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10 Motorcycles Tom Cruise Has Ridden in Movies, Explained

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Tom Cruise has cemented his name in the history of blockbuster cinema as one of its most bankable and profitable actors — and its arguably last movie star . The legacy has been earned, in great part, on the back of his famous perfectionism and his penchant for performing extreme stunts. For years, he has been using his movies as a medium to play out his thrill-seeking tendencies, and he’s been quite open about the fact. As a testament to his real-life “need for speed,” the man owns a sizable collection of airplanes, sports cars, and motorcycles.

This interest visibly overlaps with his movie roles — most famously, he developed a training program for his Top Gun: Maverick co-stars so that they could convincingly portray the cockpit scenes. Similarly, his enduring love for motorcycles showcases itself as a signature element across his filmography. Cruise has helmed an uncommon number of motorcycle stunt sequences as an action movie star, and he is always found doing so on the best motorcycles on the market. Here are 10 motorcycles that Tom Cruise has ridden in movies.

10 Kawasaki GPZ900R — Top Gun

The Kawasaki GPZ900R accompanied Cruise in a Top Gun scene that has garnered iconic status in Hollywood history. This is the motorcycle that his character, Maverick is riding as the air force pilot attempts to race an F14 fighter jet. The GPZ900R holds an important place in the history of modern sports bikes. It was the very first model by Kawasaki to be pegged with the Ninja tag, which has become a commonly recognized brand name in automobiles today. Developed in secret by Kawasaki over many years, the GPZ900R was the fastest production motorcycle of its time and the first to cross the 150 mph barrier — a fitting companion for a character known for his “need for speed.”

9 Triumph Speed Triple – Mission: Impossible 2

The Mission Impossible franchise introduced audiences to a new brand of cinema entertainment with elaborate stunt set pieces led by Cruise. The film series has given us many iconic stunts over the years. Mission: Impossible 2 includes one such sequence: an extended motorcycle chase that has mostly faded from memory, but was fresh and exciting at the time. Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, gets up to all sorts of antics in this scene, shooting down pursuers left and right while riding a Triumph Street Triple. The model continues to be produced by Triumph Motorcycles, and the dual headlights remain an important part of its design language to this day. The Triumph Street Triple is particularly noted for its unusual three-cylinder engine configuration that lends this model a unique sound and character.

8 Triumph Bonneville — Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible III missed out on a key feature of the film series as there were no motorcycle chases in that scene. But as with his love of running, Cruise managed to shoehorn a two-wheeler moment in this movie as well. The scene in question is a short but neat one where Ethan arrives at an airstrip riding a Triumph Bonneville, modified in the scrambler style. Produced by one of the oldest motorcycle companies in the world, the Bonneville was first introduced in 1959, and retains much of its heritage in its present-day design. One can definitely see the appeal that the model would have for the petrolhead in Cruise, and he is known to keep a Bonneville in his personal motorcycle collection as well. Meanwhile, one of the Bonnevilles that was used in the movie was auctioned for nearly $30,000 .

Related: The Best Movies About Bikers and Motorcycles, Ranked

7 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic – Days of Thunder

It doesn’t matter if it’s a movie about NASCAR drivers — Cruise will find an excuse to insert a motorcycle somewhere. In Days of Thunder , he stars as a driver with a background in open-wheel racing, who wants to move over to NASCAR. Obviously, his choice of commute has to be a motorcycle. He shows up in a dramatic "speak of the devil" fashion at the beginning of the movie astride a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic, just as the on-screen interlocutors are casting doubts about his abilities as a racer. The wide, low-slung handlebars combined with the triple headlights is a classic Harley look that immediately radiates coolness.

6 Ducati Hypermotard – Knight and Day

The motorcycle chase in Knight and Day falls squarely in the category of the Mission: Impossible -style blockbuster spy thrillers, taking place in an old European city across winding alleys and old town squares. So, it’s quite appropriate that the motorcycle that features in this chase is a Ducati, which is often described as the Ferrari of motorcycles. Over the years, Ducati has strategically developed an iconic series in every major category of motorcycles. The Ducati Hypermotard follows the company’s classic signatures in how it stylistically stands out from the competition as a unique offering. Most noticeably, it is equipped with a 939 cc engine in a motorcycle category that is mostly occupied by smaller engines in the 450-700 cc range. As a hypermotard, it is also a realistic motorcycle for the twisted chase scene across the streets of Seville.

5 BMW R NineT Scrambler – Mission: Impossible - Fallout

With technological advancements, Cruise was able to offer audiences even more motorcycle chases in later Mission Impossible movies. The one in Fallout is a worthy contender for one of the most exciting stunt sequences ever in the movie series, a three-minute extravaganza where Ethan Hunt is chased across Paris by police officers. BMW’s product strategy with regard to their two-wheeler products can be compared to Ducati, as they have built a number of iconic motorcycle series across limited categories. The BMW R NineT is a very versatile model with a similar reputation, and garners interest as a top-notch entry in the modern retro category.

4 Triumph Thruxton – Edge of Tomorrow

It may appear as a tenuous proposition at first glance — a classic motorcycle chase in a sci-fi movie about super-powered aliens. But Edge of Tomorrow makes it work, and we find Cruise’s character racing down the streets of London in a proper British motorcycle: the Triumph Thruxton. Much like the Bonneville, the Thruxton also derives its name and legacy from a classic motorcycle. However, the Thruxton was originally an endurance racing motorcycle, and reflects that heritage in its modern-day counterpart. This motorcycle can be categorized as a café racer, and it comes with a twin-cylinder engine, an elegant retro look, and clip-on handlebars.

Related: Tom Cruise's Best Action Movies, Ranked

3 Honda CRF 450X – Oblivion

Oblivion is an underrated sci-fi movie from Cruise’s filmography, although it has gained renewed interest with recent years and looks ready to stand the test of time. He plays the role of a lone worker in a barren, futuristic world, taking orders from an all-knowing AI to repair autonomous drones during the day. In order to get to the location of these drones, he has a trusty futuristic motorcycle that easily travails the arid dunes of this mysterious land. The futuristic motorcycle is in fact a modified Honda CRF450X, a popular enduro motorcycle with a stellar reputation for its reliability — a very realistic choice on part of the filmmakers.

2 BMW Motorrad S1000RR – Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Rogue Nation features perhaps the best motorcycle scene from Cruise, ever. It is one of the top highlights of the recent Mission: Impossible movies, and Cruise was even reported to be riding as fast as 130 mph during the course of its shooting. The unique headlight configurations of the BMW S1000RR is an unforgettable fixture of this scene with its tasteful asymmetry leading the way for Cruise’s aggressive maneuvers. The S1000RR has a stellar reputation in the sports bike category, having originally been designed as a racing bike for the Superbike World Championship.

1 Kawasaki H2 – Top Gun: Maverick

Released over three decades after the original, Top Gun: Maverick was bound to have some callbacks to the first movie. The movie did come with a fair few nostalgic moments, but it managed to do so in a tasteful, wholesome way that was well-received by audiences. It also recreated the iconic scene where Maverick chases a fighter jet in his Kawasaki motorcycle. However, motorheads saw an added layer of relevance that was placed into the scene in the sequel. Top Gun: Maverick sees Cruise’s character riding a Kawasaki H2 down the airstrip — the modern-day successor of the GPZ900R, which was featured in the original movie. The Kawasaki H2 also happens to be the fastest production motorcycle at the present day, just as the GPZ900R was when Top Gun was released.

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Top 10 bikes ridden by Tom Cruise in movies – ever!

He's the world's biggest movie star, loves doing his own stunts, and loves riding motorcycles too - here are the top ten bikes ridden on screen by Tom Cruise

IT's another year, another year of summer blockbuster movies, another Mission: Impossible flick and, with it, as has become almost inevitable, another starring role for Tom Cruise and a bike – in this case Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and motorcycle nut Tom tearing around Rome on a stolen police BMW.

But haven’t we seen all this before? Bikes have pretty much starred in all of Tom’s recent movies, haven’t they? But which movies and which bikes exactly? To answer the question once and for all here’s our list of the Ten Best Motorcycle Moments in Tom Cruise Movies, in reverse chronological order…

Top 10 Tom Cruise movie bikes

Kawasaki GPz900R, Top Gun (1986)

Triumph Speed Triple, Mission: Impossible II (2000)

The next Tom Cruise big bike outing comes in the second of his Mission: Impossible series (we’ll gloss over his brief appearance on a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail in 1990’s NASCAR flick ‘Days of Thunder’, here) and set the staple for bikes starring in the franchise. Resurgent Brit brand Triumph got the gig this time and its then brand-new Speed Triple T509 and Daytona 595 star in a quite frankly ridiculous bike chase with Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt aboard the Speedie chasing baddie Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) on the Daytona. Implausible pirouettes, shooting stoppies, jumps and more take place, sometimes with the bikes wearing full knobbly tyres, sometimes not. One of the bikes used is now at Triumph’s Visitor Experience Museum in Hinckley…

Triumph Bonneville, Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Another Mission: Impossible outing, although, with no significant bike chases of stunts in this third outing of the franchise, if you blink you’ll probably miss it. Again, it’s a Triumph but this time the first version of the Bonneville Scrambler , again slightly modified with full-on knobblies on which Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt arrives at an airstrip for a rendezvous with his team. No great shakes, admittedly, but enough, apparently, for one of the bikes used in the scene to be later auctioned off for a whopping $30,000!

