Career
1993–2000: Early films and Oscar win
McQuarrie's first feature film was the 1993 thriller Public Access, directed by Bryan Singer. It won the Critics Award at the Deauville American Film Festival and shared the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. It was not released theatrically in the United States. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it received an approval rating of 58%.
McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects (1995), for which he received Best Screenplay awards from the British and American Academy Awards, as well as from Premiere magazine, the Texas Board of Review, and the Chicago Critics, as well as the Edgar Award and Independent Spirit Award. It was later included on the New York Times list of the 1000 greatest films ever made, and the character Verbal Kint was included on AFI's list of the 100 greatest Heroes and Villains of all time. In 2006, the Writers Guild of America voted The Usual Suspects #35 on their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays. In his third collaboration with Singer, McQuarrie did an extensive rewrite on X-Men, but ultimately removed his name from the project.
In 2000, McQuarrie made his directorial debut with The Way of the Gun, a modern-day Western, for which he also wrote the script. It starred Benicio del Toro, Ryan Phillippe, Taye Diggs, and James Caan. The film, budgeted at US$8.5 million, received mixed reviews and grossed US$13 million worldwide.
2008–2013: Further writing, producing
McQuarrie first met frequent collaborator Tom Cruise, seeking simply to unload a screenplay in order to pay his debts and exit the film industry. This screenplay, co-written with Nathan Alexander, later turned into Valkyrie, which opened on December 25, 2008, and would also be the first film where McQuarrie served as a producer. The film is based on the real-life July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. While researching the screenplay, the writers had access to members of the Stauffenberg family; consulted a book written by Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a conspirator who survived; and spoke with Hitler's surviving bodyguard. The film, directed by Bryan Singer, received the BMI Film Music Award and the Bambi Award for Courage. McQuarrie initially only took a producing credit on the film for its associated pay increase. But, after a conversation with Paula Wagner, whose increased commitments with United Artists left little time for creative collaboration with Cruise, he decided to fully involve himself in the film's production, as well as replace Wagner as Cruise's primary creative partner.
In 2009, McQuarrie was hired to pen the script for the then-untitled The Wolverine. He also co-wrote the 2010 film The Tourist with Julian Fellowes, Jeffrey Nachmanoff and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It starred Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and grossed US$278 million worldwide. It received three Golden Globe Award nominations and several other awards, among them the Redbox Movie Award for the most rented drama of 2011. McQuarrie then provided uncredited rewrites on the 2011 action spy film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol during the film's production.
In 2011, McQuarrie directed his second feature, Jack Reacher, an adaptation of One Shot, the ninth in the series of 21 Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child. Filming began in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area on October 3, 2011, and continued through the end of January 2012. The movie was released in December 2012 by Paramount Pictures. In 2012, McQuarrie stepped in to rewrite the script for World War Z after Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof left the film.
2013 saw the release of McQuarrie's fourth collaboration with Singer, Jack the Giant Slayer, co-written by McQuarrie. Critical reviews were mixed, and it was a box office failure, grossing only US$198 million against an estimated US$240 million budget (excluding promotion). McQuarrie co-wrote the 2014 science fiction action thriller Edge of Tomorrow with Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill.
2014–present: Mission: Impossible and more
Tom Cruise had called McQuarrie "the uncredited hero" of MI: Ghost Protocol and told Paramount CEO in 2014 that he wanted McQuarrie as the director for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. It was McQuarrie's third feature as director and he co-wrote it with Drew Pearce. It received strong reviews, grossed over US$195 million at the North American box office, and won a Golden Tomato for Best Action-Adventure Movie of 2015.
By October 2015, McQuarrie completed a rewrite of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and spent two weeks "tightening up the story". McQuarrie and screenwriter Dylan Kussman were commissioned by Tom Cruise to write a new script for The Mummy.
In November 2015, McQuarrie confirmed he would return to write and direct the sixth Mission: Impossible film, his third directing collaboration with Tom Cruise. The film, titled Mission: Impossible – Fallout, was released in the United States on July 27, 2018. It received strong reviews from critics, and grossed over $791 million worldwide, becoming the franchise's highest-grossing title.
McQuarrie pitched a sequel to Man of Steel after working with Superman actor Henry Cavill on Fallout that would have tied into a Green Lantern movie McQuarrie also proposed, although Warner Bros. rejected both ideas. McQuarrie and Cruise collaborated again on Top Gun: Maverick, for which McQuarrie co-wrote the screenplay and produced the film.
Initially hesitant to return to the franchise, McQuarrie finalized a deal to write and direct Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in January 2019. Dead Reckoning Part One was released on July 12, 2023, while The Final Reckoning was released on May 23, 2025. Ahead of the latter's release, McQuarrie was honored with a Director of the Year award at the 2025 CinemaCon, which was presented to him by Tom Cruise.
Upcoming projects
In February 2011, McQuarrie was hired by Skydance Media to write and produce a feature film adaptation of the 1970s animated television series Star Blazers (itself an adaptation of anime Space Battleship Yamato). In 2013, he was selected to direct the project, with Zach Dean being hired to write a new draft of the script in 2017. McQuarrie has also signed on to direct thrillers Ice Station Zebra, based on the 1963 novel and its 1968 film adaptation, Three to Kill, based on the novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, and The Chameleon, based on a New Yorker article by David Grann about Frédéric Bourdin.
In August 2022, McQuarrie announced on the Light the Fuse podcast that he was developing a new project with Tom Cruise, to be co-written by Erik Jendresen, which he claimed would be "gnarlier" than the Mission: Impossible films and described as being "something we've talked about for a really long time. It's way outside of what you're used to seeing Tom do." A few days later, it was announced he and Cruise were also developing an original musical as a star vehicle for Cruise, as well as eyeing a potential project for Cruise to reprise the role of Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder, though it was unknown if Grossman would receive his own film or be included in the other films.
Although the Reacher franchise has migrated to television, McQuarrie and Cruise are continuing to develop a Reacher-like thriller film.
Personal life
He is married to his producing partner Heather McQuarrie, with whom he has two daughters. McQuarrie lives with congenital damage in his middle ear, which requires him to wear hearing aids.
