previous morning, right before he met with Brigham.

Does Cage still have the reset ability at the end of Edge of Tomorrow?

It would be easy to finish Edge of Tomorrow wondering if Cage still has the ability to reset again if he died, since that's what he does after defeating the Omega. Of course, without the Mimics to fight, Cage hopefully wouldn't find himself facing down death every day, but it could still be a handy ability to have in case he were to, for example, accidentally get himself run over by another truck. Granted, it would be a bummer for Cage to keep living for many years, die, and then wake up back en route to Brigham's office again, but one could argue that it might be preferable to staying dead.

However, there's actually no need to speculate about whether Cage's power is more of a blessing or a curse, since chances are, by the end of the film, he doesn't have it anymore. The way that Dr. Carter explains the Mimics' ability to Cage is that when an Alpha dies, the Omega resets it back to the day before. The Alpha isn't actually resetting itself, and it seems to have no special abilities without the guidance of the Omega. Since Cage essentially stepped into the role of an Alpha when he died, the time looping isn't actually his power. It belongs to the Omega. Without an Omega around to fling Cage's consciousness back in time whenever he dies, Cage is fated to live and die — with no repeat — just like the rest of us.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, edge of tomorrow.

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"Edge of Tomorrow" is less of a time travel movie than an experience movie; that statement might not make sense now, but it probably will after you've seen it. Based on Hiroshi Sikurazaka's novel "All You Need is Kill", it's a true science fiction film, highly conceptual, set during the aftermath of an alien invasion. Maybe "extra-dimensional being invasion" is more accurate. The fierce, octopod-looking beasties known as Mimics are controlled hive-mind style by a creature that seems able to peer through time, or rupture it, or something. When the tale begins, we don't have exact answers about the enemy's powers (that's for our intrepid heroes to find out), but we have a solid hunch that it can see possible futures through the eyes of specific humans, then treat them as, essentially, video game characters, following their progress through the nasty "adventure" of the war, and making note of their tactical maneuvers, the better to ensure our collective extermination. 

Tom Cruise , who seems to be spending his fifties saving humanity, plays Major William Cage, an Army public relations officer. Cage is a surprising choice for the role of hero. He's never seen combat yet inexplicably finds himself thrown into the middle of a ferocious battle that will decide the outcome of the war. The film begins with Cage en route to European command headquarters in London, waking up in the belly of a transport chopper. The rest of the movie may not be his dream per se, but at various points it sure feels as though it is. The world is wracked by war. Millions have died. Whole cities have been reduced to ash heaps. The landscapes evoke color newsreel footage from World War II, and much of the combat seems lifted from that era as well. 

When Cage meets the general in charge of that part of the world's forces, he's told he's being sent right into this movie's version of D-Day and is to report for duty immediately. No amount of protest by Cage can halt this assignment, and soon after he joins his unit and learns the rudiments of wearing combat armor (this is one of those science fiction films in which soldiers wear clumping bionic suits festooned with machine guns and other weapons) he dies on the battlefield. Then he wakes up and starts all over. Then he dies again and starts over again. He always knows he's been here before, that he met this person, said that thing, did that thing, made a wrong choice and died. Nobody else does, though. They're oblivious to the way in which Cage, like "Slaughterhouse Five" hero Billy Pilgrim, has come unstuck in time. 

Cage's only allies are a scientist ( Noah Taylor ) who believes the creatures are beating humanity through their mastery of time, and Rita Vrataski ( Emily Blunt ), an Audie Murphy or Sgt. York type who's great for armed forces morale in addition to being an exceptionally gifted killer. Rita has experienced the same temporal dislocation that Cage is now experiencing, but at a certain point it stopped. She recognizes his maddening condition but can no longer share in it. She can, however, offer guidance (and a key bit of information that defines his predicament), and speed up the learning curve by shooting him in the head whenever it becomes obvious that they're going down a wrong road that'll lead to the same fatal outcome. 

Although the film's advertising would never dare suggest such a thing, for fear of driving off viewers who just want the bang bang-boom boom, Cage is a complex and demanding role for any actor. It is especially right for Cruise, in that Cage starts out as a Jerry Maguire-type who'll say or do anything to preserve his comfort, then learns through hard (lethal) experience how to be a good soldier and a good man. He changes as the story tells and retells and retells itself. By the end he's nearly unrecognizable from the man we met in the opening. 

Cruise is hugely appealing here, not just in the early scenes opposite Gleeson in which he's in Tony Curtis mode—he's always fantastic playing a smooth-talking manipulator who's sweating on the inside—but later, where he exhibits the sort of rock-solid super-competence and unforced decency that Randolph Scott brought to Budd Boetticher's westerns. He was always likable, sometimes perfect in the right role, but age has deepened him by bringing out his vulnerability. There's an existential terror in his eyes that's disturbing in a good way, and there are points in which "Edge of Tomorrow" seems to simultaneously be about what it's about while also being about the predicament of a real actor trying to stay relevant in a Hollywood universe that's addicted to computer generated monsters, robots and explosions. Cruise deserves some sort of acting award for the array of yelps and gasps he summons as he's killed by a Mimic or shot in the head by Blunt and then rebooted into another version of the story.

