Tom Cruise receives Honorary Oscar at Governors Awards, his emotional speech goes viral; 'My love for cinema began...'
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Tom Cruise receives Honorary Oscar at Governors Awards, his emotional speech goes viral; 'My love for cinema began...'")
Tom Cruise Photograph: (AFP)
Tom Cruise received an Honorary Oscar at the 16th Governors Awards on November 16. He accepted the award with an emotional speech that went viral on social media. Read on to know more.
Tom Cruise made headlines as he accepted an Honorary Oscar at the 16th Governors Awards on November 16, 2025. The award for his four-decade legacy in cinema was presented by acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro G. Inarritu. The duo is also currently working on an untitled project expected to be released in October 2026.
Tom Cruise steals the show
Dressed in a classic black tuxedo, he proudly accepted the golden statuette and posed on the Los Angeles red carpet. But what moved the crowd was his emotional speech, where Cruise thanked "the thousands of people who make movies possible," including crew members, writers, and technicians who “work in the shadows but carry the industry.”
Then the 63-year-old star opened about the unifying power 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."
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Tom Cruise opens up about a special moment
He also shared about the moment that shaped his life, "My love for cinema began at a very early age, as early as I can remember. 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. Suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. And entire cultures and lives and landscapes all unfolded in front of me, and it sparked something. It sparked a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world. It opened my eyes. 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."
A star-studded evening
Other notable honorees are Debbie Allen, honoured by Cynthia Erivo, Wynn Thomas (veteran production designer), and Dolly Parton, who received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The star-studded guest list included Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sydney Sweeney, Dwayne Johnson, Emma Stone, and others.
About Tom Cruise's earlier nominations
Before he received the honour, Tom had earned four Oscar nominations for Born on the Fourth of July (Best Actor), Jerry Maguire (Best Actor), Magnolia (Best Supporting Actor), and Top Gun: Maverick (Best Picture nominee as producer). Currently, he is also enjoying the success of Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning, which has taken over the global box office.
