Tom Cruise received an Academy Honorary Award at the Governors Awards on November 16, 2025, and gave a heartfelt speech. His words celebrated filmmaking and the people behind it all. The award was presented to the actor by Alejandro G Iñárritu, who is directing Cruise in an untitled film due in October 2026. The moment served as a recognition of Cruise’s long career and his love for movies.
Tom Cruise accepts an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards
Tom Cruise accepted his award and used his speech to thank the many people who make films possible. He also explained why cinema matters to him. “The cinema takes me around the world,” the Mission: Impossible star said. “It helps me to appreciate and respect differences. It also shows me our shared humanity, how alike we are in so, so many ways” (via Variety).
Cruise continued, “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.”
While holding the award, the action star looked back to the moment his passion began. He recalled a childhood memory of discovering movies in a dark theatre that had captured his imagination.
He expressed, “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.
Furthermore, Cruise added, “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.”
