Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Eight years and ten movies after Cruise's first film Endless Love , Cruise finally accomplished a feat that seemed perhaps implausible after some of his more pronounced cinematic failures: he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The film that earned him this nomination was Born on the Fourth of July , adapted from Ron Kovic's autobiography of the same name and directed by Oliver Stone, who had snagged the Oscar for Best Picture two years prior with another Vietnam War story, Platoon . While Platoon might have ultimately had a larger impact on film history than Born on the Fourth of July , the latter marks a large development in Cruise's career: not only was he a movie star, but he was a critically-acclaimed actor, as well.