Tom Cruise will take to the skies again as Top Gun returns to UK cinemas this May for its 40th anniversary. Nothing makes us feel young like the reminder of how long it is that a movie came out. Obviously, I’m way too young (cough) to have enjoyed Top Gun when it arrived in cinemas ... Top Gun is heading back to cinemas for its – ulp – 40th birthday
Tom Cruise will take to the skies again as Top Gun returns to UK cinemas this May for its 40th anniversary.
Nothing makes us feel young like the reminder of how long it is that a movie came out. Obviously, I’m way too young (cough) to have enjoyed Top Gun when it arrived in cinemas for the first time. Still, all the way back in 1986, the film that transformed Tom Cruise into a full-on superstar landed on the big screen for the first time.
Perhaps it’s thus unsurprising that Paramount is thus seeking to mark the occasion, with the original Top Gun getting a full UK cinema re-release on 13th May 2026. Pre-booking hasn’t opened up yet, but don’t expect Paramount to be shy about the return of the film.
Not least, presumably, as it’s still keen to get Tom Cruise moving on a third Top Gun movie. The second, the superb Top Gun: Maverick, remains the biggest hit of Tom Cruise’s career, and around the time of its release, there was plenty of talk about a third trip to the skies.
Furthermore, there’s even been talk of reviving the initial spiritual sequel to Top Gun, 1990’s Days Of Thunder. That was the movie was a pretty similar plot, just swapping fast cars for planes. A messy, underperforming feature at the top, it reunited the director of Top Gun – the late Tony Scott – with Cruise and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. Plans are now afoot for Days Of Thunder 2, even if there’s no huge audience demand to it that seems to have been picked up upon.
Anyway, for the time being, Paramount will likely give Top Gun’s re-release a bit of a push, very keen to stay in business with Tom Cruise (whose next film has been made for Warner Bros.)
Meanwhile, a whole bunch of people who didn’t realise Top Gun was 40 years old are now feeling entirely great and very young.
