Tom Cruise has never won a competitive Academy Award despite four decades as one of Hollywood's biggest stars, and this Collider article argues several of his past performances deserved one. The piece is timed to speculation about his forthcoming film Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, which some see as a potential awards-season vehicle, drawing a comparison to how a similar collaboration helped Leonardo DiCaprio finally win his Oscar for The Revenant.

The article runs through five performances the writer believes should have earned Cruise an Oscar, starting with Born on the Fourth of July (1989), in which he played real-life paralysed Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic, and which brought Cruise his first Academy Award nomination. The piece also gives an honourable mention to Rain Man, released around the same time, noting it won Best Picture and earned co-star Dustin Hoffman the Best Actor award, helping cement Cruise's reputation as a serious dramatic actor beyond his comedy and action roles.