The rest of the cast has less to do because this is Tom Cruise's movie through-and-through, but they're all given moments of humor, terror or simple eccentricity. Taylor often gets cast as brilliant but haunted or ostracized geniuses, and he's effective in another of those roles here. Gleeson, as is so often the case, invests a rather stock character with such humanity that when the character's motivations and responses change, you get the sense that it's because the general is a good and smart man and not because he's just doing what the script needs him to do. Emily Blunt is unexpectedly convincing as a fearless and elegant super-soldier, and of course a magnificent camera subject as well. Director Doug Liman is so enamored with the introductory shot of her rising up off the floor of a combat training facility in a sort of downward facing dog yoga pose that he repeats it many times. The film's only egregious flaw is its attempt to superimpose a love story onto Cruse and Blunt's relationship, which seems more comfortable as a "Let's express our adoration for each other by killing the enemy" kind of thing. 

There's no end to the number of films and novels and other sources to which "Edge of Tomorrow" can be likened. " Groundhog Day " seems to be everyone's reflexive comparison point, but Liman's elaborately choreographed tracking shots and unglamorously visualized European hellscapes evoke " Children of Men ," the creatures themselves have a touch of the Sentinels from the "Matrix" films, and the monsters-vs.-infantry scenes will remind you of James Cameron's " Aliens " and its literary predecessor " Starship Troopers ." ( Bill Paxton , one of the stars of "Aliens," plays Cage's drill sergeant, a mustachioed Kentucky hard-ass with an amusingly sour sense of humor.)   It's also an exceptionally brutal film, so bone-and-skull-crushingly violent and fairy-tale frightening that its PG-13 rating is stupefying. Parents should avoid taking young children who'll be both confused by the fractured narrative and terrified of the Mimics, nightmare creatures that look like razor-tentacled squid and roll across the landscapes like tumbleweeds.

In all, though, "Edge of Tomorrow" is its own thing. One of its most fascinating qualities is its keen judgement of the audience's learning curve. The early sections of the film repeat scenes and dialogue until you get used to the idea of the story as a video game or movie script, but just when you start to think, "Yes, I get it, let's move on," the film has in fact moved on and is now leaving things out because they're not necessary. By the end of the movie the script—which is credited to Christopher McQuarrie and Jez and John Henry Butterworth—has gotten to the point where it's tactically withholding information and waiting for us to figure things out on our own. It repeats key images and lines near the end as well, but always for good reason. When you see the familiar material again you feel different about it, because its meaning has changed. The movie has an organic intelligence and a sense that it, too, exists outside of linear time. It seems to be creating itself as you watch it.  

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material

113 minutes

Tom Cruise as Lt. Col. Bill Cage

Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski

Brendan Gleeson as General Brigham

Bill Paxton as Master Sergeant Farell

Jonas Armstrong as Skinner

Tony Way as Kimmel

Kick Gurry as Griff

Dragomir Mrsic as Kuntz

Charlotte Riley as Nance

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Killed in Action by Aliens, Over and Over Again

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By Manohla Dargis

• June 5, 2014

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A man wakes up and quickly realizes that he’s repeating yesterday, down to the last meal, salutation and conversation. He’s trapped in a kind of time loop. He can’t escape, but, he realizes, he can change. That may not make sense, given the logic of the space-time continuum , but it works just fine in fiction because, well, it’s fiction. To put it another way, “There are no paradoxes in time travel, there can’t be.” Or so says a character in Robert A. Heinlein’s 1964 novel, “Farnham’s Freehold,” about space, time and the apocalypse.

This time around, as it were, the hero isn’t trapped in the maddeningly cute town of Punxsutawney , Pa., as Bill Murray was in “Groundhog Day,” Harold Ramis’s mind- and clock-bending 1993 comedy masterwork. The guy caught in the loop here is played by Tom Cruise, a star who doesn’t do ordinary well. He plays Maj. William Cage, a sensationally adaptable individual who, when confronted with Armageddon, courtesy of scuttling extraterrestrials, would prefer to avoid the fight. But this is a Tom Cruise movie, and so stuff happens, and then it happens all over again and again and again, initially with an engagingly light, comic touch and then with escalating seriousness as Cage’s insouciance turns into gravitas in a war that has united the human world against the alien.

