Rock of Ages may well be the film to bring Tom Cruise a little gold statuette come next Awards season. He's missed out three times before - for Born on the 4th July back in 1990, and for Jerry Maguire in 1997. And he also lost out on a Best Supporting gong for his scene-stealing turn in Magnolia. But this could be his lucky year...
So it seems a good time to dig into the archives and remind ourselves of just how long he's been in the game, and pretty much at the top of it.
Although he made his mark as an action hero long before we'd heard of Matt Damon, as ace pilot Maverick in Top Gun, and the slightly less successful Cole Trickle (!) in Days of Thunder, and found his own blockbuster franchise with Mission Impossible, he's found the time to star in a whole range of other films.
After sharing the screen with a bunch of other Brat Packers in The Outsiders, he moved apart from the crowd and wowed his female fans in Risky Business (1983), skidding across the floor with only his pants, shirt and air guitar to preserve his dignity, and secured his place in movie history.
It was a battle of the cheekbones with Brad Pitt in the 1994 Interview with a Vampire, where he tapped into a slightly androgynous side and showed fans he was happy to play against his boy-next-door again.
Later he starred opposite then-wife Nicole Kidman in Stanley Kubrick’s controversial final film, the 1999 sexually-charged drama, Eyes Wide Shut. It was their third screen outing together (after Days of Thunder where they met, and Ron Howard's Irish epic Far And Away), and the couple sued a publication who alleged that they had had to hire someone to show them how to do 'chemistry'. But it was Kubrick's last film, and the high-profile couple split soon after it came out - finally. He has yet to share screen-time with his third wife, Katie Holmes.
More recently he applied his famous Zen-like focus and concentration to play The Last Samurai- a 19th century American military advisor who embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy. Billy Connolly was his unlikely screen ally.
And then there's been courtroom drama - A Few Good Men, fantasy - Legend, romance - Vanilla Sky, and even a fat-suited comic turn in Tropic Thunder.
Recently, it's been political thriller with Meryl Streep - Lions for of Lambs - and taking a run around the tallest building in the world, on the outside for his latest seemingly-impossible Mission.
And more than 30 years after he started out, he's stealing the show again as a barrel-chested, long-haired rock warrior intent on finding love and the perfect song, as Stacee Jaxx, rock god.
Rock of Ages is in UK cinemas now. Eyes Wide Shut, Risky Business, Interview with a Vampire and The Last Samurai are all available on DVD and to download on iTunes.
Here he is.... what's your favourite Tom Cruise film - one of these or something else?
