Tom Cruise Won An Honorary Oscar, And His Speech Might Give You Some Hope For Hollywood

Steven Spielberg believes that Tom Cruise and "Top Gun: Maverick" saved the theatrical experience in the wake of the pandemic. And the actor continues to remain a ray of light during these darkened times for Hollywood. These past few years have been pretty bleak for the movie industry, and audiences no longer show up to theaters like they used to. Despite these concerns, Cruise remains hopeful about Hollywood's long-term wellbeing — and the "Mission: Impossible" star used his Honorary Oscar Acceptance speech at the 2025 Governors Awards to try and ease our concerns. In his own words:

"The cinema, it takes me around the world. 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."

Those are inspirational words, and we need them right now. It's no secret that the global box office hasn't fully recovered since the pandemic. Meanwhile, the aftermath of the SAG-AFTRA strike — despite all of the good the protests accomplished — is still being felt. Elsewhere, the uptick in studio mergers and productions moving away from Los Angeles gives us more than enough reasons to feel cynical about the future. Still, with high-profile performers like Cruise out there reminding us of the power of cinema as a unifying force for good, it's difficult not to feel optimistic about Tinsel Town thriving once again. 

Tom Cruise doesn't view theaters as simple places that show movies — they are portals to other worlds that enable us to expand our minds and feed our souls. During the aforementioned speech, the Hollywood daredevil credited watching movies on the big screen for informing his worldview, which he then parlayed into a career with the intention of inspiring audiences with his films. As he put it:

"It sparked something in me. 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 imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life."

Cruise's powerful words echo the way many of us feel when we watch movies on a big screen. As long as that magic still exists, the multiplex will persevere through all of the challenges facing the film industry, and that could provide the foundation that allows Hollywood to prosper again. The problems won't be fixed overnight by any means, but Cruise's speech might make you believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.