Tom Cruise's Net Worth

As of December 2024, Tom Cruise’s net worth stands at $600 million according to Celebrity Net Worth. He is among the highest-grossing actors of all time, with his films having made over $12 billion worldwide. He is regularly among the most-paid actors in the world and is one of Hollywood's most bankable stars.

American actor and producer Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born on July 3, 1962. Celebrated as a Hollywood legend, he has won three Golden Globes, an Honorary Palme d'Or, and been nominated for four Academy Awards. Cruise owns the Guinness World Record for the most consecutive $100 million-grossing films, which he earned between 2012 and 2018. He was named the most powerful celebrity in the world by Forbes in 2006.

Tom Cruise’s early life

Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, on July 3, 1962, to Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer; 1936–2017), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III (1934–1984), an electrical engineer. His parents, who were of English, German, and Irish descent, were both from Louisville, Kentucky. He has three sisters named Marian, Cass, and Lee Anne. William Mapother, another cousin of Cruise's, is an actor who has starred with him in five movies.

For fourteen years, Cruise attended fifteen different schools. Cruise grew up in Canada; his family relocated to Beacon Hill, Ottawa, in late 1971 after his father accepted a position with the Canadian Armed Forces as a defense adviser. He completed the fourth and fifth grades at the new Robert Hopkins Public School.

In the fourth grade, he started participating in theatre under George Steinburg, a drama teacher. Cruise attended Ottawa's Henry Munro Middle School in the sixth grade. Cruise and his sisters returned to the United States that year when his mother left his father. She wed Jack South in 1978. Cruise attended Cincinnati's St. Francis Seminary on a Catholic church scholarship for a year to become a Franciscan priest before dropping out. He completed his education at Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1980.

Tom Cruise's early career and breakthrough

With his mother and stepfather's acceptance, Cruise moved to New York City at the age of eighteen to pursue a career in acting. He went to Los Angeles to try out for television jobs after working as a busboy in New York. He began appearing in movies after signing with CAA. In 1981, he made his cinematic debut in a small role in Endless Love. Later that year, he played a significant supporting role in Taps as an insane military academy student.

Cruise was initially meant to play a supporting role, but after making an impression on director Harold Becker, his role was extended. Cruise appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders in 1983 as a member of the ensemble group. He starred in All the Right Moves and Risky Business that same year, which has been called "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise." Additionally, he portrayed the male protagonist in the 1985 Ridley Scott movie Legend. His reputation as a superstar was solidified with 1986's Top Gun.

The Color of Money (1986), directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Cruise alongside Paul Newman, was released the same year as Top Gun. Later, the 1988 movie Cocktail, in which Cruise was featured, was a box office hit but a critical failure. He was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actor for his performance. He co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award-winning Rain Man, directed by Barry Levinson, later that year.

In 1989, Cruise played the role of real-life Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, who was paralyzed, in Oliver Stone's epic about the conflict, Born on the Fourth of July. Roger Ebert, a Chicago Sun-Times film critic, wrote:

"Nothing Cruise has done will prepare you for what he does in Born on the Fourth of July ... His performance is so good that the movie lives through it. Stone is able to make his statement with Cruise's face and voice and doesn't need to put everything into the dialogue."

He received the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Cruise's first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.