Top Gun Maverick is about to become Tom Cruise’s highest-grossing movie ever since the film already made more than $330 million worldwide in its 1st week. Cruise, a 3-times Oscar nominee, returned to the role 36 years after the original Top Gun movie. The movie has gotten excellent reviews from critics, aggregating a perfect score of 97% on the review website Rotten Tomatoes. Suppose you also watched the movie and can’t forget your feelings, especially during the 3rd act. In that case, you might need a few other movies like Top Gun Maverick to experience the same excitement again.
1. Top Gun
Top Gun (1986)
Many people who watched Top Gun Maverick see Tom Cruise reprising the same role, but there might also be some people who haven’t seen the 1st movie, which is fine. The film follows Cruise’s Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a Navy aviator. Maverick and his friend Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (played by Anthony Edwards) are given a chance to train at a fighter weapons school. Top Gun is a great action classic involving innovative (for its time) aerial sequences, perfect for people who like airplane movies.
2. Sully: Miracle on the Hudson
Sully: Miracle On The Hudson (2016)
Sully: Miracle on the Hudson is a 2016 movie based on an actual event. In 2009, a US Airway Flight from New York to North Carolina struck a flock of birds and lost its engine power shortly. This incident caused pilots Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and Jeffrey Skies (Aaron Eckhart) to land the plane on the Hudson River. The landing of the powerless jetliner saved all 155 people on board, and the event later began to be known as the Miracle on the Hudson. The movie follows the incident and the subsequent investigation into the event.
3. Firefox
Firefox (1982)
Firefox is about a former US Air Force Major Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood, who is also the director of the movie) who is on a mission to steal a highly advanced fighter aircraft (code name: Firefox) from Soviet Russia. The aircraft is capable of incredible abilities, including hypersonic flight and being invisible to radars. Gant knows the Russian language because of his Russian mother. With his ability to speak the language and the help he receives from a few Soviet dissidents, he infiltrates Russia to take the aircraft and fly it back to the friendly territory for analysis.
4. Days of Thunder
Days of Thunder (1990)
Days of Thunder is another Tom Cruise action movie starring him and Nicole Kidman as the lead characters. The film tackles the exciting life of the young racer Cole Trickle (Cruise), who acquires a chance to race at the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, one of the most privileged top racing series. Although the movie received many negative reviews, you may still give it a chance for the sake of its action sequences.
You may also be interested in All Mission Impossible Movies Ranked From Best to Worst – Tom Cruise Movie!
5. Heartbreak Ridge
Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Another film in which Clint Eastwood is the director and the lead character, Heartbreak Ridge, is about the story of a US Marine, who is on the verge of retirement, leading undisciplined Marines during the invasion of Grenada (an island country in the West Indies) in 1883. Eastwood’s character also had fought in the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in Korea, where he had earned the Medal of Honor. Hence the movie’s title comes from there.
6. Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Starring Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale, the film is the fictionalized version of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a surprise military strike by Japan upon the US in 1941. The movie follows 2 best friends (Affleck and Josh Hartnett) and a nurse (Beckinsale) who find themselves amid a war. Pearl Harbor is the only movie in history to be nominated for Worst Picture in Golden Raspberry Awards and win an Academy Award. You may watch the film to pick a side.
7. Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (1995)
The last movie on our list of movies, like Top Gun Maverick, is Apollo 13, based on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission in real life. The film follows the 3 astronauts, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), who go on a mission by flying Apollo 13 to the moon. However, the failure of an oxygen tank 2 days into the task made the crew find a way to return home safely.
Also read: Best Action Actors of All Time Ranked – From Sylvester Stallone to Tom Cruise
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