Tom Cruise's Underrated 2013 Sci-Fi Movie Is Finally Finding An Audience On Prime Video

When "Mission: Impossible" is back in theaters, Tom Cruise always gets a boost to his already-substantial Hollywood profile. That's doubly true in the case of this year's "Final Reckoning," as it claims to be the culmination of the decades-long series. As such, you probably wouldn't be too surprised to learn that the prior "M:I" film, "Dead Reckoning," has shot back up the streaming charts, sitting at the number-two spot for movies on Prime Video at the time of this writing. What might be more surprising to you is that it isn't the highest-ranking Cruise flick on that list.

That prestigious spot goes to "Oblivion," a 2013 science fiction film that flew mostly under the radar back when it came out. It's a tightly focused, aesthetic movie with a very small cast — the kind of film that typically goes straight to streaming these days and rarely gets a big screen experience. And yet, "Oblivion" is the number-one movie currently streaming on Prime at the time of this writing, per FlixPatrol — perhaps bolstered by the fact that many Tom Cruise fans have never watched it before.

It also may be noteworthy that the film was directed by Joseph Kosinski. "Oblivion" was just his second feature film after the success of 2010's "Tron: Legacy," long before he became a Hollywood darling through his collaboration with Cruise on "Top Gun: Maverick." The supporting cast also includes big names like Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

The plot of "Oblivion" revolves around Cruise's Jack Harper, a technician working on a largely desolated Earth in 2077. In 2017, aliens attacked the planet but were eventually repelled, though the battles left the planet devastated. Most of humanity left to live on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, and in a massive colony ship orbiting Earth. That vessel is fueled by power generators harvesting the remaining natural resources on earth, and it's Harper's job to tend to the machines to ensure Humanity's continued survival.

As that premise suggests, it's a pretty quiet film, largely spent exploring the vacant (and visually striking) vistas of an abandoned Earth. Of course, all is not quite as it seems, and Harper is eventually sucked into a conspiracy that involves fake memories, secret human survivors, and a really cool dragonfly ship (all-timer design, truly).

Back in 2013, "Oblivion" didn't get great reviews, nor did it smash records at the box office. It was the kind of middle-of-the-road genre feature that used to happen all the time. On a personal note, the very first movie "review" I ever published on the Internet was for "Oblivion," so it's always had a special place in my heart. The site hosting that review has since been lost to time, but I remember giving it a three out of five and thinking it was pretty good at the time!

If that sounds like a rousing endorsement to you, than you can join the apparent legions currently flocking to the movie and check it out for yourself on Prime Video.