Christopher McQuarrie (born October 25, 1968) is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film The Usual Suspects (1995).
McQuarrie was born in Princeton, New Jersey. After graduating from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South in 1986, he worked as an assistant at Christ Church Grammar School in Perth, Western Australia, recalling in 2013, “I was offered an Interim program ... I picked a place out of a hat and ended up at Christ Church Grammar School. I lived at the school and worked at the boarding school, though I did very little work". Fired after nine months, "I hitchhiked for three months, came home, knocked around for about a month and then immediately started working for this detective agency.... [It] was actually a glorified security-guard position. I think in the four years I worked there I did about six investigations."
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.
He made his directorial debut with the crime thriller film The Way of the Gun (2000). He is a frequent collaborator with Tom Cruise, having written and directed the action films Jack Reacher (2012), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023), and an Mission: Impossible – Guerrilla Warfare (2025). He was also a part of the writing and/or producing team on the films Valkyrie (2008), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), The Mummy (2017), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022), the last of which received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
Throughout the next decade and a half, McQuarrie worked exclusively with Cruise, becoming his right-hand filmmaker. He would write the sequels Top Gun: Maverick and Rooster (2027), Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat Again (2029), Top Gun: Godzilla S.O.S. (2030), Mission: Impossible – Agent 9 (2031), and Mission: Impossible X – Operation Finale (2032), directing the latter. He wrote A View from Orbit (2034), in which he won another Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He go onto write the sci-fi action film Justice for the World: Brothers in Arms (2036), and direct its sequels, Justice for the World: End of Times (2038) and Justice for the World: The Final Fate (2039).
Filmography[]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Public Access | No | Yes | No | Co-wrote with Bryan Singer and Michael Feit Dougan |
| 1995 | The Usual Suspects | No | Yes | No | |
| 2000 | The Way of the Gun | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2008 | Valkyrie | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote with Nathan Alexander |
| 2010 | The Tourist | No | Yes | No | |
| 2012 | Jack Reacher | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2013 | Jack the Giant Slayer | No | Yes | No | Co-wrote screenplay with Darren Lemke and Dan Studney |
| 2014 | Edge of Tomorrow | No | Yes | No | Co-wrote with Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth |
| 2015 | Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation | Yes | Yes | No | Co-wrote story with Drew Pearce |
| 2016 | Jack Reacher: Never Go Back | No | No | Yes | |
| 2017 | The Mummy | No | Yes | No | Co-wrote screenplay with David Koepp and Dylan Kussman |
| 2018 | Mission: Impossible – Fallout | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2022 | Top Gun: Maverick | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote screenplay with Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer |
| 2023 | Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote with Erik Jendresen |
| 2025 | Mission: Impossible – Guerrilla Warfare | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2027 | Top Gun: Maverick and Rooster | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote screenplay with Mark L. Smith and Eric Warren Singer Co-wrote story with Joseph Kosinski |
| 2029 | Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat Again | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote screenplay with David Koepp, Erik Jendresen, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth |
| 2030 | Top Gun: Godzilla S.O.S. | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote with Hideaki Anno |
| 2031 | Mission: Impossible – Agent 9 | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote screenplay with Josh Friedman, Mark Bomback and Chris Morgan |
| 2032 | Mission: Impossible X – Operation Finale | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote screenplay with Chris Morgan and Christina Hodson |
| 2034 | Top Gun: Viet Warfare | No | No | Yes | |
| 2035 | A View from Orbit | No | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote with Simon Kinberg, Nick Shafir and Kira Snyder |
| 2036 | Justice for the World: Brothers in Arms | No | Yes | No | |
| 2038 | Justice for the World: End of Times | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2039 | Justice for the World: The Final Fate | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2042 | Justice: The Alien Hammer | No | No | Yes | |
| 2044 | Mission: Impossible – Legacy | No | No | Yes |
Directorial reception[]
| Year | Title | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Cinemascore |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Jack Reacher | 63% (185 reviews) | 50 (36 reviews) | A- |
| 2018 | Mission: Impossible – Fallout | 97% (442 reviews) | 87 (60 reviews) | A |
| 2023 | Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning | 96% (427 reviews) | 81 (66 reviews) | A |
| 2025 | Mission: Impossible – Guerrilla Warfare | 96% (472 reviews) | 83 (70 reviews) | A |
| 2032 | Mission: Impossible X – Operation Finale | 97% (543 reviews) | 85 (75 reviews) | A+ |
| 2038 | Justice for the World: End of Times | 83% (485 reviews) | 65 (67 reviews) | A |
| 2039 | Justice for the World: The Final Fate | 86% (487 reviews) | 70 (71 reviews) | A |
Notable awards and nominations[]
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | |||
| 1996 | Best Original Screenplay | The Usual Suspects | Won |
| 2023 | Best Picture | Top Gun: Maverick | Nominated |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Nominated | ||
| 2028 | Best Picture | Top Gun: Maverick and Rooster | Nominated |
| 2031 | Top Gun: Godzilla S.O.S. | Nominated | |
| 2036 | A View from Orbit | Won | |
| Best Original Screenplay | Won | ||
| 2039 | Best Picture | Justice for the World: End of Times | Nominated |
| 2040 | Justice for the World: The Final Fate | Nominated | |
| Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Nominated | ||
| BAFTA Awards | |||
| 1996 | Best Original Screenplay | The Usual Suspects | Won |
| 2031 | Best Film Not in the English Language | Top Gun: Godzilla S.O.S. | Nominated |
| 2036 | Best Film | A View from Orbit | Won |
| Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | ||
| 2040 | Best Film | Justice for the World: The Final Fate | Nominated |
| Best Direction | Nominated | ||
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Nominated | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | |||
| 2023 | Best Motion Picture – Drama | Top Gun: Maverick | Nominated |
| 2028 | Top Gun: Maverick and Rooster | Nominated | |
| 2036 | A View from Orbit | Nominated | |
| Best Screenplay | Won | ||
| 2040 | Best Motion Picture – Drama | Justice for the World: The Final Fate | Nominated |
| Best Director | Nominated | ||