This July, Tom Cruise fans are getting an Independence Day blow—but not the Will Smith kind. On July 1, Prime Video is pulling the plug on not one, not two, but six of Cruise’s most iconic titles—including the one that landed him his first Oscar nomination, the one that gave us shirtless volleyball and high-altitude melodrama, and the first four chapters of a franchise that turned him into an unstoppable stunt machine. If you were planning to celebrate America’s birthday by watching Born on the Fourth of July, Top Gun, or revisiting Ethan Hunt’s first impossible missions, you’ve got about 48 hours to hit play before they vanish from Prime’s library.
Long before Cruise was sprinting across rooftops or clinging to the side of a plane, he was earning critical respect as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July. Directed by Oliver Stone and based on Kovic’s real-life autobiography, the film followed the harrowing trajectory of a young, idealistic Marine turned paralyzed anti-war activist. Cruise’s raw, vulnerable performance earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, helping to break the “pretty-boy heartthrob” label and transform him into a serious actor. The film also won Oscars for Best Director and Best Editing, racked up a worldwide gross of over $162 million, and is still widely considered one of Cruise’s most underappreciated performances.
We’ve also officially reached the end of Top Gun’s streaming flyby. The 1986 juggernaut that introduced the world to Maverick, Iceman, Goose, and dangerously high testosterone levels is about to eject from Prime Video. Directed by Tony Scott and featuring an immortal Kenny Loggins soundtrack, the original Top Gun is more than a movie—it’s a time capsule of Cold War bravado, aviator sunglasses, and bromantic tension.
What Other Tom Cruise Movies Are Leaving Prime?
Just when you thought the Ethan Hunt collection was safe, the original four Mission: Impossible films are being quietly removed from Prime on the same day. That includes:
- Mission: Impossible (1996), Brian De Palma’s slick, twisty original
- Mission: Impossible II (2000), the John Woo slow-mo motorcycle ballet
- Mission: Impossible III (2006), where J.J. Abrams and Philip Seymour Hoffman upped the stakes
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), which launched the modern era of Cruise doing death-defying stunts for real
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which hit theaters on May 23, 2025 may be the final farewell to the series, but if you want to see where the franchise got its fuse lit, you’d better act fast.