He started his major and the most crucial time of his life as far as his career was concerned in the 90s. It brought him even more success, fame, and popularity worldwide into the field of his passion.

He acted in the highly acclaimed venture Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, which was actually based on the excellent flick written by Ron Kovic in the best selling autobiography of Ani-Vietnam War hero. This was a major breakthrough in Tom's acting career, as it literally squeezed out the innate talent and determination he had for acting, to give the film all he could. It also ruled out the image of Tom as the handsome boy, and proved that he could very well handle diverse roles.

In the year 1990, he played the role of a hot race car driver in the movie by Tony Scott, known as the Days of Thunder. It was during the shooting of this film that Tom met the Australian beauty Nicole Kidman for the first time because she was cast as his co-star in the same movie. Then came a few more movies, lined very close to each other, that year actually proved to be the busiest for Tom, with huge success of every film.

Next was another film with the ultra splendid Nicole Kidman, directed by Ron Howard, far and Away. It was then followed by A Few Good Men which was a thriller with Demi Moore as his co-star. It was a very highly popular film and also won Tom the nominations at the Golden Globe and MTV movie awards.

He then appeared in a movie based on one of the best selling novel of the very popular author John Grisham. It was a directorial venture of Sydney Pollack and the movie title was The Firm. His co-stars in the movie included Ed Harris, and Gene Hackman. It was over all a huge success and yet another boost to Tom's career. It also won the Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Award at the People's Choice Awards.

The year 1994 brought him close to the other superstars of the Hollywood film industry after he signed for the very well known movie Interview with the Vampire, the directorial flick of Neil Jordan. He had Antonio Banderas, the very famous Brad Pitt and also Christian Slater as his co-stars in the movie. The movie was based on the best selling novel of Anne Rice. Though it also lead to a controversy that Rice was critical about casting Tom in the movie based on her book.

The year 1996 had even higher achievements in store for Tom's acting career after he released his own production Mission: Impossible directed by Brian de Palma. It was one of the highest grosser of the year and Tom was known to have acted his best in the movie. It grossed an approximate amount of about US$456,494,803 worldwide.