Ducati Hypermotard, Knight and Day (2010)

Four years later Tom is back to bike stunting form with a prolonged bike stunt scene and chase. This time it’s not a Mission: Impossible flick but the one-off comedy thriller Knight and Day in which co-stars as mysterious spy character Roy Miller alongside screen siren Cameron Diaz as June Havens. The scene concerned features Tom this time on a Ducati Hypermotard with Cameron as his pillion (although some of the scenes were doubled by stunt men and women and one actually had a dummy in place of Ms Diaz). Interesting trivia: rumour has it that some of the stunts and jumps were so demanding that the bike was actually swapped for a specially prepared Aprilia Dorsoduro disguised to look like the Ducati. 

‘Honda CRF450X’, Oblivion (2013)

Triumph Thruxton, Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Another biking ‘cameo’ in a slightly oddball futuristic Tom Cruise sci-fi flick. 2014’s ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ saw Cruise star as soldier Cage alongside Britain’s Emily Blunt as Rita in a battle against aliens that he re-lives the same day over and over again. Before all that, however, Cage is seen scratching around London on a bike and, yes, it’s another Triumph, this time the old 865cc, air-cooled Thruxton café racer .

BMW S1000RR, Mission: Impossible, Rogue Nation (2015)

Right, enough of all that silliness, time for some proper, full-on, Tom Cruise and motorcycles biking action. The fifth episode of Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series, Rogue Nation, sees bikes back in the big time as Cruise’s Ethan Hunt chases after mysterious British agent Rebecca Ferguson in Morocco, with both (and more than a few baddies) this time mounted on BMW S1000RR s and fun and fast stuff it really is. Three interesting facts: One, ex-BSB racer Jenny Tinmouth did the riding instead of Rebecca; Two, Essex leathers specialists Hideout made their suits, one for standing, one for riding; and three (and nothing to do with bikes), the opening scene which sees Hunt clinging to the side of a transport plane, was shot at RAF Wittering, near Peterborough…

BMW RnineT Pure, Mission: Impossible, Fallout (2018)

The Mission: Impossible connection with BMW continued in the next outing of the franchise, Fallout, where bikes again played a starring role. This time we see Hunt this time in Paris aboard a BMW RnineT Pure, riding the wrong way around the Arc de Triomphe and more before being side-swiped by a car. (Much of the tracking footage, incidentally, was shot by ex-champion motocrosser Rob Herring.) It’s not all BMWs, though. We also briefly see co-star Henry Cavill aboard a Triumph Speed Triple and Rebecca Ferguson (again doubled by Jenny Tinmouth) on a Triumph Tiger.

Kawasaki H2, Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

If you’re starting to think by now that all Tom Cruise motorcycle movies appearances are in Mission: Impossible movies, think again. 2022 saw the long overdue sequel to 1986’s Top Gun and the return, not just of Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell character, ‘Ice Man’, F14 jets and so on but also of bikes – in an early scene ‘Mav’ not only memorably goes for a spin on Kawasaki’s spiritual successor to the original’s GPz, the supercharged H2 , but we also briefly see that, in his aircraft hanger/man cave, he also still has the original Ninja, too!

BMW G310GS/Honda CRF250, Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning Pt 1 (2023)

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5 Coolest Motorcycles In Tom Cruise's Garage (5 Coolest Bikes He's Ridden In Movies)

Both in movies and in real life, Tom Cruise has ridden and owned several iconic motorcycles.

Hollywood is full of celebrities who love motorcycles to the core. From legends of days gone like Steve McQueen , the King of Cool, to modern-day action heroes. Time has passed, but the motorcycle never lost its cool factor, with many A-list celebrities opting for the freedom offered by the two-wheelers over the comfort and safety of cars. The list of famous people passionate about the motorcycle is long, including figures like Christian Bale, Ewan McGregor, and Keanu Reeves , who owns a boutique motorcycle company.

Yet, few can measure up to the great Tom Cruise for his enthusiasm for motorcycles both onscreen and in real life. Cruise has piloted iconic motorcycles in several movies, including Top Gun and Mission Impossible. And in real life, he owns several motorcycles, from a cool custom retro Triumph Bonneville to some of the fastest production bikes.

RELATED: Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible Stunt Will Give You The Chills

10 In His Garage: Vyrus 987 C3 4V

In 2010, the Vyrus 987 C3 4V from the small boutique Italian outfit claimed the top spot for the world's fastest, most powerful production motorcycle. It featured a Ducati 1198 L-twin engine which received a supercharger for an output of 211hp. The bike weighed about 319 pounds and featured an innovative chassis with hub-center steering and a front swingarm in place of the usual fork.

The hand-built Vyrus 987 C3 V4 is one of the rarest, most expensive motorcycles, and Tom Cruise owns one. Vyrus custom-built all units to the customer's measurements and preferred parts, turning them into one-off bikes.

9 Ridden In Movies: Triumph Speed Triple

All motorcycles Tom has used in movies are now genuine icons. The Triumph Speed Triple he rode on Mission Impossible 2 is one of the coolest and a great choice for one of the top chase scenes in the Mission Impossible franchise. As he escapes from the baddies, he emerges from a cloud of frames and completes a sumptuous stoppie in another shot.

The Speed Triple’s dual bug-eye headlamps and shiny frame give it a muscular streetfighter look that fits well with the film stunts.

8 In His Garage: Ducati 999R

Ducati doesn’t disappoint with every new sleek and high-performance motorcycle it puts out there. The Ducati 999R was a limited-edition model with only 200 units built, and Tom owns one of them.

Tom Cruise got his as a gift to celebrate his 46th birthday. It is an advanced thing of beautiful stuff featuring a Testastretta engine with titanium connecting rods and a cup-shaped crankcase. It is considered one of the most powerful bikes ever produced.

7 Ridden In Movies: BMW R Nine T Scrambler

While filming the sixth Mission Impossible movie, Fallout, Tom Cruise proved that age is just a number as he did all his stunts at fifty-six without breaking a sweat. Here, he pulled off yet another incredible chase scene riding a BMW R nineT Scrambler on the streets of Paris against the flow of traffic.

BMW introduced the retro-styled roadster bike that BMW built with custom builders and enthusiasts in mind. It features a 1170cc air-cooled flat-twin engine pushing 110hp.

6 In His Garage: Ducati Desmosedici RR

The Ducati Desmosedici RR is another prized asset in Tom Cruise’s garage. A limited production road-legal version of the brand’s Desmosedici MotoGP bike. The street-legal bike is practically a MotoGP bike with lights and a number plate. Tom owns one of the 1500 copies Ducati built in 2007 and 2008.

It comes with a 200hp V4 engine and drips with exotic parts made of titanium, specially coated alloys, and magnesium. Also, it features a highly stiff chassis, and Motorcycle News reports that it has a minimal feel, even at fast racetrack speeds, to offer excellent handling for adrenaline-hungry riders.

RELATED: A Detailed Look At The Kawasaki Motorcycle That Tom Cruise Rode In Top Gun

5 Ridden In Movies: BMW S1000 RR

In one of the most adrenaline-filled chases in the 2015 Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Tom Cruise is seen chasing after bad guys in extremely high speeds weaving and splitting dangerously between vehicles without a helmet. The Movie had several BMW Motorrad bikes, but none is as memorable as the crocked-faced S1000RR used on this chase.

The BMW S1000RR is one of the most powerful superbikes on the market. It packs a suit of advanced MotoGP-inspired electronics, 207hp on tap, and sultry looks with the M1000RR-style wings.

4 In His Garage: Confederate Hellcat

The Confederate Hellcat is a custom motorcycle manufactured by Confederate Motors, an American company that produces high-end, limited-edition motorcycles. First introduced in 2001, it features a sleek, minimalist design propelled by a powerful V-twin engine.

Only a few Confederate Hellcats leave the boutique outfit each year, making them highly sought after among motorcycle enthusiasts, and Tom Cruise is a proud owner of one.

3 Ridden In Movies: Kawasaki GP Z900R

Pretty much every motorcycling enthusiast knows the highly popular Kawasaki Ninja. It all started with the iconic GPZ900R, a revolutionary design on its debut in 1984. It is now considered the predecessor of the modern sports bike seeing it was the first motorcycle with a 16-valve liquid-cooled straight-four engine delivering 115hp.

