My personal fav ... bar none. My all-time top-rated film; this one has it all. The characters, not just the leads, are real and substantive. Hackman almost steals the show. Cruise takes you with him as a young comer with the world before him: brains, energy, confidence, a beautiful wife (Tripplehorn, who is gorgeous, sensuous, supportive and yet strongly her own person), and a dream job. Cruise and Tripplehorn sizzle throughout the movie, but never more so than in the penultimate scene when he repeatedly asks "Have I lost you?" Her answer simply melts the heart.
The writing is of course superb, and, although the ending, different from the book, has been criticized, I found it an amazing extrication from a situation which compels the viewer to believe is hopeless. You want the stars to somehow escape their continually worsening plight - both within their personal lives together and with the evil external forces that have ensnared them, and the movie ending does not disappoint.
Disappointing, however are the last few moments, which are disjointed and seem to belong to another movie. It amazes me that something better could not have been done. It could only have been worse had our heros ridden into a sunset to the strumming of a western guitar ...