Tom Cruise Right Moves" and "Risky Business", which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise", and which, along with 1986's "Top Gun", cemented his status as a superstar. Cruise also played the male lead in the Ridley Scott film "Legend", released in 1985. Cruise followed up "Top Gun" with "The Color of Money", which came out the same year, and which paired him with Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in "Cocktail", which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. Later that year he starred with Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man",
Tom Cruise and "The Last Samurai" can also be considered to be part of this formula. "Widescreenings" noted that for Tom Cruise's character Daniel Kaffee in "A Few Good Men", "[screenwriter] Aaron Sorkin interestingly takes the opposite approach of "Top Gun", where Cruise also starred as the protagonist. In "Top Gun", Cruise plays Mitchell who is a 'hot shot' military underachiever who makes mistakes because he is trying to outperform his late father. Where Maverick Mitchell needs to rein in the discipline, Daniel Kaffee needs to let it go, finally see what he can do." Sorkin and director Rob Reiner are praised