Furthermore, it was the fastest motorcycle in the world, with a top speed of 149mph. It was almost natural that Tom Cruise chose a 1986 Kawasaki Z900R model for his big screen appearance as Captain Maverick in the first Top Gun movie.

2 In His Garage: Custom Triumph Bonneville Scrambler

Tom Cruise owns the custom-built Triumph Bonneville Scrambler he rode in the Mission Impossible III movie in 2005, and it might be the rarest motorcycle in his enviable collection. When the movie came out in 2005, the model didn’t exist since Triumph only started producing Bonneville Scramblers in 2006, and the bike in the movie is a Bonny modified into a street scrambler.

Tom’s bike is one of five built for filming. The bike conjures 1960s nostalgia with its retro looks. Still, it utilizes modern tech for efficiency.

RELATED: Top Gun: Maverick Has Tom Cruise Riding A Kawasaki Ninja H2 And Here's Why We Love It

1 Ridden In Movies: Kawasaki H2

Tom Cruise brings the sequel of Top Gun full circle by riding the latest and most advanced iteration of the original Ninja he rode in the first movie. More than three decades later, Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” doesn’t seem to lose his need for speed, and you can tell by his usual wide grin as he pushes the supercharged Kawasaki Ninja H2.

The supercharged beast produces up to 228hp in its latest generation and can reach top speeds of up to 249mph.

Motorcycle Monday: Tom Cruise Bike Collection

The man certainly likes to collect motorcycles…

By all accounts, Tom Cruise is the real deal when it comes to motorcycles. The man has performed quite a few motorcycle stunts in his movies himself, starting early in his career, proving he really can ride with the best of them. With such experience, you would expect the actor has quite the motorcycle collection . Fortunately, what he has stashed in his garage definitely doesn’t disappoint.

Check out the Motorious Podcast here .

BMW S1000 RR

As you’re about to see, Tom Cruise has a real thing for sport bikes as well as motorcycles he’s ridden in movies. Yes, this is the BMW you see him riding in Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation . And yes, the man bought one of his own after helping produce the best commercial for BMW Motorrad ever.

Vyrus 987 C3 4V

Remember when Tom Cruise made the media go ape after he sped away on a motorcycle at his 51st birthday bash? Well, this is the bike he rode out on, causing much controversy. It was the most powerful production motorcycle at the time and with production limited to just 25 units, the bike is very exclusive. Reportedly, Cruise paid a cool $103,000 and some change to own this masterpiece.

Kawasaki GPZ900R

Yes, this is the motorcycle Tom Cruise rode in the 1986 blockbuster movie Top Gun . It allowed the actor to show off his skills on two wheels, something he’s done in many other movies since. He apparently liked the Kawasaki enough he snatched one up to add to his growing collection.

Triumph Speed Triple

Ridden by Cruise in Mission: Impossible II , many people lusted after the Triumph Speed Triple and its comfortable saddle paired with classic looks. That was apparently enough to make the actor a proud new owner of one himself.

Triumph Bonneville

Built specifically for the movie Mission: Impossible III , this unique British scrambler captivated the imaginations of many. After filming concluded, it famously went to the auction block, only to be snatched up by Tom Cruise for almost $30,000.

Honda CRF450X

Not everything in Cruise’s stable is a sport bike, like this Honda. However, this is another movie ride, one he used while making Oblivion , although you wouldn’t recognize it since the motorcycle was wearing a futuristic skin to change its appearance. Apparently, Cruise had a lot to say about how the bike should function while shooting the movie. After filming was over, one of the movie motorcycles was given to the actor as a birthday present.

Ducati 999R

Plenty of people would like to get their hands on a Ducati 999R, but considering the Italians only made 200 units, you’d have to pay a hefty sum once you did find one available for purchase. The superbike is definitely impressive, the liquid-cooled 999cc four-stroke twin cylinder engine pushing out 139-horsepower and 79 lb.-ft. of torque to rocket you forward with ferocity.

Ducati Desmosedici RR

There were only 1500 of these motorcycles made, which are the street-legal version of the bike ridden by Capirossi at Catalyunya GP back in 2003, so this is yet another rare model in Tom Cruise’s collection. He most certainly enjoys the hard-hitting 989cc engine, supplying 200-hp for loads of pulse-pounding fun.

Confederate Hellcat

The boutique motorcycle builder Confederate Motors has won over Tom Cruise (as well as a few other celebrities) who owns a Hellcat. He showed off the wild ride when he rode in for the premier of Mission Impossible 3, getting a lot of people talking at the time.

BMW R nineT

You might recognize this motorcycle from Mission Impossible: Fallout . This BMW is also the bike Tom Cruise crashed while filming. It’s been said the actor is incredibly good at riding, so good he could be a professional stuntman, but even experienced riders can make mistakes and crash. However, the accident wasn’t so bad to leave the actor or bike in bad shape, and eventually Cruise added the motorcycle to his impressive collection.

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The Impressive Motorcycle Collection of Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise needs no introduction. Credited as one of the greatest actors of all time, his films have grossed over $10.1 billion worldwide and earned him numerous accolades, including three Golden Globe Awards and three nominations for Academy Awards. As one of the highest-paid actors in the world, he's now sat on a net worth of around $600 million - a fortune he's known to draw on to feed his love of adrenaline. The actor might be known for his action films, but his love for all things fast and furious also extends into his private life. His collection of motorcycles and cars is the stuff of legend, and even includes the most expensive motorcycle in the world. If you've ever wondered what type of ride the Mission Impossible star prefers, find out now as we take a deep delve into the very impressive motorcycle collection of Tom Cruise.

Vyrus 987 C3 4V

If we're looking into Tom Cruise's motorcycle collection, there's only one place to start - the Vyrus 987 C3 4V. Boasting a 1.2-liter engine and top speeds of 209 miles per hour, there's no question this is a beast of a bike. But despite its power, it still manages to be incredibly lightweight and easy to ride, weighing in at just 154 kgs. Cruise debuted the bike at his 51st birthday celebration at the Hotel Chateau Marmont, where his speedy exit made headlines. But it wasn't just how fast he was going at the time that impressed us. It was the astronomical price he was revealed to have paid for the motorcycle. According to hotcars.com, the Vyrus 987 C3 4V (which, by the way, holds the title of the most powerful production bike in the world) is worth the astronomical sum of $103,769, making it the most expensive motorcycle in the world.

Kawasaki GPZ900R

If you've ever watched "Top Gun," you'll already know what the Kawasaki GPZ900R looks like. This was the bike that Cruise used to show off his impressive riding stunts in the classic 1986 movie. In the sequel, it was replaced by the Kawasaki Ninja H2R, but apparently, Cruise was impressed enough by the original to snap up a model for his own private collection. With a 998cc engine and a maximum speed of 248 miles per hour, the middleweight motorcycle is a fast, furious machine whose revolutionary design directly inspired the modern-day sportbike.

Ducati 999R

Ducati is an Italian brand that's been in the motorcycle game since the 50s. Known for its stylish, high-performance machines, it's a popular brand with an enviable reputation. The Ducati 999R was released in 2003 as a limited edition model. Only 200 exist in the entire world. One of them has made its way into Tom Cruise's collection, and by all accounts, it's a beauty. Powered by the super-advanced Testastretta engine and boasting a 6-speed gearbox, the bike (which was released specifically for racing purposes) is credited as one of the most powerful motorcycles ever produced. Tops speeds are an impressive 179 miles per hour. Cruise treated himself to a gray version of the machine for his 46th birthday.

BMW S1000 RR

If you've ever wondered what motorcycle Tom Cruise rode around on in "Mision Impossible - Rogue Nation," wonder no more. The bike was the BMW S1000 RR, a machine previously made famous when Michael Dunlop rode it to victory at a score of races and championships. The motorcycle was originally intended to be limited to a production run of 1000 (hence the name) but when more and more customers started demanding it, BMW duly obliged and increased the numbers. With its reputation as one of BMW's most powerful, reliable, and stable bikes, it's little wonder Cruise fell so much in love with the machine on "Mission Impossible," he decided to take it home with him.

Confederate Hellcat

Although Confederate Motors might be a tiny little operation with a relatively small range, it clearly knows how to attract headlines, not to mention celebs - as well as Cruise, Brad Pitt is also rumored to be a big fan. When Cruise made his dramatic entry to the premiere of "Mission Impossible 3" on the back of a motorcycle, it was his Confederate Hellcat that set all the tongues wagging. With its unique, revolutionary design, the motorcycle is nothing if not a treat for the eyes. Described by silodrome.com as a 'thoroughly American motorcycle,' the machine is packed with more technology and engineering than you'd believe possible. With its 2.2 liter engine and its top speeds of 121 mph, this is a vehicle that was designed to impress. It's also credited as one of the most reliable motorcycles ever made, which may just explain its $65,000 price tag.

