Tom Cruise received an Honorary Oscar as a tribute to his body of work on Sunday night. The Mission: Impossible star, renowned for his unparalleled stunt work, was honored at the Academy’s 16th Governors Awards.

The star-studded event celebrates the lifetime honors bestowed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors. In addition to Cruise, Dolly Parton, Debbie Allen, and Wynn Thomas were also recipients of awards selected by the group’s more than 10,000 members.

Some of the many celebrities at the event included Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Jessie Buckley, Adam Sandler, Tessa Thompson, Stellan Skarsgard, Amy Madigan, Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Coogler, Emma Stone, Kristen Stewart, and Chloé Zhao.

Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant) presented Cruise with the final award of the night. After embracing Steven Spielberg, the Minority Report star stood proudly as he received a lengthy standing ovation.  Cruise expressed his gratitude to Iñárritu, who described working on their upcoming 2026 film “one of the great privileges of [his] career.”

He continued on to say,

Making films is not what I do, it is who I am. I also appreciate and I respect and understand that cinema is not built by one person, not a single performance, not a single voice, it is built by communities, by craftsmen, by artists who pass that knowledge hand to hand, set to set, generation to generation.

Cruise has never won an Oscar but he has been nominated for three acting Oscars for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire, and Magnolia. He also received a Best Picture nomination for producing Top Gun: Maverick.