Tom Cruise’s most insane stunts that have earned him $600,000,000 net worth-Robert Oliver-Entertainment – Metro

Tom Cruise’s death-defying stunts just get bigger and better (Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

Tom Cruise is a man who loves cinema – in fact, he loves cinema so much, he’s willing to risk his life to make the best action movies he can.

The American film star, 62, has regularly defied death itself to push back the boundaries of the stunts that major Hollywood stars are expected to pull off.

On Sunday night in Paris, the Top Gun and Mission: Impossible actor abseiled into the stadium during the Olympics closing ceremony to complete the handover to Los Angeles for the 2028 games.

By Tom’s usual standards, abseiling from over 100 feet up off the roof of the Stade de France is (somehow) pretty safe, such are the lengths he’s gone to over the years to get the perfect shot.

But what are his biggest, craziest, most death-defying stunts? Just how many times has he risked his own life for the love of the Mission: Impossible franchise and cinema itself?

Let’s take a look back…

Paris Olympics stadium abseil

Tom Cruise completed the Olympic Games handover to Los Angeles for 2028 (Picture: REUTERS)

Let’s start with Tom’s most recent major stunt, which saw him abseil off the roof of the Stade de France in Paris as part of the handover during the Olympics closing ceremony.

Los Angeles will host the games in 2028, and part of the closing ceremony in Paris saw the current host city hand the honour over to LA – Tom was there to symbolically represent the US by taking hold of the Olympic flag.

He descended the massive distance between the stadium roof and the athletics track, took hold of the flag, and rode a motorbike through a crowd of fans, before pre-recorded footage showed him transporting the flag to Hollywood.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning cliff jump

The most recent Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning, saw Tom stare death in face once again – he literally drove himself off a cliff on a motorbike as part of yet another mad stunt.

With yet another clock counting down to yet another destruction for Ethan Hunt and the gang, the spy has to act fast – and he does so by biking off a cliff so that he can parachute onto the train line below.

Not one for using stunt men or green screens, Tom got on his motorbike and drove out over the drop of several hundred feet before pulling out his parachute and descending into the valley below.

Described as ‘the biggest stunt in cinema history’, a ginormous ramp was constructed after months of training for a sequence that lasted all of five minutes, proving how much effort goes into the moments we see on the big screen.

Speaking about the stunt, Tom said, ‘You train and drill every little last act, over and over and over and over again,’ having done over 30 jumps per day and over 500 skydives in total.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout – the broken ankle

Tom defies death so often and pushes the limits of what his body is capable of on so many occasions that not every stunt can go 100% to plan.

While filming Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Tom – in character as Ethan – jumped across several high-rise buildings while in pursuit of Henry Cavill’s villainous August Walker.

But during one filming sequence, which saw Tom jump from one building to another while ‘going at full tilt, sprinting as hard I can,’ he slammed into a wall and broke his ankle.

With only safety ropes keeping him in the air, Tom put his life – and ankle – on the line. While appearing on The Graham Norton Show, host Graham pointed at the Hollywood star and said: ‘This is why you earn the big bucks!’

Despite his ankle being broken, Tom continued filming the movie, which went on to become the most critically acclaimed Mission: Impossible movie thus far.

Tom said later on: ‘I knew instantly my ankle was broken, and I really didn’t want to do it again, so I just got up and carried on with the take. I said, “It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital”, and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangements.’

Mission: Impossible – the helicopter chase

Tom obtained a helicopter pilot license just for Mission: Impossible filming (Picture: Kevin McDonald/Bav Media/REX/Shutterstock)

Despite breaking his ankle during filming for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Tom carried on shooting the movie and pushed his stunt team even further.

For months, Tom spent 16 hours a day learning to fly a helicopter on his own, eventually racking up over 2,000 hours in the air – just so he could do a helicopter chase scene in Fallout.

Learning to fly at Airbus’ base in Texas, USA, Tom used his experience as a licensed plane pilot to add ‘helicopter flying’ to the impressive list of skills he already has.

But not only did Tom have to learn to fly the helicopter, but he also had to swing from it over 100 feet in the air, hanging onto a rope for dear life with only a single safety wire holding him in place.

Helicopter pilot and stunt coordinator Marc Wolff said of Tom: ‘The level of concentration that he goes to during that sequence – he’s acting, but at the same time he’s got to concentrate. And his hands were freezing!’

Death-defying HALO jump

The list of stunts Tom has pulled off over the years is longer than any other actor of his standing – but the HALO jump in Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the one that stands out above the rest.

A HALO jump stands for High Altitude, Low Opening – which means skydivers will jump from a higher altitude than normal, and won’t open their parachute until they’re much closer to the ground.

And Tom did his own HALO jump stunt… with a broken ankle. He’d already broken it while filming the most acclaimed entry of the Mission: Impossible franchise, but he still got in that plane, ascended to 25,000 feet, and jumped.

Tom told Wired that he doesn’t mind doing these dangerous stunts: ‘I’ve always done outrageous physical stunts, even as a kid. My mother had incredible patience.’

But he doesn’t recommend trying these stunts at home.

Breaking his ribs in Mission: Impossible III

Tom cracked two ribs filming Mission: Impossible III (Picture: Paramount Pictures)

One of the defining sequences of Mission: Impossible 3 is the bridge attack when fighter jets bomb the Chesapeake Bay Bridge while Ethan Hunt is on it.

A shot used in basically every trailer for the film is the moment when Tom is launched into the side of a car on the bridge, while more cars are destroyed behind him.

And while trying to get that perfect shot, Tom injured himself once again, breaking two ribs after being launched into that car during the explosion stunt.

So that’s a broken ankle, two broken ribs, jumping from 25,000 feet up, and riding a motorbike over a cliff edge. Thankfully it’s all been worth it, with Mission: Impossible one of the biggest film franchises of all time.

How much has Tom Cruise grossed at the box office and what is his net worth?

Tom Cruise is the sixth highest-grossing actor of all time (Picture: Richard Milnes/REX/Shutterstock)

As of 2024, Tom Cruise is the sixth highest-grossing actor of all time, with his films, including Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible franchise, totaling a whopping $12,091,844,410.

In GBP, that’s £9,468,700,142, and puts him ahead of the likes of Vin Diesel, Chris Hemsworth, and Bradley Cooper. On average, his movies have grossed over $250million (£195million) each.

All of this means that, according to Celebrity Net Worth, Tom has amassed a fortune of over $600m (£470m), meaning that he’s one of the richest actors in Hollywood.

Will Tom Cruise ever retire from doing his own stunts?

Tom says he has zero plans to retire (Picture: REUTERS)

It’s not yet known when – or if – Tom will ever stop doing his own stunts, but it sounds like the screen icon is planning to keep making movies for another two decades at least.

Taking inspiration from Harrison Ford, who starred in the latest Indiana Jones film at age 81, Tom told The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘I hope to keep making Mission Impossible films until I’m [Harrison Ford’s] age.’

So, with that said, Metro.co.uk looks forward to an 81-year-old Tom paragliding through a dozen flaming hoops Mission: Impossible 15, coming to cinemas in 2043!

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