A Tom Cruise retrospective might seem atypical of the often rarefied fare at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which considers itself “a pioneer among film institutions and one of the film world’s most respected and influential arbiters of cinematic trends and discoveries”. But on December 17th — sandwiched between the closing night of Spanish Cinema Now and a series of retro favorites including 2001: A Space Odyssey, It’s A Mad, Mad Mad, Mad World and The Sound Of Music — FSLC has scheduled An Evening With Tom Cruise. In the flesh, with New York Film Festival director of programming Kent Jones moderating. A screening of Cruise’s latest movie Jack Reacher directed by Christopher McQuarrie follows as an introduction to the December 18-20 retrospective All The Right Moves: The Films Of Tom Cruise.

It’s a pre-couch-jumping Tom Cruise’s greatest hits — Top Gun (directed by the late Tony Scott), Born On The Fourth Of July (Oliver Stone), Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe), The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick), Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma), Rain Man (Barry Levinson), and Risky Business (Paul Brickman). With those directors Cruise was certainly in good company, so maybe the retrospective programmed by Scott Foundas isn’t so atypical after all. And the Chistopher McQuarrie-directed Jack Reacher, adapted from Lee Childs’ novel One Shot, happens to open the next day.