Seven reasons Cruise rules

Tom Cruise will never live down that dance he did in his underpants.

No matter. In the 1983 film “Risky Business,” the 20-year-old actor – playing 18-year-old Joel Goodsen – got to hang out with Rebecca De Mornay when she was every high-school boy’s, uh, dream.

And that’s hardly been the top moment of his career, which continues today as a silver-maned hit man in the big-screen release “Collateral.” Indulge me as I explore seven (there’s that number again) of Cruise’s most memorable moments on screen.

7. The need for speed

It’s hard to think of Tony Scott’s 1983 film “Top Gun” without visualizing Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell streaking down the runway on a bike faster than anything Evel Knievel ever rode. But amid all the testosterone-laced moments that Scott fills the screen with, a quieter scene reigns.

Maverick, once again showing that he has the biggest, hmm, ego in the room, takes the mike and warbles – off key – “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” to Kelly McGillis.

And it works. Imagine that.

6. Umbrella, anyone?

Dustin Hoffman won a Best Actor Oscar for 1988’s “Rain Man,” but I still argue that Cruise should have shared it. Always an underrated actor, Cruise is the catcher’s mitt for Hoffman’s autistic knuckleball utterances.

The movie demands that Cruise balance his character, Charlie Babbit, the self-absorbed brother of Raymond (Hoffman), between someone likeable and someone loathsome. The likeable part comes in a scene in which he tries to get a stranger to let Raymond come into her house and watch “The People’s Court.”

“That man right there is my brother and if he doesn’t get to watch ‘People’s Court’ in about 30 seconds, he’s gonna throw a fit right here on your porch,” Charlie says. “Now you can help me, or you can stand there and watch it happen.”

5. The truth

Jack Nicholson’s role as the unrepentant Marine officer Nathan R. Jessup in “A Few Good Men” rated all the attention when that film opened in 1992. But Cruise, playing the Naval officer defending men accused of murder under Col. Jessup’s command, holds his own against Nicholson during the scene with the most memorable lines:

“You want answers?” Jessup asks.

“I think I’m entitled,” answers Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Cruise).

“You want answers?” Jessup asks.

“I want the truth,” Kaffee says.

“You can’t handle the truth,” Jessup says dismissively.

4. Hi, Nicki

Since Cruise broke up with her in 2001, Nicole Kidman has gone on to win a Best Actress Oscar (for 2002’s “The Hours”).

Yet the two could act together. The scene that gets Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film “Eyes Wide Shut” going comes when Kidman’s character reveals that she has hungered for someone other than her husband (Cruise). Not only does it prove that Kidman can act, but it shows how good Cruise can be without even opening his mouth.

3. Screen presents

In 1989’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” Cruise earned the first of his three Oscar nominations by portraying disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic. The film has its moments, from war scenes to long speeches, but the biggest may well be the smallest.

Holed up in a Mexican cathouse, he plans to give a gift to the prostitute he thinks he loves – when he sees her being friendly to another man. The look in Cruise’s eyes expresses all the hurt, pain and vulnerability that someone as desperate as Kovic would surely have felt.

2. Help is on the way

If the catchword for 1996’s “Jerry Maguire” wasn’t delivered by Cuba Gooding Jr. (“Show me the money!”) or by Cruise (“You complete me”), then Renee Zellweger did it (“You had me at hello”).

But I love the scene in the locker room in which Cruise, as a struggling sports agent, begs for the football player he wants to sign (Gooding) to “Help me … help you. Help me, help you.” Result: Cruise’s second Oscar nomination.

1. Up a tree

But the Oscar he deserved to win was for his portrayal of men’s motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey in P.T. Anderson’s 1999 film “Magnolia.” While teaching men the glory of misogyny, Cruise has several lines laced with profanity and delivered at high volume. But his best line is uttered slowly and with hushed malevolence.

He aims it at a woman journalist who, he suddenly realizes, is writing not a puff piece but an expose. After he stares at her for a long beat, she asks him what he is doing.

“I’m quietly judging you,” he says.

At that moment, it was clear that Tom Cruise had finally grown up.