Honda CRF450C

The Honda CRF450C is yet another motorcycle that starred alongside Cruise in a movie (this time, "Oblivion") before making its way home with him. It features a 5-speed transmission, a single-cylinder, 449cc engine, maximum speeds of 105 miles per hour, and an eye-grabbing, futuristic design.

BMW R9 T Scrambler

The BMW R9 T Scrambler is the motorcycle Cruise crashed on "Mission Impossible: Fallout." Fortunately, it managed to survive the collision and make its way into his permanent collection. The motorcycle boasts a comfortable riding experience, a 1170cc engine, and top speeds of 124 miles per hour.

Ducati Desmosedici RR

Only 1500 Ducati Desmosedici RR exists. While we've got no idea where 1499 of them are, we can guarantee that one of them has found a permanent home with Cruise. With a powerful 800cc V4 engine that can hit top speeds of 200mph, the Ducati Desmosedici RR is a powerful beast that comes with an eye-watering price tag of $72,500.

Triumph Speed Triple

The Triumph Speed Triple is a superbly impressive machine that featured alongside Cruise in “Mission Impossible II". Known for its distinctive looks, the Triumph Speed Triple is also a dream to handle, with a seating arrangement that offers optimal comfort during long rides. It's powered by an 885cc engine and is capable of top speeds of 143mph.

Triumph Bonneville Scrambler

According to clementcycling.com, the Triumph Bonneville Scrambler was built specifically for "Mission Impossible III." Once filming was done, it made its way to auction, where the eventual buyer was none other than Cruise himself. By all accounts, Cruise splashed out $29,250 for his new ride.

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Written by  Benjamin Smith

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5 Coolest and Rarest Motorcycles in Tom Cruise’s Garage

Five of Tom Cruise’s rarest motorcycles article highlights:

• Of the motorcycles Tom Cruise reportedly owns, his custom Vyrus 987 C3 4V is one of the rarest out there
• Tom Cruise also owns some of the rarest production Ducati motorcycles, including a Desmosedici RR and 999R, as well as a Confederate Hellcat
• Although its ownership is more uncertain, Cruise reportedly owns one of the Triumph Bonneville Scramblers built for Mission Impossible III

While Hollywood is no stranger to celebrities with expensive and rare cars, there are plenty of dedicated bikers there, too. Ewan McGregor is a passionate rider, for example, and Keanu Reeves even started a motorcycle company. And few stars surround themselves onscreen and IRL with motorcycles quite like Tom Cruise. But while his garage has some sweet wheels in general, the five bikes described below truly stand out.

Before we begin this list, though, a disclaimer. Sources sometimes conflict over which motorcycles Tom Cruise actually owns or has merely ridden in films. For example, even though he helped cement the Kawasaki Ninja in the public consciousness, it’s unclear if he owns one. And while he’s been photographed sitting on a Honda Valkyrie Rune , there’s no indication that it’s his Rune. So, the list below only covers motorcycles that multiple sources agree are in Cruise’s stable.

Tom Cruise’s Vyrus 987 C3 4V is one of the rarest, most expensive motorcycles out there

Now, customized motorcycles are nothing new on the celebrity scene. Jon Bernthal, for example, just got an Indian Chief customized by Carey Hart . However, that’s a regular production bike modified after the fact. One of Tom Cruise’s rarest motorcycles is a bike built around his exact measurements: the Vyrus 987 C3 4V.

A small, boutique Italian company, Vyrus hand-builds one-off bikes that usually feature Ducati powertrains. And much like the finest Italian suits, Vyrus motorcycles are built around their owner’s measurements. But while they’re all expensive and fast, the 987 C3 4V is in a class of its own.

In ‘standard’ form, the Vyrus 987 C3 4V’s 1198cc Ducati V-twin makes 180 bhp. But an optional supercharger bumps that up to 211 bhp. In 2010, that made it the most powerful motorcycle in the world, MCN says. And while the regular version has an aluminum frame, the most extreme 4Vs get carbon-fiber frames. Hence why they only weigh a claimed 340 pounds.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what features Tom Cruise has on his Vyrus motorcycle. But the company offered carbon-ceramic brakes, carbon-fiber bodywork, and either Ohlins TTX suspension or air suspension from Italian firm Double. Plus, electronics like data-logging, traction control, launch control, and multiple riding modes. All 987s, though, have hub-centered steering, a highly unusual bike feature.

Naturally, all that power and speed comes at quite a price: roughly $104K, HotCars reports.

The Ducati Desmosedici RR is MotoGP in street-legal form

That Vyrus isn’t the only motorcycle Tom Cruise owns with Ducati power. He also keeps several actual Ducatis in his garage. And one of the rarest is his Desmosedici RR.

The Ducati Desmosedici RR is one of the closest things to a road-legal MotoGP race bike. On the road, its 998cc V4 makes 180 hp, which goes to 197 hp with the track-only exhaust and ECU tune. It’s not quite a MotoGP engine, but it does have the race bike’s traction-boosting ‘Twin Pulse’ firing. And thanks to a carbon-fiber frame and body panels as well as magnesium wheels, it only weighs 425 pounds fully fueled. Plus, it has MotoGP-spec Brembo brakes and fully-adjustable Ohlins suspension.

Although it’s not the rarest motorcycle Tom Cruise owns, you won’t see too many Desmosedici RRs on the road. Ducati only made 1500 examples and only sent 300 to the US. Also, they cost $72,500 brand-new and haven’t gotten much cheaper. Bonhams sold one in 2017 for just over $78,000. Though to be fair, an actual MotoGP bike is undoubtedly far more expensive.

Cruise owns another rare Ducati: the 999R

Fill up! Race winning partnerships between #Ducati and #Shell . – @ShellMotorsport #Ducati #999R #RaceWinningFormula – ? @chris_mmmmm pic.twitter.com/g0tx5omJcI — Ducati North America (@DucatiUSA) July 25, 2019

The Desmosedici RR isn’t the only rare Ducati Tom Cruise rides, though. He also owns one of the most desirable versions of the Ducati 999 , the 999R.

While the regular 999 is already a genuine early-2000s superbike, the 999R is a true racing homologation special. Firstly, its 999cc V-twin makes more power than the standard version (150 hp by 2005). Secondly, it weighs less than the regular 999, thanks to a magnesium headlight and mirror mounts, aluminum wheels, and a carbon-fiber chain guard and bodywork. Even the 99R’s swingarm is lighter than the standard version.

But that’s not all. The Ducati 999R has a fully-adjustable Ohlins inverted fork and rear monoshock—cutting-edge stuff in the early 2000s. It has an adjustable Ohlins steering damper , too, and Brembo brakes. Plus, like the standard 999, it has a fully-adjustable seat, footpegs, and levers.

Tom Cruise bought one of these motorcycles as a 46 th birthday present, and he still regularly rides it, HotCars says. And if you want one for yourself, it’s easier to find than a Desmosedici RR. You can often find them for $10,000-$20,000 these days, though the Xerox-liveried ones carry a premium.

Tom Cruise’s rarest American motorcycle is his Confederate Hellcat

Italian bikes aren’t the only motorcycles Tom Cruise collects—he’s into American ones, too. And one of the rarest American motorcycles he owns is a Confederate Hellcat.

Today, Confederate is known as Curtiss Motorcycles and makes custom electric bikes. But from 1995 to 2017, it made custom V-twin sport cruisers, much like Keanu Reeves’ company Arch does today. And based on photos taken at the Mission Impossible III premiere, which Cruise attended riding his Hellcat, it appears his is one of the ‘Gen 2’ models, the F113.

The Confederate F113 Hellcat uses its engine as a stressed member of its hand-welded frame, and what an engine it is! It’s a 2032cc S&S V-twin with 130 hp and 140 lb-ft of torque that shouts through an Inconel exhaust that’s part of the swingarm. And while the F113’s belt drive is conventional, its vertical-stack five-speed manual transmission decidedly isn’t.

Since it’s a custom motorcycle, every Hellcat is unique, and we don’t know what options Tom Cruise has on his. But we do know that fully-adjustable Marzocchi forks and twin Penske rear shocks were standard equipment. And for the weight-obsessed customer, Confederate offered various carbon-fiber components, including a carbon-fiber seat. Little wonder these bikes cost over $60,000 when new.

The custom Mission Impossible III 2005 Triumph Bonneville Scrambler might be the rarest motorcycle Tom Cruise owns

This next Tom Cruise motorcycle comes with a caveat. HotCars claims across multiple articles that Cruise owns it, and AutoEvolution corroborates that. And the nature of this bike lends credibility to those reports. However, AutoEvolution also says Ducati only made 200 999Rs, but that’s only true of the FILA-liveried bikes. Still, this motorcycle is too cool not to discuss.

