8. Top Gun (1986)
It’s a well-established fact that Tom Cruise gives off some pretty weird vibes. People in Hollywood have spoken out about what a weirdly intense dude Cruise is off-screen, and he’s never tried all too hard to hide his intense nature, which sometimes comes off as slightly creepy.
Top Gun is one of the definitive and most quotable movies of the ’80s, and was also the role that secured Cruise lasting Hollywood success. To be fair, it doesn’t hold up too badly when looked at under the lens of our present day microscopes, but one scene in particular plays out pretty distressingly, though.
Grabbing a drink in a bar with his flight school buddy, Maverick (Cruise) notices a girl across the room sharing a drink with an older guy. She gets up and heads for the ladies’ room, so naturally, Maverick follows, because the sanctity of the women’s restroom is no match for Cruise’s over-intense charm and self-assured swagger. Maverick follows her right in, jokingly propositions her, then proclaims, “I came in here to save you from making a big mistake with that older guy.”
Luckily, Charlotte (Kelly McGillis) is none too fazed by this invasive approach to courtship, and the scene isn’t too painful at a glance. But let’s just look at this in real world terms for a moment. You’re out sharing a drink with a friend at a bar, and one too many cocktails leave you feeling the need – the need to relieve yourself of excess fluid. You get to the bathroom just in time to have a random guy stroll into the ladies’ room and establish himself as a true Nice Guy™.
It’s a weird way to establish any sort of connection with another human being, and if it had happened outside of a movie, Maverick would have likely faced some sort of harassment charge.