"Making films is not what I do, it is who I am": Tom Cruise finally nabs Honorary Oscar during his 45-year-long career

Hollywood icon Tom Cruise received his first Oscar, a coveted Honorary Academy Award, at the annual Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 16, 2025. The 63-year-old has been nominated four times for the Academy Award, but has not won any in the past. This time, he was honored alongside Dolly Parton, Debbie Allen and Wynn Thomas for their distinguished contributions to the film industry. 

The Top Gun and Mission: Impossible star took the stage to a lengthy standing ovation, with big names like Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jerry Bruckheimer among those celebrating him. The award was presented to him by filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who is currently working with Cruise in an untitled project. 

Voicing his passion for his work, Cruise said on stage, “Making films is not what I do, it is who I am.” 

Here’s to Tom Cruise, Debbie Allen, and Wynn Thomas, three extraordinary artists whose work has shaped generations and left their mark on film history. Watching them stand together with their Honorary Awards at the 16th Governors Awards is a powerful reminder of how deeply their… pic.twitter.com/aF34Nrlyso

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) November 18, 2025

In the past, Cruise was nominated for best actor for starring in the films Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. He also earned the nod for the best supporting actor for Magnolia and for producing Top Gun: Maverick.

Tom Cruise's acceptance speech at the Governors Award
 

When Tom Cruise stepped on stage at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center to accept his Honorary Oscar at the 2025 Governors Awards, he delivered a deeply emotional speech about his lifelong love of cinema. 

“The cinema, it takes me around the world,” Cruise said. “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.” 

Cruise recalled the beginning of his love affair with cinema, noting that it all started at a very early age. 

“I was just a little kid in a darkened theater, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room, and I remember looking up, and it seemed to be just exploded on the screen,” he said. “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.”

He added:

“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. 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.”

Check in for more news and updates from the world of films and television shows.