The plot for “Edge of Tomorrow,” which was directed by Doug Liman, has largely been gleaned from “All You Need Is Kill,” a splatter-heavy combat novel by the Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Mr. Sakurazaka doesn’t acknowledge “Groundhog Day,” but he names his heroine Rita — the name of the romantic foil played by Andie MacDowell in that film — suggesting that he is obliquely paying a debt. The debt is more pronounced in the movie, in which Mr. Liman leavens Mr. Sakurazaka’s mordant, too-cool-for-school humor with some wit and a touch of romance with another lovely Rita, this one played by Emily Blunt. Mr. Liman ’s track record with strong female characters, like Angelina Jolie’s in his bullet-ridden comedy of remarriage , “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” bodes well for Rita.

“Edge of Tomorrow,” which has a script credited to Christopher McQuarrie and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, opens with lock-jawed earnestness and news reports of a global calamity. Extraterrestrials, kinetic creatures called Mimics that look like somersaulting metal octopuses, have conquered most of Europe with their lashing tentacles and are poised to take over the rest of the world. On the eve of a coordinated human assault on the aliens, Cage, a flack for the American military, is called into the office of a general, Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), and told that he’ll be covering D-Day from the front. Cage demurs, raising his brow and breaking out a small, disbelieving smile before beginning a soft-shoe shuffle toward the door.

This song-and-dance rapidly shifts your understanding of whom Mr. Cruise is playing and how. He’s funny! And watching him glide through the opening of “Edge of Tomorrow” — a suggestion of “Jerry Maguire” edging his smile — it’s hard not to think, Where has this guy been? It’s been years since Mr. Cruise felt this light on screen. His smile might have helped make him a star but, like Julia Roberts’s megawatt grin, it rarely beams as brightly as it once did. Part of this is due to his status as an action star. Yet it’s also traceable to a dearth of decent male-female romances and the ascension of mostly male yuk-fests like the gross-out burlesque “Tropic Thunder,” in which he dances in a fat suit.

In “Edge of Tomorrow,” Mr. Liman brings Mr. Cruise’s smile out of semiretirement and also gives him the kind of physical challenges at which he so brilliantly excels. Mr. Cruise’s great talent has always been body-based; he doesn’t put across complex emotional shadings, tunneling so deep into a character’s psychology that it can feel like a transmogrification. Much like old-school, pre-Method movie stars, he takes possession of his characters from the outside in, expressing their qualities and kinks through his extraordinarily controlled physicality. This kind of performance can be easy to overlook, shrugged off as little more than stunt work, as if acting through the whole body were somehow inferior to emoting with a big, TV-friendly face.

As expected, there are wow-worthy stunts and high-flying bodies in “Edge of Tomorrow,” which finds its groove after Cage discovers that he’s on seemingly endless repeat. In time, he figures out what’s going on and sets out to change fate, which leads him to Rita, a legendary warrior with the cutesy moniker Full Metal Bitch. Any thought that the diminutive-looking Ms. Blunt may not be up to that nickname is put to rest with Rita’s introduction, which shows her holding a fiercely beautiful yoga pose in a combat-training area while whirring blades circle her. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the yin and yang quality that enriches her character and the story, as when she and Cage, like a cloak-and-dagger Fred and Ginger, dart and dodge through a mission with perfect synchronicity.

Eventually, Mr. Liman’s eccentricities and the morbidly funny neo-screwball vibe that he establishes are swamped by generic pyrotechnics and noise. That’s predictable, given the high studio stakes and the industry’s faith in spectacles of destruction, but it doesn’t obliterate the movie’s pleasures. In his afterword to “All You Need Is Kill,” Mr. Sakurazaka explains that he was thinking about video games while writing the novel. “I reset the game hundreds of times,” he writes, “until my special attack finally went off perfectly.” In other words, video games are a type of time machine that allows players, if they put in the hours, to achieve victory. Hence the movie’s clever tagline, “Live, Die, Repeat,” which, of course, echoes the faith that every film genre fan embraces: live, watch, repeat.

“Edge of Tomorrow” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Intense violence.

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Lt. Col. Bill Cage

Emily Blunt

Rita Vrataski

Brendan Gleeson

General Brigham

Bill Paxton

Master Sergeant Farell

Jonas Armstrong

Appealing but violent sci-fi thriller explores time, fate.

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Tom Cruise rewatch: Edge of Tomorrow is practically designed to be revisited several times

The Groundhog Day of sci-fi action, it stars both a very un-Tom Tom, and, a bit later, the intensely disciplined Cruise we know and love.

Senior Writer

In advance of this Friday's release of Top Gun: Maverick , our writers return to their favorite Tom Cruise movies, in appreciation of an on-screen persona that's evolved over decades.

Watch enough summer blockbusters and it can seem like you're viewing the same one over and over again. It is ironic, then, that one of the greatest big-budget extravaganzas to be unleashed on movies screens during the warmer months in recent times — as well as one of the best Tom Cruise movies ever — does exactly that.

