Top Gun: Maverick

Thirty-six years after Tom Cruise first climbed into an F-14 cockpit, Top Gun: Maverick did something almost unheard of: it improved on the original. The 2022 sequel grossed $1.49 billion worldwide, becoming Cruise's highest-grossing film and the biggest domestic release of the year. But the numbers only tell part of the story.

Director Joseph Kosinski and a squadron of writers, including Christopher McQuarrie and Ehren Kruger, built a film that works on two levels simultaneously. For those who grew up with the 1986 classic, it's a heartfelt meditation on aging, legacy, and the cost of heroism. For newcomers, it's a standalone adrenaline rush, with aerial sequences shot practically in real F/A-18 Super Hornets flown by actual Navy pilots. The actors trained for months to handle the g-forces, and it shows in every frame of the canyon runs and dogfights.

At its core, though, the film is about a man who has spent decades running from the past. Maverick still flies because the alternative, sitting behind a desk, confronting his grief over Goose, facing the fact that he's no longer young, is unbearable. The mission to train a dozen hotshot pilots for an impossible strike forces him to finally reckon with all of it. The result is a blockbuster that moves as easily through emotional beats as it does through Mach 10.[edit]

Captain Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick, is still pushing the limits. Decades after the events of the original film, he works as a test pilot for the Navy's hypersonic program, flying an experimental aircraft to Mach 10.4 before the plane disintegrates around him. His refusal to accept promotions that would ground him has made him a legend, but also a liability in the eyes of his superiors.

Summoned by his old friend Admiral Tom Iceman Kazansky, Maverick learns he is being assigned to the Top Gun school at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada. His task: train twelve of the Navy's best graduates for a highly classified strike mission. The target is an unsanctioned uranium enrichment facility built deep inside a canyon in an unnamed hostile country. The location is protected by advanced surface-to-air missile systems, 5th-generation enemy fighters, and terrain so tight that the pilots must fly their F/A-18E/F Super Hornets at extreme low altitude through a narrow canyon, deliver precision weapons, and escape before the defenses can react.

Among the trainees, Maverick immediately recognizes one name: Lieutenant Bradley Rooster Bradshaw, the son of his deceased RIO, Nick Goose Bradshaw. The tension between them is instant and corrosive. Rooster resents Maverick for pulling his application to the Naval Academy years earlier, a decision that set his career back by four years. What Rooster does not know is that Maverick made that promise to Rooster's mother, Carole, who was terrified of losing her son to the same skies that took her husband.

The training program is a pressure cooker of egos and skill. Lieutenant Jake Hangman Seresin, a cocky, gifted pilot, constantly needles Rooster and competes with him for the top slot. Lieutenant Natasha Phoenix Trace and her quiet but brilliant WSO, Lieutenant Robert Bob Floyd, form the most disciplined crew in the class. Lieutenant Reuben Payback Fitch and Lieutenant Mickey Fanboy Garcia round out the core strike team. Overseeing the operation are Admiral Beau Cyclone Simpson, a by-the-book officer who views Maverick as a dangerous relic, and Admiral Solomon Warlock Bates, who is more sympathetic.

Maverick's unorthodox training methods clash immediately with Cyclone's rigid protocols. He pushes the pilots beyond their limits, forcing them to fly at altitudes so low that their radar altimeters scream warnings. He teaches them to trust their instincts and their wingmen, not just their instruments. The central conflict is whether Maverick can overcome his personal history with Rooster, earn the trust of the pilots, and prepare them for a mission that even the most experienced aviators call suicide.

Outside the base, Maverick reconnects with Penny Benjamin, the owner of a local bar and a woman from his past. Their relationship provides a rare glimpse of the man behind the aviator sunglasses, someone who has spent his entire life avoiding the very connections that might save him. Penny's daughter Amelia sees through his charm immediately, and Penny herself is not easily impressed. She grounds him in a way that the cockpit never could.

As the training progresses, Rooster's resentment simmers. He refuses to take Maverick's advice, flying dangerously aggressive patterns that nearly get him killed. Hangman exploits every opening to humiliate Rooster, and the team's cohesion frays. Cyclone, fed up with Maverick's methods, removes him from the training role and plans to lead the mission himself. But the pilots, having learned to trust Maverick, refuse to fly without him. Maverick makes a final, desperate gamble: he will lead the strike team himself, flying as mission commander alongside Rooster, Phoenix and Bob, Payback and Fanboy, with Hangman in a support role. Cyclone reluctantly agrees, and the team launches from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.[edit]