Last Chance to Watch Tom Cruise as a Villain: This Fan-Favorite Thriller Leaves Netflix Soon
Tom Cruise goes full villain in Michael Mann’s Collateral—catch the 2004 thriller with Jamie Foxx and Mark Ruffalo before it leaves Netflix.
If you were planning a Collateral rewatch on Netflix, the clock just started. Michael Mann's 2004 Cruise-as-the-villain thriller is about to bounce.
When it leaves
Collateral exits Netflix on January 1, 2026, per What's on Netflix. Yes, that is next month.
The movie (quick refresher)
Directed by Michael Mann (Heat, Thief), Collateral hit theaters on August 6, 2004. Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise flips to the dark side as Vincent, a contract killer who hijacks one unlucky Los Angeles cab driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), for a one-night run of hits across the city. The cast is stacked: Jamie Foxx, Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Jason Statham, and more. Cruise playing full-on antagonist is still a blast, and it earned him real praise from both critics and audiences.
By the numbers
- Reported budget: $65 million
- Opening weekend: $24.7 million
- Opened in about 3,188 theaters (per Box Office Mojo)
- Domestic gross: over $101 million
- International gross: around $119.2 million
- Worldwide total: approximately $220 million
- Rotten Tomatoes: 86% Tomatometer from 238 critic reviews; Audience score 84%
Why it still lands
The setup is simple and mean: one cab, one night, five stops. Max tries to survive and derail Vincent's itinerary while the city blurs by in that cool, digital-night look Mann loves. It's tight, tense, and genuinely rewatchable. Cruise is icy and precise; Foxx grounds the whole thing with a jittery, human pulse.
Mann on what hooked him
"The attractiveness of 'Collateral' was quite intense. To go from doing larger-scale narratives to this story taking place within 12 hours with all the refractions that are happening within the facets of the story to push the metaphor to absurdity...that was the appeal."
- Michael Mann on IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast
Translation: after big canvases, he wanted to squeeze an opera out of a single night. Very Mann.
Bottom line
If you want Collateral on Netflix, watch it before January 1. After that, you will need to track it down somewhere else.