Underrated Tom Cruise movie with one of his lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores tops Netflix chart

Eight years after it was slapped with one of his worst Rotten Tomatoes scores, an underrated Tom Cruise sequel has climbed to the top of Netflix’s chart.

Tom Cruise doesn’t have many turkeys in his filmography. Even if his critical flops have been hits with audiences; for example, Cocktail – one of the greatest ‘bad’ movies ever made – has a 9% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Days of Thunder, a post-Top Gun banger from Tony Scott, also has a 38% score. Not all of them warrant this defense (Lions for Lambs and The Mummy are stinkers), but you see my point: even when he loses, he wins.

Between the later Mission: Impossible movies and Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise took on the mantle of an iconic literary action hero in two films – and while critics weren’t impressed, viewers have been lapping them up.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is currently number one on Netflix’s top 10 movies chart in the US. 2012’s Jack Reacher is also sitting at number five.

While the first film earned a 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes and performed respectably at the box office, its sequel didn’t fare so well: it has a 38% score, and made $162 million against a $62 million budget (profitable, but not on the level of Cruise’s other blockbusters).

Yet, it’s become an unexpected hit on Netflix, filling the void until Alan Ritchson returns when Reacher Season 3 hits Prime Video.

“Just finished watching Jack Reacher: Never Go Back for the first time, this movie was awesome and bad ass,” one user wrote. “Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher movies really capture the essence of Reacher from the novels in my opinion,” another posted.

“Tom Cruise know he be acting his ass off. Jack Reacher is so good,” a third wrote. “Unpopular opinion. I prefer Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher,” another commented.

In the meantime, find out everything we know about Mission: Impossible 8 and check out our ranking of the best action movies of all time.