Although he appeared at the MI3 premiere on his Hellcat, Tom Cruise rode a different motorcycle in the movie. Specifically, he rode a bike that technically didn’t exist at the time: a 2005 Triumph Bonneville Scrambler. While Triumph re-introduced the Bonneville for the 2001 model year, it didn’t make a factory Scrambler until 2006. So, the Scrambler you see in the movie is really a Bonneville customized into a street scrambler.

Or rather, you see one of five Bonnevilles modified for the movie, Bonhams says. Each has an 865cc carbureted parallel-twin as well as a custom exhaust, seat, paint job, and fenders. Plus, knobby off-road tires.

Even though Triumph made five Scramblers for MI3 filming, the crew only used two “in the actual production,” Bonham reports. And Bonham sold one of those two twice, once in 2006 for $29,250 and again in 2012 for $18,156. Some reports allege that this is the one Tom Cruise bought, while others claim he took the other motorcycle home. Regardless, being a one-of-five 2005 Scrambler makes it a truly rare bike.

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Matthew Skwarczek

Matthew Skwarczek started blogging in 2015 and focuses his writing on motorcycles and engineering science. A graduate of Northwestern University, where he earned his Master’s in Chemical Engineering, Matthew served as an applications engineer for BASF before joining MotorBiscuit in 2019.

In Matthew’s words, the visceral nature of riding requires you to be in the moment. Combined with his fascination in the analytics surrounding the building and designing of cars and bikes, both modern and classic, you’ll find his voice blends functionality and phenomena. He rides motorcycles and bicycles often, photographing them as well.

Matthew has contributed to Oppositelock and is now an alumnus. He plays Dungeons & Dragons and reads sci-fi and fantasy in his spare time, and appreciates the works of Peter Egan, Sam Smith, Brandon Sanderson, and Alex Goy.

5-Ultra Rare Motorcycles That Tom Cruise Has In His Collection

The Hollywood superstar has a thing for bikes and it goes beyond the silver screen. Here are five incredible two-wheeled exotics that he owns

Tom Cruise, 60, is a name that really needs no introduction. With, the Hollywood superstar's movies having grossed more than $10.1 billion globally and a current net worth of over $600 million, it goes without saying that Tom Cruise like so many celebrities who love bikes ; has a garage filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of limited-edition, record-breaking jewels that should leave you in no doubt about him being one of the highest-paid actors around. From Maverick in Top Gun to Ethan in Mission Impossible, we love the man as he loves to perform his own stunts on screen, but did you know that the man also enjoys the same action-packed lifestyle in the real world as well? His impressive collection of vehicles - which even includes the priciest production motorcycle in the world - should unquestionably prove that. While the cover of this feature has Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on a Honda Valkyrie Rune, it is unlcear if he owns it. In this post, we'll dig a little deeper into five of the rarest motorcycles in his collection. RELATED: Does Tom Cruise make the Ducati Desmosedici look better?

5 Kawasaki GPZ900R

Since Top Gun was the movie that basically helped Cruise's career to take off in a big way, it only makes sense that he would hold the iconic Kawasaki GPZ900R, featured in the film. In the 1986 classic, Cruise used the bike extensively to show off his biker attitude and skills, aside from being a daring fighter pilot that is. In the 2022 sequel 'Maverick', the GPZ900R (also remembered as the Ninja GPZ900) was replaced by the Kawasaki Ninja H2R , but Cruise was apparently impressed enough by the original to purchase a model for his personal collection.

With a top speed of 248 kmph, the middleweight motorcycle's most innovative feature was its engine: for the first time in history , a production motorcycle was fitted with a liquid-cooled inline four-cylinder with a 16-valve cylinder head. The GPZ had a cubic capacity of 908cc and delivered a high power output of 115 horsepower . It also had a new timing system, bringing the chain from the usual central part of the cylinder block to the left side of it (not needing cooling fins), a peculiarity that achieved a narrower engine on one hand and easier maintenance on the other. Today we can confidently say that its revolutionary design directly inspired the modern sportbike.

4 Ducati 999R

Ducati is a world-famous Italian motorcycle manufacturer that has been in business since the 1950s. It is a well-known brand with an enviable reputation for producing sleek, high-performance machines. The Ducati 999R was introduced as a limited edition model in 2003 - o nly 200 exist in the world . One of them has made its way into Tom Cruise's collection, and it is said to be a beauty. In the case of the 999R, the Italian brand was looking for a competitive bike for the World SBK, so they created one which was 25 pounds lighter and had 20 horsepower more than its younger sister - the 999S.

Both the S and the R had titanium connecting rods and cup-shaped crankcases to avoid problems with lack of oil pressure in extreme conditions, with the S fused at high pressure and the R fused at low pressure in a sand mold. The R is considered one of the most powerful motorcycles ever produced , powered by the super advanced Testastretta engine and equipped with a 6-speed gearbox; t he top speed is an astounding 179 miles per hour . For his 46th birthday, Cruise got a gray version of the machine.

RELATED: 2023 Ducati Diavel V4 Redefines Power-Cruising In Stunning Fashion

3 Triumph Bonneville Scrambler

The Triumph Bonneville Scrambler MI3 was built specifically for Mission Impossible III . Triumph's design brief called for emulating the vintage design of the late 1960s model while utilizing the greatest contemporary technology in the engine, transmission, and running gear. The motor unit had to be an air-cooled parallel twin with a 360-degree crankshaft in order to replicate the sound and feel of the original , and applying identical standards to the cycling parts required wire-spoked wheels and a twin-shock rear end.

The new eight-valve engine - which had an initial displacement of 790cc - was larger than any previous Bonneville; additionally, while the original model could also have used a balancer shaft, in this Triumph was felt absolutely necessary to reduce vibration caused by the old engine configuration. Once filming was over, it headed to auction, where the eventual buyer was none other than Cruise himself . By all accounts, Cruise spent $29,250 for his new ride.

2 Confederate Hellcat

While Confederate Motors may be a small operation with a limited reach, it clearly knows how to attract attention, not to mention celebrities: for one, in addition to Cruise, Brad Pitt is in fact also said to be a big fan. It was Cruise's Confederate Hellcat that got everyone moving when he made his dramatic entrance to the premiere of "Mission Impossible 3" on the back of a motorcycle.

The machine is a sight to behold with its one-of-a-kind and revolutionary design . It is packed with more technology and engineering than you think possible, and is described as an " all-American motorcycle ." This motorcycle was built to impress, with its 2.2-liter engine and a top speed of 121 mph. It is also credited as one of the most reliable motorcycles ever made , which may explain its $65,000 price tag.

RELATED: Confederate Gets New Name and $120,000 Price Tag!

1 Vyrus 987 C3 4V

Finally, if we're looking into Tom Cruise's motorcycle collection, we can't forget the frankly bonkers and weird Vyrus 987 C3 4V. This bike - designed by Ascanio Rodorigo - aesthetically has a strong resemblance to its predecessors, but it definitely stands out for the innovations in its steering system, which increase the performance and safety of the front axle. In addition, to aid riding, the bike is equipped with a data acquisition system that acts as a control unit and detects the rider's riding ability, adapting the engine as necessary to make riding easier.

There's no denying that this is a beast of a bike, with a 1.2-liter engine and a top speed of 209 mph. Despite its power, it is still incredibly light and easy to handle, weighing only 154 kg - possibly making it one of the lightest bikes available of its kind . The motorcycle made its debut at Cruise's 51st birthday party at the Chateau Marmont Hotel, where its quick start made headlines. The Vyrus 987 (which, by the way, is the world's most powerful production motorcycle ) is worth an astronomical $103,769, making it also one the most expensive motorcycle in the world.

The Top 3 Most Expensive Motorcycles In Tom Cruise's Collection

Hollywood mega action star Tom Cruise is riding on cloud nine. His latest hit, "Top Gun: Maverick," has grossed $1.2 billion in ticket sales worldwide, making it Paramount's highest-grossing global film (per Forbes ). With a reported net worth of about $600 million (via Celebrity Net Worth ), Tom Cruise has the means to pursue his need for speed. According to GQ , the actor spent much of his wealth on cars, helicopters, airplanes, and motorcycles. In addition, he purchased most of his movie cars and bikes to add to his ever-growing collection, including a 1970s Mitsubishi Colt Galant that he drove to New York to kickstart his acting career.

The staggering cost of Tom Cruise's auto collection is not for the faint of heart. The lineup includes wallet-busting exotic and vintage cars like a $1.9-million Bugatti Veyron, a $60,000 Ford Mustang Saleen, a $32,000 Chevy Chevelle SS, and a 1949 Buick Roadmaster similar to the one featured in "Rain Man" with Dustin Hoffman (per Motorbiscuit ).

But since we're aware that Tom Cruise is a massive bike freak, we scoured our brains and the interweb to find out which among his motorcycles is the fairest of the lot. Here are three of the costliest bikes in Tom Cruise's motorcycle collection.

