The U.S. released 1989 film for which Tom Cruise received his first Oscar (Academy Award) nomination for Best Actor was "Born on the 4th of July". Cruise is an actor and film producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards; he has yet to win an Oscar. He started his acting career at age 19. He was Billy in the 1981 film "Endless Love".

With the film "Born on the 4th of July", Tom Cruise stars as U.S. Marine Ron Kovic, who returns home from the Vietnam War. He is paralyzed from the chest down. After months of hellish rehabilitation, he finds renewed purpose protesting the war he once proudly fought.

Oliver Stone directs this film which was another Academy Award winning movie which pointed out that unless you were there, you could not truly understand what the soldiers truly faced in harsh and noxious combat.

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