In director Doug Liman's 2014 alien invasion movie Edge of Tomorrow , Cruise plays a publicity flack named William Cage who is sent off to die at the hands (well, technically at the the luminescent tentacles) of the monstrous Mimics after falling foul of Brendan Gleeson's General Brigham. Cage does indeed swiftly perish during the course of the human forces' doomed attempt to establish a beachhead in alien-controlled France but gets covered in extraterrestrial blood before he dies, giving him the power to do-over the previous day every time he croaks.

Cruise's character teams with Emily Blunt 's war hero Rita Vrataski, who previously possessed the same power Cage now wields, and together the pair attempt to execute a plan which will banish the alien menace forever, with Blunt literally and repeatedly executing Cruise along the way. The result is in many ways a combination of 1962 D-Day drama The Longest Day with beloved romantic-comedy Groundhog Day . It's a minor miracle the film was never called The Longest Groundhog Day , given that the movie was originally called All You Need Is Kill , was retitled Edge of Tomorrow for its theatrical release, and was then retitled again as Live. Die. Repeat.: Edge of Tomorrow when it arrived on home media.

Edge of Tomorrow is a blast, regardless of what you choose to call it. The film is blessed with a script co-written by Tony-winning playwright Jez Butterworth, his brother John-Henry, and longtime Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie which is both sharp and, when it comes to the time travel aspect of the movie, tricksy. Liman, whose previous credits included Swingers and the first Bourne movie, handles the action mayhem with aplomb while leaving room for moments of drama and comedy between Cruise and Blunt. The latter fulsomely establishes her genre heroine credentials as she marauds through the battlefield clad in her exoskeleton-armor slaying aliens with a modified helicopter blade.

The film's secret weapon — though there is little that is low-key about his performance — is the late Bill Paxton as Master Sergeant Farrell, a voluble exemplar of gung-ho militarism who is put in charge of Cruise's initially reluctant soldier. When I spoke with Paxton about the film, the Aliens actor described it as a "very underrated movie" and also recalled how Cruise had been supportive of him during his early time on set. "We knew each other in passing, so he was digging that," said the actor. "I remember him saying, 'You're killing this part!' I said, 'I haven't done anything yet!' He goes, 'You're killing it!'"

Tom Cruise is, of course, a legendarily enthusiastic person, but it's easy to understand why he might have felt particularly keen on his role in Edge of Tomorrow . The Top Gun star initially gets to play a nice reversal of his usual onscreen persona, portraying someone who runs away from danger rather than toward it, and doesn't even know how to turn off his own gun's safety switch. His character then turns into someone hellbent on achieving perfection through training, a plot development which surely must have appealed to this most autodidactic of actors.

Edge of Tomorrow earned $370 million at the box office around the world, which was regarded as something of a disappointment given its high budget of a reported $178 million. Liman has repeatedly talked-up a sequel, to be called Live Die Repeat and Repeat but last year Blunt indicated to EW that the project still languished in development hell. "That was an amazing script, but I just don't know what the future holds for it," the actress said.

In truth, it is hard to know how they could top a movie whose thrilling mix of action, humor, action, romance, science fiction, propulsive plotting, and terrific central performance renders Edge of Tomorrow one of Cruise's most enjoyable films. Whether you like like seeing the star doing incredible things or having incredibly awful things done to him, this is a movie that was made for repeat viewings.

Check out our daily must-see picks — plus news, celeb interviews, trivia, and more — on EW's What to Watch podcast.

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• Lady Gaga teases new Top Gun: Maverick song 'Hold My Hand' as 'a love letter to the world'
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Tom Cruise’s ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Gets Repositioned as ‘Live Die Repeat’ on Home Video

By Marc Graser

Marc Graser

Senior Editor

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Studios often lament the fact they have to remarket a movie when it’s about to hit home entertainment platforms, costing them millions in extra advertising dollars.

But in “ Edge of Tomorrow ‘s” case, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment appears to be embracing the chance for a redo and is touting the film’s “Live Die Repeat” slogan over the film’s actual title ( see below ). The original source material for the time-looping Doug Liman-directed sci-fi actioner was “All You Need is Kill.”

On the film’s DVD and Blu-ray disc packaging, available for purchase Oct. 7, the title doesn’t even appear until Cruise and co-star Emily Blunt in the same line.

And on many video-on-demand services, the title is actually is listed as: “Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow.”

SEE ALSO: Why ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ Could Get Teens to Buy More Movies on Digital Platforms

“Edge of Tomorrow,” although well received by critics, stumbled at the box office, earning $364 million worldwide, and just $99 million in the U.S.

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That’s not to say “Live Die Repeat” wasn’t prominent in the film’s original marketing campaign.

The slogan was front and center in the film’s posters and billboards, creating potential over the film’s title, as well. But on a smaller box cover — and its final design — the words stand out even more.

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20 Thrilling Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Tom Cruise's Biggest Films

F or nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world. From his breakout role in Top Gun to the franchise lead in Mission Impossible , few stars boast the resume that Cruise has. He's also worth a cool $500 million. He's kind of a big deal. With four decades of movies under his belt, it's fair to assume a lot of interesting things have happened behind the scenes. Here are the craziest Tom Cruise movie secrets you need to know!