Tom Cruise and two wheels: the perfect combination

We typically see Tom Cruise on top of a two-wheeled pocket rocket in his movies. He rode a Kawasaki Ninja 900 in the original "Top Gun" movie. He straddled a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic in the 1990 hit "Days of Thunder" with ex-wife Nicole Kidman (per GoMotoRiders.com ). He rode a BMW S1000RR in "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation," and he executed his stunts on top of a Triumph Speed Triple in "Mission Impossible II." We could go on, but which is the most expensive?

Tom Cruise is the proud owner of a Gen 2 Confederate Hellcat, an American-made crotch rocket built by electric motorcycle maker Curtiss Motorcycles . It has a 2,032 cc S&S V-twin engine that pumps out 130 horsepower and 140 lb-ft of torque. The bike has a vertical-stack five-speed manual transmission, and everything about it is custom-made for its owner. Cruise rode his Confederate Hellcat at the premiere of "Mission Impossible III," and sources say it costs around $60,000 (per MotorBiscuit ).

Moreover, Tom Cruise owns one of the rarest production Ducati motorcycles ever made, the Desmosedici RR , which made its maiden appearance at the Misano Circuit at World Ducati Week in 2007. The Ducati Desmosedici RR is a road-legal MotoGP street fighter with a 197-horsepower 998 cc V4 engine. It also has MotoGP-spec Brembo brakes, chassis tuning, and adjustable Ohlins suspension. It costs over $72,000 when new, but Bonhams sold one at auction for about $78,000 in 2017. Ducati only made 1,500 units of the Desmosedici RR, and less than 300 made it to American shores.

The most expensive: Vyrus 987 C3 4V

The most expensive motorcycle in Tom Cruise's collection is, hands down, the Vyrus 987 C3 4V . It's one of the rarest and most expensive motorcycles ever made, and it certainly looks the part. Vyrus is a boutique Italian bike maker that custom builds each bike to the exact measurements of the rider. It has a 1,198cc Ducati V-twin motor that churns out up to 180 horsepower. However, Vyrus has an optional supercharged engine that hikes the power output to an astonishing 211 horsepower, enough to become one of the world's most powerful production motorcycles (per New Atlas ). Other noteworthy features include hub-centered steering, a standard aluminum frame (a carbon fiber architecture is optional), carbon-ceramic brakes, carbon body panels, and standard Ohlins TTX suspension (air suspension is optional).

The cost? According to Asphalt and Rubber , the supercharged Vyrus 987 C3 4V cost $112,000 in 2010, but it's easy to breach $150,000 if you pile up the optional kit. Vyrus has yet to release the performance numbers, but the 987 C3 4V reportedly has a 183.3 mph (295 km/h) top speed .

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Tom Cruise revives GPZ900R in Top Gun 2

The Kawasaki GPZ900R made famous in Tom Cruise’s 1986 Top Gun has a cameo revival in the the long-awaited Top Gun sequel.

This official trailer for Top Gun: Maverick shows Tom’s character  Maverick pulling an old tarp off a dusty old GPZ900R.

However, when he reprises the famous scene where he races a jet, he’s now riding Kawasaki’s supercharged H2R Carbon.

Work on  Top Gun: Maverick started in 2010 with Tom joined by his original Top Gun co-star Val Kilmer .

The release of the official trailer indicates the movie will hit our screens soon, although it says “2020”.

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The motorcycle fan recently rode a BMW R   nineT Scrambler in the  Mission Impossible: Fallout movie and is known to request a motorcycle scene in most of his movies.

Tom began riding at the age of 10 and owns several motorcycles including a Vyrus 987 C3 4V worth more than $100,000.

His first movie role with a motorcycle was Top Gun where he rode the Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900R.

Since then he has ridden in many movies including  Oblivion, Knight and Day,  and Edge  of Tomorrow .

Kawasaki power

But the GPZ900R is a long way from the H2R he rides in Top Gun 2.

The GPZ900R was made from 1984 to 1996 and had a 908cc transverse four-cylinder engine capable of 86kW of power and 85Nm of torque for a top speed of 254km/h top speed.

By comparison, the street-legal Kawasaki Ninja H2 Carbon (about $A44,000 sprint away) has 147.2kW (200ps/197hp) of power at 11,000rpm and 133.5Nm of torque at 10,5000rpm, but the supercharger boosts that to 154.5kW (210ps/207hp) and 140.4Nm.

However, Tom is riding the powerful track-only Ninja H2R which has 228kW (310ps/305hp) at 14,000rpm and 165Nm of torque at 12,500rpm. With maximum ram air, power literally blows out to 240kW (326ps/321hp).

Top speed on the H2R is 400km/h which was claimed by four-time World Supersport champion  Kenan Sofuoglu  on the closed Osman Gazi suspension bridge, about 50km southeast of Istanbul in July 2016.

From the Top Gun: Maverick video it doesn’t look like Tom reaches anything near Kenan’s speed, but don’t discount some computer generate images to make him look a whole lot faster!

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Tom Cruise did that motorcycle stunt in ‘Mission: Impossible’ on Day 1 — here’s why

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More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “ Mission: Impossible ” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December , the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

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While answers won’t come until the movie’s theatrical release July 12, we now know that the risky stunt was the first thing Cruise did on Day 1 of filming, which began in 2020. And it was all about risk assessment.

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

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“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight , taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “ Ghost Protocol ,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

Review: Tom Cruise returns, crazy stunts and all, in ‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout’

See Tom run. See Tom jump.

July 13, 2018

The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby , in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

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Tom Cruise Shot ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Motorcycle Stunt on Day One So the Crew Would Know: ‘Do We Continue or Is It a Major Rewrite’ If I Fail?

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“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” director Christopher McQuarrie made headlines at the start of June after revealing to Empire magazine that Tom Cruise ‘s insane motorcycle stunt was shot on the first day of filming. The stunt, billed as the most death-defying one of Cruise’s acting career thus far, finds Cruise riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and then parachuting to safety while in free fall.

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“Well we know either we will continue with the film or we’re not. Let’s know day one!” Cruise recently told Entertainment Tonight about filming the stunt at the very start of production. “Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?”

“I was training and I was ready,” Cruise added. “You have to be razor sharp when you’re doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don’t want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let’s just get it done.”

“Dead Reckoning” is expected to be one of the biggest Hollywood tentpoles of the summer movie season, if not the biggest. Cruise is riding high off the blockbuster success of “Top Gun: Maverick” last year, which ended its run as the 11th highest grossing film in history (unadjusted for inflation) with $1.49 billion. While “Dead Reckoning” may not reach those box office heights, it’s certainly expected to outgross 2017’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” ($791 million) and become the franchise’s new top earner.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opens in theaters July 12 from Paramount Pictures.

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How Tom Cruise Executed His 'Most Dangerous' Stunt in 'Mission: Impossible –Dead Reckoning Part One'

The death-defying moment in the franchise's seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff

Collection Christophel/Alamy

Tom Cruise  turned up the action for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning   Part One .

While the film marks the seventh installment in the highly successful franchise, Cruise, 61, made the occasion even more special by challenging himself to perform one of his most dangerous stunts yet.

The death-defying moment involved Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff, fly off the bike, and parachute to the ground. While fans got a glimpse of the stunt through the film's action-packed trailer in May, Cruise, along with writer-director  Christopher McQuarrie , first teased the big moment in 2021 at CinemaCon.

The pair explained in a special behind-the-scenes video at the event that the stunt took 500 hours of skydiving training and 13,000 motorbike jumps to get it just right. The stunt involved Cruise being attached to a set of wires as he rides a speeding motorcycle off of a large ramp before he throws himself from the bike, backed by the safety wires attached to his back.

Speaking about its execution, McQuarrie, 54, explained in the video that it was "by far the most dangerous stunt we've ever done." The clip then ended with Cruise performing the stunt himself, with a crew member saying, " Tom Cruise  rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

McQuarrie "tried to kill me," joked Cruise at the New York City premiere.

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

The film's long-awaited release comes after multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic . According to an official synopsis, it finds Cruise's Ethan Hunt as he and his team are tasked with tracking down "a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands."

During its world premiere in June , Cruise gave a speech about his passion for the franchise and filmmaking. He said in part, "It’s something that I grew up with, that made me and inspired me to dream and want to travel the world. My goal since I was little was to make movies and travel. And not just be a tourist but work in that world and understand their culture."

"Through my movies, I’ve been able to have that because everyone here has allowed me to entertain them," he continued. "It’s a privilege that I have never taken for granted."

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Mission: Impossible   - Dead Reckoning Part One is out now.

