10 Most Criminally Underrated Blockbusters Since 2000

3. Mission: Impossible: III (2006)

May 23rd 2005 is a date that lives in infamy, at least in the movie business. This was the day that Tom Cruise made a hilariously ill-advised appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. You know the one. In a way, it was sweet, a man so caught in the throes of new love for girlfriend Katie Holmes that he just lost it for a bit. Of course, in another way it was the most cringeworthy act that a major movie star had committed on live TV in an awfully long time. Truth be told, we're not sure that Cruise's public image has ever fully recovered. The point of all this is that Cruise had a massive movie coming out in theaters the following summer: the third instalment of his signature Mission: Impossible series. M:I:III is a breakneck thriller, an action spectacular that hits the ground running at 100 miles per hour and rarely lets up. First time feature director JJ Abrams delivered one scintillating set-piece after another and managed to pull an incredible degree of intensity from his cast. Unfortunately, even though this was part of a known brand, M:I:III did pretty poor business, not even making it's production budget back domestically. It did pull together $397 million worldwide, which is hardly chump change, but it is still the lowest grossing of the four films in the franchise. Which sucks, because we'd argue it's the best one.