He Won't Sign Onto A Movie Unless He Gets To Do His Own Stunts

Tom Cruise famously performs the most dangerous stunts in all his movies. Watch any Mission Impossible movie, and it's shocking how much danger the action star is willing to put himself in. Cruise reportedly refuses to sign onto movies that won't let him do his stunts.

Say a movie wants to cast Cruise but won't let him jump from high rise to high rise for a critical chase scene. The producers better start looking for a different, more risk-averse actor. Tom Cruise feels the need, the need for speed!

He Took Lead Role In Valkyrie Because He Looked Like The Real Person

The movie Valkyrie is based on the true story of Colonel von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Hitler during World War II. When Cruise was offered the role, there was no sales pitch that convinced him to sign on. Instead, he noticed that he bared a striking resemblance to the German soldier.

Cruise was sold, proving sometimes looks are all that matters. The movie was a moderate success, earning $200 million worldwide. Doing his own stunts has its downfalls.

Mission Impossible: Fallout Literally Broke Tom Cruise

Mission Impossible: Fallout came close to missing its summer 2018 release date after Tom Cruise broke his ankle performing a stunt. The film had to take a break from filming in 2017 after Cruise couldn't stick his landing after a scary jump. The hiatus put the movie's release in serious doubt.

Never doubt Tom Cruise, though. After a brutal seven-week recovery, cameras were able to roll again. He also continued punishing his body by doing his stunts. All his hard work paid off. A seventh movie in the profitable franchise is already being planned.

The Last Samurai Almost Killed Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Last Samurai . If it wasn't for his co-star saving his life, we'd be writing a very different article right now. Using real samurai swords rigged for safety was a bad idea when one of the rigs broke.

The sword came one inch from Cruise's neck before Hiroyuki Sanada stopped it. That reminds us of the helicopter scene at the end of the first Mission Impossible ! Somehow it always comes back to Ethan Hunt.

Anne Rice Hated His Casting In Interview With A Vampire

Without author Anne Rice, there would be no Interview With The Vampire . Having written the book, she was not happy to see the film cast Tom Cruise in the role of the vampire Lestat. She was so upset with his selection that she publicly criticized Cruise and everyone involved with the film.

After the movie came out, Rice changed her tune. It turns out Tom Cruise was perfect for Lestat, and he proved it with his performance. To apologize, Rice bought a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising Cruise's portrayal of her most famous vampire.

Les Grossman Was Created For Tropic Thunder By Cruise

When Ben Stiller was struggling to write Tropic Thunder he had Tom Cruise read the script. Cruise suggested he include a movie executive in the film as a way to create pressure on the characters. Later, he decided to play the role of Les Grossman himself, under two very odd conditions.

The first condition was the character have fat hands. The second condition was that the bald and overweight studio executive be a dancer. And that is how one of the most memorable characters in movie history was created.

The Iconic Risky Business Dance Was Adlibbed

Even if you've never seen Risky Business , you've probably seen Tom Cruise's infamous underwear dance. According to the actor, he made up the routine himself, on the spot, "I just ad-libbed that," he said during an interview .

But how did he stick the landing on his slide to enter the scene? As he explains, "I dusted the floor and then put stick (tape) on the other side so I would get the center frame on that and wore the socks."

The Mummy Was A Real Monster Behind The Scenes

The Mummy was supposed to start Universal's "Dark Universe." That is until Tom Cruise got his hands on it. According to reports, Cruise took over every aspect of the film, from the story to the direction, and even the editing.

Despite having a team hired by Universal, Cruise brought in his own editor and screenwriter, then wrangled control of the direction away from Alex Kurtzman. For all his meddling, Cruise's version of The Mummy earned terrible reviews and scared audiences away. Made for $190 million, the film only grossed $80 million stateside.

Cruise Destroyed A $100,000 Camera Filming Days Of Thunder

Tom Cruise's "need for speed" is iconic, and it got the better of him while filming Days of Thunder . Playing NASCAR driver Cole Trickle, Cruise drove his stock car during several scenes. I

n one scene he lost control of the car and crashed into a wall, destroying a $100,000 camera in the process.

He Didn't Get Paid For Minority Report

Tom Cruise was so passionate to film the 2002 film Minority Report with Steven Spielberg that he refused to take a paycheck. Spielberg refused money also, something he claimed to have on his last eight films. Instead of getting money upfront, the pair cut a deal to earn 15 percent of the movie's gross.

Minority Report made $358 million worldwide, netting Cruise and Spielberg around $54 million each. That's pretty amazing. They took a chance on a passion project and it paid off big time!

