Netflix Viewers Are Sending a $1.5 Billion Tom Cruise Blockbuster Back Up the Charts — and Its Near-Perfect 99% Audience Score Is Almost Unheard Of

Netflix has plenty of new movies competing for attention, but one familiar blockbuster is proving that audiences are more than willing to return to a film they already know.

A $1.5 billion Tom Cruise phenomenon has climbed back toward the top of Netflix’s US movie chart after becoming available on the service again.

And its enormous box-office total isn’t even the most striking number attached to it.

More than 50,000 verified Rotten Tomatoes users have rated the movie.

Its audience score stands at an extraordinary 99%.

The film is Top Gun: Maverick.

A Four-Year-Old Blockbuster Is Flying Again

Released in 2022, Top Gun: Maverick became one of the defining theatrical hits of its era.

The long-awaited follow-up to 1986’s Top Gun ultimately earned around $1.5 billion worldwide, making it the biggest individual box-office hit of Cruise’s career.

Now Netflix has licensed the movie again.

The streaming service previously carried Maverick for a period in 2023, and the film remains available through Paramount+ as well.

Its return to Netflix immediately put it among the platform’s most-watched movies in the US.

The surprise isn’t necessarily that people are watching.

It’s how enthusiastically audiences still feel about it.

That 99% Audience Score Is Remarkable

Top Gun: Maverick currently carries a 99% Rotten Tomatoes audience score based on more than 50,000 verified ratings.

That combination of an almost perfect score and such a huge number of audience reviews makes its reception particularly unusual.

Critics weren’t far behind.

Across 476 critic reviews, the film holds a 96% score.

That means Maverick achieved something many giant franchise movies struggle to accomplish: enormous commercial success accompanied by overwhelming approval from both professional critics and ordinary moviegoers.

It also became the biggest single film in Cruise’s decades-long career at the global box office.

Tom Cruise Has Built a $13 Billion Box-Office Career

The film helped push Cruise even higher among cinema’s biggest box-office stars.

According to the figures cited by Forbes, movies featuring Cruise have collectively generated approximately $13.3 billion, placing him seventh among the highest-grossing actors.

The publication also noted an unusual distinction.

Cruise was the only actor among the listed top names who hadn’t appeared in a Marvel movie.

His totals instead came through decades of leading roles, including the Mission: Impossible franchise and hits such as War of the Worlds and The Last Samurai.

But no individual Cruise movie has earned more than Top Gun: Maverick.

It Didn’t Quite Reach Netflix No. 1

Given the film’s popularity, expectations were that Maverick could quickly take the top position on Netflix’s US movie ranking.

That didn’t happen.

In an update published Sept. 27, Forbes reported that the movie had fallen to second place rather than climbing to No. 1.

One film above it was Netflix’s Unabomber, starring Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay and Shailene Woodley.

Its reception could hardly be more different.

The article reported Rotten Tomatoes scores of just 21% from critics and 32% from audiences.

Maverick, meanwhile, remained behind another title as well, The Breadwinner, starring Nate Bargatze and Mandy Moore.

That comedy had produced its own striking critics-versus-audience divide, with a 20% critic score but 85% from audiences.

Another Top Gun Movie Is Already in Development

For anyone revisiting Maverick on Netflix, this may not be the end of the story.

Another Top Gun sequel is already in development, with Cruise expected to return.

Exactly who will join him remains unclear.

There had been no confirmation in the cited report about whether Miles Teller, Glen Powell or Jennifer Connelly would return.

There is also expected to be a major change behind the camera.

Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is not expected to direct the next installment because of his work on a Miami Vice reboot.

The article suggested Cruise’s longtime Mission: Impossible collaborator Christopher McQuarrie as a possible replacement, although no appointment was confirmed.

No storyline had been publicly revealed either.

The next film was described as potentially arriving in 2027 or 2028, with the latter considered more likely by the article’s author.

The Movie That Refuses to Lose Its Audience

Top Gun: Maverick was created as a huge theatrical experience, with aerial sequences designed for the biggest screen possible.

But its latest streaming run suggests that spectacle wasn’t the only reason audiences connected with it.

Years after its original release, viewers are still choosing it over an enormous library of newer movies.

It has already earned $1.5 billion.

It became Tom Cruise’s biggest individual box-office hit.

Critics gave it 96%.

More than 50,000 verified audience members pushed that score even higher to 99%.

And now it is climbing Netflix’s charts all over again.

For anyone who missed the phenomenon the first time — or simply wants another flight with Maverick — one of the most overwhelmingly audience-approved blockbusters of recent years is back within easy reach.