Tom Cruise receives honorary Oscar at 2025 Governors Awards

LOS ANGELES -- Tom Cruise, astatine 63 inactive the biggest movie prima successful a country afloat of them, yet got to clasp his ain Oscar connected a Hollywood signifier connected Sunday night.

"Making movies is not what I do, it's who I am," said Cruise. He was composed arsenic always, but astatine moments seemed adjacent tears arsenic helium spoke, grasping the golden honorary statuette that celebrated his much than 40 years astatine the apex of the manufacture astatine the movie academy's yearly Governors Awards.

"In that theatre we laughter together, we consciousness together, we anticipation together," helium said aft a two-minute ovation.

Production decorator Wynn Thomas and choreographer and histrion Debbie Allen were besides selected by the academy's committee of governors to beryllium honored for their storied careers, and an absent Dolly Parton was honored for a beingness of philanthropy astatine the ceremonial astatine the Ray Dolby Ballroom successful Los Angeles.

A competitory Oscar has eluded Cruise, who's been nominated 4 times: arsenic an histrion for 1989's "Born connected the Fourth of July," 1996's "Jerry Maguire" and 1999's "Magnolia," and arsenic a shaper for 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick."

Before helium took the stage, the assemblage saw a agelong montage of clips from those and his different films - loaded with death-defying stunts helium often did himself - from 1981's "Taps" done this year's "Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning."

It was fitting that the Governors Awards aren't televised. Tom Cruise doesn't bash TV, and he's been among the biggest champions of the theatergoing acquisition implicit streaming.

"I volition ever bash everything I tin to assistance this creation form," Cruise said. "To enactment and champion caller voices, to support what makes cinema powerful. Hopefully without excessively galore much breached bones."

Oscar-winning manager Alejandro González Iñárritu presented Cruise the award. The 2 person spent respective months shooting a movie successful London acceptable for merchandise successful 2026. The collaboration suggests that Cruise, who has stuck to blockbuster franchise fare successful caller years, mightiness not beryllium done trying to triumph an Academy Award the old-fashioned way.

"This whitethorn beryllium his archetypal Oscar," Iñárritu said, "but from what I person seen and experienced, this volition not beryllium the last."

The database of stars who attended suggests that the run for the adjacent competitory Oscars is low-key underway. The banquet tables were filled with imaginable nominees, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B. Jordan, Sydney Sweeney, Dwayne Johnson, Ariana Grande and Jacob Elordi.