6. Collateral (2004)
Tomatometer: 86 percent

After so many years of playing good guys (with great smiles), Cruise started to get a little restless in the late '90s, taking risks by playing against type in films both well-received (Magnolia) and not (Vanilla Sky). It was Michael Mann's Collateral, though, that presented perhaps the most intriguing new facet of all: Cruise as unrepentant villain. Stuart Beattie's script isn't the most profound source material -- something many critics were quick to point out -- but Collateral's power comes from Mann throwing Cruise together with Jamie Foxx and framing them against some of the most beautifully filmed nighttime shots of Los Angeles ever seen. Though the action thriller had lost much of its luster by the time it was released, Collateral proved the genre could still work under the right conditions, netting Oscar and Golden Globes nominations for Fox and rave reviews from the likes of From the Balcony's Bill Clark, who called it "one of the most compelling films of the summer."

5. Rain Man (1988)
Tomatometer: 87 percent

Two years after sharing the screen with Paul Newman, Cruise lined up alongside another acting legend when he shared top billing with Dustin Hoffman in Barry Levinson's Rain Man. Though the character of Charlie Babbitt sent Cruise on a by-now familiar path -- cocky, shallow ne'er-do-well undergoes life-altering experience, becomes real person -- the whole thing is pulled together with such perfectly lovely old-school filmmaking flair that audiences (and most critics) were powerless to resist. It was Hoffman's work as the autistic Raymond Babbitt that got most of the attention, but his co-star won positive notices of his own, from critics such as the Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum, who said it was "nice to see Cruise working for a change in a context that isn't determined by hard sell and hype."