He Was A Passenger In A Car Accident During Filming For Edge Of Tomorrow

For Edge Of Tomorrow , Emily Blunt had to drive a van with Tom Cruise as her passenger. The van needed to be seen shaking for one particular scene, so producers had Blunt make a hard turn at a pretty high speed. But she lost control and the van crashed into a tree.

She was upset that she could have injured (or even killed) Cruise, but fortunately, they both walked away unharmed. And even laughed about the incident later.

One Stunt He Didn't Perform

We know that Tom Cruise prefers to perform even the most dangerous stunts himself. But according to director Martin Scorsese, there was one stunt that he didn't complete when filming the 1986 drama The Color of Money .

His character had to perform a bunch of complicated pool shots, which wasn't a problem for Cruise. Except for one: a shot where his ball had to leap over two others and sink a third. Scorsese said that he thinks Cruise could have made the shot but it would have taken two days. And that's just too long during movie production, so an expert was brought in to do the shot.

He Broke His Thumb Making The Outsiders

The 1983 coming-of-age drama The Outsiders featured a fight between two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. Things got pretty out of control during filming and one of Cruise's thumbs was broken in the scuffle.

He wasn't the only one to get hurt in the fight, either; two of Cruise's fellow actors were also injured. Tom Howell got a black eye and Emilio Estevez's lip was cut. That must have been quite a brawl!

He Lost A Lot Of Weight For Risky Business

The creators of Risky Business really wanted Tom Cruise to be as baby-faced as possible. To prepare for the role, he got serious about dropping weight fast. He told People that he followed a strict eating plan and jogged daily in the brutal Florida sunshine for five weeks. And then when he hit his target weight, he stopped exercising completely "so I could put on a little layer of baby fat."

"[Joel Goodson is] a very vulnerable person,” Tom explained. “I didn't want any physical defenses up for him. No muscle armor at all.”

Tom Cruise Has An Impressive Set Of Lungs

For 2015's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , Tom Cruise had to hold his breath for almost six and a half minutes! We knew he did all his own stunts but this might be one of the craziest of them. He called the experience unpleasant but explained his training technique to EW .

"You get rid of the regulator, get rid of the bubbles, get on the side and we wanted to do it one shot, so they were very, very long shots," he said. “I'd have to hold it consistently, you know safely, up to four minutes almost for every take.”

He Really Sang In Rock Of Ages

For the 2012 musical Rock of Ages , Tom Cruise insisted on singing his own parts. Of course, he did, right? He trained for four months, up to five hours each day to perfect his voice.

Cruise also filmed the scene where he sang "Pour Some Sugar On Me" while Def Leppard (the band that originally performed the song) watched. The guy just doesn't like to make things easy for himself.

Born On The Third Of July

In the 1989 war drama Born on the Fourth of July , Tom Cruise played a real-life Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic. Kovic was actually born on the 4th of July, as the title indicates.

It turns out that Cruise and Kovic almost share the birthday. Cruise was born on July 3, though, just a day early. Audiences didn't mind the discrepancy (as if they were even aware of it), as the film pulled in $161 million worldwide.

He Wasn't Expecting Emily Blunt To Kiss Him In Edge Of Tomorrow

Maybe he hadn't read the script thoroughly, because it sounds like Tom Cruise was surprised when Emily Blunt kissed him during filming for Edge of Tomorrow . She opened up about the moment to BBC Radio . "I mean, [it was] great. I don't think he was expecting it. I just sort of planted one on him," she said.

Blunt continued, "I think he was a bit taken aback. He was like, 'Oh my god! This is what we're doing.' Well, Tom had read the scene but he hadn't really read the stage directions. There were some new pages."

He Holds A Huge Box Office Record

We already know that his movies rake in tons of money at the box office, but Tom Cruise holds another distinction in that area. He became the first actor ever to star in five consecutive movies that each made more than $100 million in the United States.

The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), and Jerry Maguire in 1996. That's a pretty good run for the money.

Cruise Inspired A Character In A Movie He Wasn't Even In

Although he's been in some live-action Disney movies, Tom Cruise hasn't yet voiced an animated character for the studio. However, he was the inspiration for a very famous Disney prince. Can you guess which one? Turns out that Aladdin was based on the actor!

While providing commentary for the 2004 DVD release of the film, producers revealed that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the animation should be modeled after Cruise because of his "iconic hero" look.

Tom Cruise: The Last Movie Star

Where to Watch

Thomas Arnold (Narrator) Tom Cruise (Self) A.A. Dowd (Self) Bilge Ebiri (Self) Dan Jolin (Self) Geoffrey Macnab (Self) Scott Mendelson (Self) Richard Roeper (Self) Paula Wagner (Self)

Tom O'Dell

From "Top Gun" to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, Tom Cruise becomes the world's biggest movie star by risking life and limb to perform death-defying stunts.

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Exciting new wb sci-fi movie is the perfect replacement for tom cruise's $370m sequel i've wanted for 10 years.

