The annual Governor’s Awards was held in the Hollywood district on November 16, 2025 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The Academy presents three awards to recipients who have made lifetime achievements within the industry – The Honorary Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. This year, Tom Cruise was one of three honourees for the Honorary Oscar alongside actress Debby Allen and scenographer Wynn Thomas. Names of the awardees were announced on June 17 2025.
Tom Cruise was presented with the Oscar by Alejandro G. Iñárritu who will direct him in an upcoming yet untitled movie set for a 2026 release according to Variety. With a career spanning over four decades, Cruise has established himself as one of the most popular actors of not only his generation but in Hollywood history. His speech upon receiving the award struck an emotional note with the audience as he paid tribute to film and all the people who work behind the scenes to make it possible.
“…making films is not what I do, it is who I am…”
The actor with a larger-than-life persona took to the mic to deliver a poignant speech which visibly moved the audience. He also spoke at length about his passion for film making and how love for the movies began at a very formative age for him.
“The cinema, it takes me around the world,” Cruise said. “It helps me to appreciate and respect differences. It shows me also our shared humanity, how alike we are in so, so many ways. And no matter where we come from, in that theater, we laugh together, we feel together, we hope together, and that is the power of this art form. And that is why it matters, that is why it matters to me. So making films is not what I do, it is who I am.”
Cruise has been nominated for four Oscars previously: Best actor (Born on the Fourth of July) (Jerry Maguire), best supporting actor (Magnolia) and best picture for his role as a producer (Top Gun: Maverick). He is perhaps one of the last actors who is determined to keep the business of real filmmaking going. Often dubbed as “Hollywood’s Last Superstar” due to his ability to pull massive audiences by name alone, his enthusiastic partaking in practical effects and global acclaim, it is truly a full circle moment for the little boy whose love for movies took him to heights previously thought unattainable.
“My love for cinema began at a very early age, as early as I can remember,” he said during the remainder of speech. “I was just a little kid in a darkened theater, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room, and I remember looking up, and it seemed to be just exploded on the screen. Suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. And entire cultures and lives and landscapes all unfolded in front of me, and it sparked something. It sparked a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world. It opened my eyes. It opened my imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life. And that beam of light opened a desire to open the world, and I have been following it ever since.”
Tom Cruise’s career in a nutshell
Tom Cruise made his acting debut with the 1981 romantic drama Endless Love starring Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt though it wasn’t a titular role. He obtained his big break in the 1983 romcom Risky Business which got him his first major award nomination in the form of a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Then came the feature which launched him to Superstardom: Top Gun (1986) opposite Kelly McGillis. A huge commercial hit, it was the highest earning film in 1986 and emerged as a cult classic in the decades that followed.
Critically acclaimed roles in The Color of Money, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Eyes Wide Shut, Jerry Maguire and the Mission Impossible franchise among many others established him as Hollywood royalty. Today, he continues to pour into film and collects honors and accolades as he has sown. Tom Cruise’s Honorary Oscar was a long time in the making and is well deserved for someone who has as much zeal for the movie business today as he did when he first started out.