Related Articles

Tom Cruise's motorcycle stunt in 'Mission: Impossible 7' was a surprise even to the movie studio: They didn't know 'what they were getting involved in,' says director

• Insider spoke to Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie at the UK premiere of "Mission: Impossible 7."
• The film's biggest stunt involves Cruise riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff.
• McQuarrie said movie studio Paramount didn't know "what they were getting involved in" until they saw the scene.

Tom Cruise has always been known to do his own stunts, especially when it comes to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

Each movie follows Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and a team of agents who are tasked with stopping nefarious forces, and this usually involves a death-defying act by Cruise. 

And "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" sees the star undertake his biggest stunt yet in a literal leap of faith, as he rides a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff  before opening his parachute and gliding down to reach a train. 

Speaking to Insider on the red carpet at the film's UK premiere on Thursday, director Christopher McQuarrie said that the ambitious stunt was something of a surprise to the film's studio, Paramount, as well as fans.

"Well, fortunately, we were in one country, they were in another country, and communication was pretty fuzzy at that time in the world," McQuarrie said of pitching the stunt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I don't think they really knew what they were getting involved in until we sent it to them, which is kind of the case," the director added.

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"We talk about things in the abstract, but until they really see it… I don't think any of us fully grasped what we were getting ourselves into until we did it."

It's a jaw-dropping moment, and Paramount previously released a making-of featurette detailing what went into the stunt, with Cruise practicing the scene numerous times before production started in Norway. 

But the stunt sets the bar quite high for 2024's "Dead Reckoning Part Two." However, Cruise told Insider that he's more than up for the challenge.

"I'm always pushing. I just remember, every time they say, 'Can you top it? Can you not top it?' we're always pushing," the actor told Insider. "Every film I do, whatever genre it's in, I want to make it as entertaining as possible for that audience. I know I can do things better."

Cruise's costar Pom Klementieff also spoke to Insider about the challenge of filming a brutal fight scene in a confined alleyway in Venice. 

"It was incredible. It was very hard to shoot because it was very challenging and very narrow. So we had to think of where to place the camera, where to place the lighting, because we were also shooting at night time, you know?" said the "Guardians of the Galaxy" star.

Klementieff added: "But at the same time, there was not a better person to do it with than Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie, so I felt really lucky to be able to do that."

See all the highlights from the "Mission: Impossible" premiere on our Instagram.

"Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" is in theaters on July 12.

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12 Things You Might Not Know About Tom Cruise

By jake rossen | may 28, 2024.

Defining movie star is somewhat subjective. If it’s a combination of charisma, audience interest, and box office success, then one of the few performers that continue to meet the definition is Tom Cruise. The actor, who has been on screens for over 40 years, regularly makes movies that are considered appointment viewing in theaters even in the era of streaming. His Mission: Impossible series alone has brought in over $1.3 billion domestically.

Part of Cruise’s appeal is his enigmatic public persona. He rarely lets his guard down, preferring to let his work speak for him. Nonetheless, there’s still plenty to know about his life and career.

Tom Cruise started doing stunts early on.

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Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, Cruise seemed to be drawn to physical activity and danger from an early age. In 2022, the actor recalled that when he was around 4 years old, he thought it would be a good idea to jump off the roof of his childhood home while using a sheet as a parachute. "It’s that moment when you jump off the roof and you go, ‘This is not gonna work,’” he said. “’This is terrible. I’m gonna die.’ And I hit the ground so hard. Luckily, it was wet … And I saw stars in the daytime for the first time, and I remember looking up, going, ‘This is very interesting.’”

Cruise’s mother, Mary, separated from his father, Tom Senior, in 1976, when Cruise was 14. (The actor would later allege that Senior had been abusive toward him.) The family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and Cruise also spent some time in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he briefly considered becoming a Franciscan priest. Eventually, he rejoined his family and they settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he joined the varsity high school wrestling team as a junior and senior. During the 1979-1980 year, the team went 14-4-1.

The wrestling may have indirectly played a role in his career choice. After a leg injury prevented him from continuing, he decided to investigate acting and signed up for a role in a school production of Guys and Dolls . “All of a sudden, I felt like I knew what I was doing,” he said in 1983. “And I got all this attention, and it just felt right. So I came to New York. I wanted to try [acting].”

In 1981, Cruise appeared in a small role in Endless Love and as a military cadet in Taps . Two years later, he appeared in the teen sex comedy Losin’ It and the football drama All the Right Moves . Cruise also scored a role as a street punk in The Outsiders . It was during filming of The Outsiders that Cruise auditioned for Risky Business , which cast him as a preppy kid who runs amok when his parents leave town. “I told them, ‘I can't afford to tamper with my Outsiders character because I have to work tonight,’” he said in 1983. “’I can't take a shower, even.’ I was all greasy, had a chipped tooth and a tattoo, and an Okie drawl. And they cast me for this clean-cut boy.”

Risky Business was considered Cruise's true breakout role. It also made Cruise synonymous with Ray-Ban sunglasses, which he later wore to great effect in 1986’s Top Gun .

The mid- to late-1980s was a period where Cruise was able to demonstrate his dramatic chops with prestige directors in films like 1985's Legend (Ridley Scott), 1986’s The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese), 1988’s Rain Man (Barry Levinson), and 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone). In the middle of this impressive run came Cocktail (1988), a relatively lightweight drama about a bartender who relocates to Jamaica. It was “not a crowning jewel,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. The film earned a Golden Raspberry Award, or “Razzie,” for Worst Picture, the same year that Rain Man won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Given his collaborative nature and intense interest in filmmaking, it’s somewhat surprising Cruise has yet to helm a feature film. But he has gotten behind the camera. In 1993, Cruise directed an episode of the Showtime series Fallen Angels , an anthology set largely in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. In the episode, titled “The Frightening Frammis,” a con man (Peter Gallagher) has the misfortune to cross paths with a femme fatale named Babe (Isabella Rosellini). The series was produced by Sydney Pollack, who had just directed Cruise in the 1993 film The Firm .

When Cruise was cast as the vampire Lestat in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire , the book’s author, Anne Rice, was a vocal critic, saying she preferred someone like Daniel Day-Lewis for the role. After seeing Cruise in the part, Rice changed her mind, calling him “wonderful.” Cruise had a similar experience in 2012’s Jack Reacher , where fans of the Lee Child book series found him smaller in stature compared to Child’s towering protagonist. The film did well, however, meriting  a 2016 sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back .

The list of movies Cruise has been offered (or at least had discussions about doing) is long, and the list of movies he’s turned down is likely even longer. Among them: Footloose , Edward Scissorhands , and The Shawshank Redemption . Director and writer Frank Darabont, who adapted the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption for the screen in 1994, said that producer Rob Reiner offered to acquire the script so he could direct and his A Few Good Men star Cruise could step into the role of Andy Dufresne. Darabont was tempted, but ultimately decided to make the movie himself. He cast Tim Robbins as Dufresne.

Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman agreed to star in director Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut , which examines the complicated marriage of a young couple tempted by forces outside their union. Kubrick ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ), a notorious perfectionist, shot the film for an astounding 15 months, far beyond the typical four- to six-month shoot of many films. Guinness World Records recognizes it as the longest continuous production in cinema history. (Interrupted shoots are a different story: Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age drama Boyhood shot for 39 days over a window spanning from 2002 to 2013.)

Eyes Wide Shut was met with a tepid reception, though it proved bountiful for Cruise. While on set, he met with director Paul Thomas Anderson, who cast him as a motivational speaker in 1999’s Magnolia . That part earned Cruise an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He had previously been nominated for Born on the Fourth of July and for Jerry Maguire (1996), though he has yet to win.

Cruise wasn’t the only member of his family to get into acting. His fraternal cousin, William Mapother, is also in the business and has shared several of Cruise’s film sets. Mapother was a production assistant before getting parts in Magnolia (1999) and in 2002’s Minority Report , playing a desk clerk who is threatened by Cruise’s distressed protagonist. Mapother might be best known as Ethan Rom, a character of dubious intentions on ABC’s drama Lost .

In 1996, Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were aboard a yacht near Capri, Italy, when they came upon a family floating in a lifeboat whose own yacht had caught on fire. They climbed aboard Cruise’s vessel until the Coast Guard arrived.

A decade prior, it was Cruise himself who needed a hand. While filming Top Gun , he was dragged underwater by parachute lines. According to United Press International, Navy swim school instructors rushed to pull him out.

Shooting The Last Samurai with Cruise in 2003, director Ed Zwick was surprised to see several A-list directors dropping by the set to see Cruise. When the actor learned that David Fincher ( Fight Club ), Cameron Crowe (who directed Cruise in Jerry Maguire ), and others posed for a group photo with Zwick while he was busy, he asked that he be retroactively placed in the image.

