Your mission: See Tom Cruise's lesser-known films

Confession: I am a huge Tom Cruise fan.

I wasn't turned off by his couch-jumping incident on "Oprah," his scolding of Matt Lauer on the "Today" show, his misguided performance in the embarrassing musical "Rock of Ages," the creation story he apparently believes in as a member of the Church of Scientology, or his association with said church as depicted in HBO's eyebrow-raising documentary "Going Clear."

To paraphrase Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys" when talking about Tom Cruise: As a movie star, nobody can touch him. As a human being, nobody wants to touch him.

The fifth installment of Cruise's action franchise, "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," opens this week, and once again he's going the extra mile for the sake of entertaining an audience. Promos show the real Cruise clinging to the side of a military plane as it really lifts off - at age 53, Tom Cruise is doing the kinds of stunts that even Jackie Chan left behind long ago.

But stunts mean nothing if they're in bad movies, and I'd argue Cruise has one of the highest batting averages in the business. You know the essential Cruise films: "A Few Good Men," "Rain Man," "Top Gun," "Risky Business," "Magnolia." But some of his lesser-known movies deserve a second (or maybe even first) look. Here are four to watch:

• "Valkyrie" (2008) - "X-Men" director Bryan Singer's World War II thriller goes the "Amadeus" route and has its multinational troupe of actors speak with their own accents, which is a little off-putting, but it doesn't dull this chronicle of Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise), a German army officer who leads an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on his own turf in 1944. Surrounding Cruise is a veritable murderer's row of character actors: Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Terence Stamp, Eddie Izzard and about a dozen more "that guys." (Available on Blu-ray/DVD, vudu, Amazon Instant Video)

• "Jack Reacher" (2012) - The character from Lee Child's series of novels didn't seem like a good fit for Cruise on paper, but the resulting film by "Rogue Nation" director Christopher McQuarrie is a throwback to the kinds of mid-budget thrillers that studios used to make in the '90s. It's violent, a little lurid, and perhaps a bit too serious, but it's also completely riveting from the opening scene in which a stone-faced sniper (Jai Courtney of "Terminator Genisys") opens fire on Pittsburgh commuters along the Allegheny River. "Gone Girl" star Rosamund Pike is great as Cruise's foil. (Available on Blu-ray/DVD, vudu, Amazon Instant Video)

• "Legend" (1985) - Ridley Scott's sumptuous fairy tale with Cruise's hero doing a terrible British accent is better seen than heard, but what a vision. Tim Curry's devilish baddie is, 30 years hence, still a jaw-dropping marriage of makeup and melodrama. The making-of documentary on the DVD, in which we learn the entire set burned down at one point, is arguably worth the purchase price. (Director's cut available on Blu-ray/DVD; theatrical version on vudu, Amazon Instant Video)

• "Lions for Lambs" (2007) - Robert Redford's left-leaning look at war in the Middle East is divisive and a bit of a polemic, but it's notable for Cruise's singular performance as a Republican presidential candidate who squares off against a liberal reporter played by Meryl Streep. Their interplay is fun to watch, as is an early performance from future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield. (Available on Blu-ray/DVD, Amazon Instant Video)

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald copy editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.