Warner Bros has a new sci-fi movie on the horizon that is the perfect replacement for a Tom Cruise sequel that has yet to happen, 10 years later.

• "Mickey 17" is an exciting sci-fi thriller with a star-studded cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, and Mark Ruffalo.
• The film's plot, based on the novel "Mickey7," involves a character who can die repeatedly and return with memories intact.
• "Mickey 17" shares similarities with "Edge of Tomorrow," offering a potential substitute for the long-awaited sequel to Tom Cruise's film.

At the beginning of 2025, Warner Brothers is releasing Mickey 17 , which is not only exciting for its unique concept and star-studded cast, but also because it is the perfect replacement for a sci-fi sequel that is taking more than 10 years to happen. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, Mickey 17 is a sci-fi thriller following Mickey, an "expendable" who goes on a mission to colonize an ice world, however when he unexpectedly dies, his new body forms with almost all his memories intact. Mickey 17's cast includes Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, and Thomas Turgoose.

Mickey 17 has a lot going for it, even so far away from its release date. The movie's cast is outstanding , with each actor coming off of huge successes, like Mark Ruffalo's Poor Things, Steven Yeun's Beef, and Robert Pattinson's The Batman. Furthermore, this film is the first for writer and director Bong Joon-ho since his Oscar-winning film, Parasite. However, Mickey 17 is not just strong due to its cast and crew. Its story, based on the 2022 novel "Mickey7," by Edward Ashton, is also something to anticipate, especially because of its striking similarities to another beloved science fiction film .

Bong Joon-Ho Explains Why Mickey 17's Title Is Different From The Sci-Fi Book It's Based On

Wb's mickey 17 sounds similar to tom cruise's edge of tomorrow, both movies use repeated deaths in a sci-fi setting.

Part of the excitement surrounding Mickey 17 is the commonalities it has with Tom Cruise's movie , Edge of Tomorrow. Not only are both movies deeply ingrained in the sci-fi genre, but they also use a fairly similar plot device . Where Mickey 17's main character is an "expendable," which can die repeatedly but return via "human printing," Edge of Tomorrow's Cage enters a time loop which allows him to die and resurrect himself over and over again. Both characters face these horrible circumstances, and yet, it seems that their memories are the key to their stories .

What is especially great about Mickey 17 and Edge of Tomorrow's similarities is that the 2025 movie can be a sort of replacement for the Edge of Tomorrow sequel that still has yet to happen.

Although Edge of Tomorrow 2 was discussed soon after the first movie's release, it has been ten years and a movie still has yet to occur . In this way, Mickey 17 can be a stand-in for what has yet to happen. Mickey 17 can delve into a new yet similar world that, hopefully, can appease the impatient fans of Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow.

Will Edge Of Tomorrow With Tom Cruise Ever Happen?

Edge of tomorrow 2 is still in the works.

Edge of Tomorrow 2 is definitely happening. The movie was jumpstarted in 2015 when Tom Cruise claimed he had a strong idea for a sequel . Director Doug Liman signed on, and since then, has been the film's biggest advocate. From 2016 to 2019, the script went through various rewrites, and was headed toward production when the COVID-19 pandemic hit . Emily Blunt then cast doubt on the film, mentioning its high budget. However, in Janaury 2024, it was revealed that Tom Cruise would be starring in various Warner Brothers movies and Edge of Tomorrow 2 would be one of them.

In 2016, Doug Liman noted that Edge of Tomorrow 2 would be a sequel that is a prequel.

Tom Cruise Gets His First Criterion Collection Movie Set for 4K UHD Release

Not a single film with Tom Cruise has been in the lauded Criterion Collection, until now.

• Tom Cruise's Risky Business joins the prestigious Criterion Collection, marking a pivotal moment in his career.
• The film is praised for blending tender romance with a sharp critique of capitalism, even if it's goofy fun on the surface.
• Criterion's release includes a 4K UHD restoration, special features, and interviews, making it a must-have for film and Cruise enthusiasts.

Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest Hollywood stars for four decades, and has starred in almost 50 movies, but until today, none of them have been represented in the most prestigious film collection in the world — the Criterion Collection . The home media distributor collects the greatest or most culturally important films of all time and immaculately restores them and curates magnificent special features. And now, Cruise's 1983 film Risky Business will be the 1,227th movie added to the collection.

The Criterion Collection announced its inclusion today, April 15, with the film being released in 4K UHD (and Blu-ray) on July 23. Their summary of the film, famous for its underwear lip-sync scene, reads as follows:

" A sly piece of pop subversion, this irresistible satire of Reagan-era materialism features Tom Cruise in his star-is-born breakthrough as a Chicago suburban prepster whose college-bound life spirals out of control when his parents go out of town for the week and an enterprising call girl (Rebecca De Mornay) invites him to walk on the wild side. While Cruise boogying in his briefs yielded one of the most iconic pop-cultural moments of the 1980s, it is the film’s unexpected mix of tender romance (enhanced by a moody synth score by Tangerine Dream) and sharp-witted capitalist critique that remains fresh and daring."