To work with Tom Cruise is to risk being sent a cake every holiday for the rest of your life. (Or his.) Each year, the actor orders white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes from Doan’s Bakery in Los Angeles and has them sent to a list of recipients, including former co-stars. According to former talk show host James Corden, Cruise himself has never tried the cake. (Other stories, however, have him tasting it as part of a “cake-off” while Cruise’s then-wife Katie Holmes and Diane Keaton were making a film together in 2008. The cake was reportedly Keaton’s favorite.)

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Tom Cruise Was Once Called Better Than Most Stunt Men

Tom Cruise has been known to do his own stunts even well into his older years. But his physical work is so impressive that it’s even gotten praise from some veteran stuntmen.

How Tom Cruise’s stunts surpassed actual stuntmen’s

Cruise has been interested in doing physical stunts even long before he was a movie star. Speaking at the premiere of Top Gun Maverick , Cruise explained how he used to orchestrate his own stunts when he was a kid.

“I think I was about 4½ years old, and I had this doll, and you throw it up in the air and a parachute comes down. I played with this thing, and I’d throw it off a tree, and I was like, ‘I really want to do this.’ I remember taking the sheets off my bed, and I would tie a rope … and I climbed up to the eave, and I got up to the roof. I looked and my mother was in the kitchen — she had four kids — and I jumped off the roof,” he said according to Yahoo .

After succeeding in the film industry, Cruise was able to parlay his passion for stunts into his film work. And despite the constant risk of physical injury, Cruise has shown no signs of slowing down in his older years .

In an interview with Bang Showbiz (via Contact Music ), stunt coordinator Rob Alonzo once shared what made Cruise’s stunt work so special.

”Tom is so well rounded, he’s better than most stunt men,” Alonzo said. “He’s an incredible driver, an incredible fighter and stunt performer. He flies planes, he knows how to ride horses, he rides motorcylces, so any director would be lucky to have a guy like that because they can keep the camera on him the whole time and it’s more engaging.”

But Cruise didn’t just do stunts for the sake of the thrills . He did them for the sake of the movie-going audience as well.

”Tom does his own stunts on everything, he won’t allow a stuntman to do it for him, primarily because he knows that the audience is smart. That type of commitment and dedication is incredible. With Tom, we design the action to fit what he can do and that’s why it looks so great,” he said.

Tom Cruise’s latest stunts left his ‘Mission Impossible’ co-stars hysterical

Tom Cruise Greets Fans Outside of Victoria Beckham’s 50th Birthday Party

Cruise’s passion for stunts came in full display in the recent Mission Impossible movies . Dead Reckoning saw the actor indulge in many death-defying scenes like driving a motorcycle off of a mountain. As well as a one-handed car chase.

Cruise’s longtime Mission Impossible co-star Simon Pegg once shared what it was like seeing these stunts in person. Most of the time, Pegg shared that the cast and crew had full faith in Cruise. Especially because of the amount of preparation Cruise did for his action sequences.

“Tom is very, very diligent when it comes to preparing for these things. He’s not crazy. Everyone says, oh, he must be crazy. He does, you know, but he trains hard. Everything is in place. It’s a well-oiled machine,” Pegg said in an interview with CBS News .

Still, even Pegg and the other cast members were nervous about Cruise’s safety this time around.

“We were up there just to see it. … We were all a bit hysterical because, I mean, we trust him and we trust the system. We trust everything involved,” Pegg said. “But still, it’s nerve-wracking, and he would disappear, and then we’d wait and there’d be a big sort of pause. And then you’d hear good canopy, which meant his chute had opened at least. But he still had to get down to the boom. So it was exhilarating, to say the least.” 

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All About Tom Hardy's Wife Charlotte Riley & Their 3 Kids

From Peaky Blinders to the Edge of Tomorrow , get to know Charlotte Riley — Tom Hardy’s other Hollywood half.

As the rugged ringleader of a 1960s motorcycle gang, Tom Hardy’s newest movie role in The Bikeriders (in theaters beginning June 21) is sure to find him hitting the screen at full throttle. But what fans of the Hollywood A-lister might not realize is that Hardy’s just one-half of a Hollywood couple whose relationship roots run deep through his own acting past.

Hardy and British actor Charlotte Riley have been married for almost a decade, having first tied the knot on the 4th of July all the way back in 2014. It’s a union that sparked after the future couple first met in 2009, on the set of a lavish period drama that teamed the two stars as a pair of romantic literary heavyweights.

RELATED:  The Cast of The Bikeriders Explained: Everything to Know About Tom Hardy & Austin Butler Thriller

From box office smashes like  The Dark Knight Rises  and  Venom to his earlier turns in critical film hits like Layer Cake (2004), Marie Antoinette (2006), and Inception (2010), Hardy has hardly been difficult to spot whenever a project he’s attached to percolates upward and into the spotlight. But through the birth of two children and a whole decade’s worth of celebrity-couple tabloid attention, Riley has also watched her own film career grow — and the odds are good that you’ve spotted her in way more than one high-profile project.

Who is Tom Hardy’s wife Charlotte Riley?

Born in 1981 in the northern English village of Grindon, County Durham, Riley attended local schools and participated in local theater before eventually taking her talents to London, where she attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Landing her earliest TV roles round that same time, Riley nabbed her first big screen gig (opposite Jessica Biel and Colin Firth) in the 2008 British rom-com Easy Virtue .

The very next year, Riley landed a part that would forever change her personal fortunes, taking on the role of Catherine Earnshaw in the 2009 British event series adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights . The leading man playing her star-crossed love interest? Yep, it was none other than Tom Hardy, cast in the iconic antihero’s role of Heathcliff.

RELATED: What is The Bikeriders Rated? What to Know About Motorcycle Drama Starring Austin Butler

Hardy’s screen career already had begun to take off at the time, thanks to his early-2000s appearances in films like Star Trek: Nemesis , Layer Cake , and Sucker Punch (and only three short years before his deliciously villainous role as Bane in Christopher Nolan’s crowning Batman trilogy flick The Dark Knight Rises ). But as fate would have it, his casting alongside Riley would prove especially providential — and not just for either actor’s screen career.

Where have you seen Charlotte Riley onscreen?

As it turned out, Wuthering Heights wasn’t the only occasion when Riley and Hardy would star together — not even in 2009. The same year as their onscreen lovers’ meeting in Wuthering Heights , the acting duo also appeared in British TV crime drama The Take . With their offscreen chemistry quickly cementing even when the cameras weren’t rolling, Hardy proposed to Riley in 2010, launching a four-year courtship that formally ended when the pair married July 4, 2014.

Throughout that time and continuing all the way into the present day, Riley has maintained a busy but selective acting career even as her Hollywood husband has tackled a vast range of box office blockbusters including Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Dunkirk (2017), Venom (2018) and its sequels, and the upcoming action thriller Havoc (2025).

RELATED: Austin Butler's Episode of SNL Was Packed With Holiday Hilarity

Riley starred opposite Tom Cruise in the 2014 sci-fi action movie Edge of Tomorrow;  joined the cast of the enormously popular British crime series Peaky Blinders;  played the Ghost of Christmas Present in BBC’s 2019 adaptation of A Christmas Carol (which Hardy himself co-produced); and, most recently, portrayed enigmatic time traveler Aelita West (opposite Chloë Grace Moretz) in the trippy sci-fi series The Periphera l. All the while, she’s kept the pace steady through consistent television appearances, primarily in historical period dramas and lighthearted comedies including Close to the Enemy (2016), King Charles III (2017), and the oil-magnate miniseries saga Trust (2018).

Do Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley have children?

Since tying the knot in 2014, Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy have welcomed two children of their own into their growing family — though they’ve successfully kept their kids’ private lives well separated from the media spotlight.

Although the couple has sustained a firm silence regarding details about their two children (including any public confirmation of their names), Riley reportedly (via People ) gave birth to their first child — a daughter — late in 2015, followed in late 2018 (or perhaps early 2019) by the birth of their second child , a son. Riley, meanwhile, is also stepmother to Hardy’s older child, Louis Thomas, whom Hardy fathered from a previous relationship with film industry insider Rachel Speed.

Despite the couple’s understandable reluctance to subject their children to scrutinizing tabloid eyes, both Riley and Hardy have shared insight into how family life has help shape their relationship. “There was no longer very much time for me to think about myself anymore,” Hardy confided to the Daily Mail not long after the birth of their son, “…because there is somebody now on the planet who really needs me to get my act together and focus on something that is more important than me.”

Riley, meanwhile, has obliquely acknowledged the importance of children and family through her advocacy of the Keeping Families In Film campaign, a movement to improve on-set child care availability for working parents in the entertainment industry. “I've seen so many talented people leaving the industry when they became parents and just not being able to make their job, their film life, work in the industry with their family life,” she explained to Sky News  in 2021 of her passion for the family-focused initiative.

Catch Tom Hardy alongside costars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Norman Reedus in Focus Features’ upcoming motorcycle epic, The Bikeriders, in theaters beginning June 21. Grab your tickets here !

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