Risky Business

Risky business special features and other july releases for criterion.

It's an interesting choice for the Criterion Collection, with many other Cruise films being considered superior ( Collateral, Eyes Wide Shut, The Color of Money, Magnolia ). Of course, there are licensing issues to be considered, but there are certainly good reasons for the inclusion of Risky Business . It's the film that truly announced Cruise as a cinematic presence, while also playfully deconstructing the typical sex comedies that were so popular at the time ( Porky's, Revenge of the Nerds ). The special features are as follows.

• New 4K digital restorations of the director’s cut and the original theatrical release, supervised and approved by director Paul Brickman and producer Jon Avnet, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary for the original theatrical release featuring Brickman, Avnet, and actor Tom Cruise
• New interviews with Avnet and casting director Nancy Klopper
• New conversation between editor Richard Chew and film historian Bobbie O’Steen
• The Dream Is Always the Same: The Story of “Risky Business,” a program featuring interviews with Brickman, Avnet, cast members, and others
• Screen tests with Cruise and actor Rebecca De Mornay
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Why Tom Cruise Won't Return as Jack Reacher

Risky Business joins several other films for Criterion's July releases. There's a 4K UHD restoration of the all-time classic, Le Samouraï , perhaps the coolest film ever made. Farewell, My Concubine is getting a release after its beautiful restoration in 2023. Black God, White Devil will get a release, finally bringing the brilliant Brazilian Western to the masses. Wim Wenders' astonishing 2023 film Perfect Days will get a home media release from Criterion, as well. Perhaps the best inclusion of them all, however, is Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid , Sam Peckinpah's underrated, melancholic Western masterpiece with a score from Bob Dylan. You can pre-order Risky Business below:

Visit The Criterion Collection

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Live Die Repeat: Cruise / Blunt / Edge of Tomorrow

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What's Going On With Tom Cruise's Space Movie? Here's What Elon Musk Says

Elon Musk speaks out on Tom Cruise's plan to make a movie in space.

Tom Cruise is a guy who is willing to perform incredible feats for the sake of his movies. He insists on doing his own stunts, which has resulted in Cruise free climbing buildings and jumping off cliffs. At this point, it seems the only thing Cruise hasn’t done is spacewalk, and that's potentially in the cards.There has been talk in the past about Tom Cruise filming a movie in space , but for that to happen, somebody has to be able to get him up there. On that note, Elon Musk has been linked to the production for a while and has now provided an update on its status.

The SpaceX CEO recently caught up with ET at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony and discussed a few topics with the news outlet. Eventually, he provided some thoughts on Tom Cruise's proposed space movie. The tech magnate revealed that he's spoken to the A-lister, but the latter half of his update may disappoint some people:

Tom Cruise has said he wants to do Mission: Impossible in space. We've had some discussions, but I'm not sure where his mind is at.

While Elon Musk calls it “ Mission: Impossible in space,” he’s likely conflating the actor's major franchise with the space movie idea, which as far as we know are separate projects. There have been no indications, at this point, that the Oscar nominee's plans to film a movie in space also involve the M:I franchise. Still, Musk, or somebody like him, is going to be key to a project like this. The most complex part of the whole endeavor would be figuring out how to get the Top Gun icon, any other needed actors, and all the necessary equipment, from Earth into orbit, and that's where Space X would come in. 

Why Tom Cruise Fired Mission: Impossible’s Insurance Company

We don’t know what the upcoming Tom Cruise movie set in space would be about, and it's not even clear just how many people within his inner circle are aware of that info. While the expectation is that only part of the Cruise movie would occur in space , there are a lot of unknowns here. 

Per reported details on the space movie , frequent Cruise collaborator Doug Liman is working on a script and plans to direct the project as well. Perhaps, now that Liman’s done with Road House , which he wanted a theatrical release for, he’ll have more time to dedicate to Cruise's cosmic movie.

It’s maybe not surprising that there hasn’t been a lot of movement on the actor's feature. He’s been pretty busy filming two back-to-back Mission: Impossible movies, one of which had to struggle through a global pandemic. He’s had a lot going on and probably hasn’t had the time to focus on his potential movie in outer space. His film aimed to be the first to be shot in outer space. However, a Russian production ended up winning that space race , becoming the first to shoot scenes outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. 

Generally speaking, what Tom Cruise wants, Tom Cruise gets, so it seems likely that if the actor wants to shoot a movie in space, it will happen eventually. When any of this could actually happen is still very much an open question. We know that Top Gun 3 is also in development and, if Cruise does go to work on that after finishing the (now-untitled) Mission: Impossible sequel, then his dreams of heading to space (with the help of Elon Musk) will have to wait even longer. 

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CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.

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