tom cruise mission impossible scenarios

Things That Happen In Every Mission: Impossible Movie

One of Hollywood's most successful action movie franchises is the "Mission: Impossible" series, starring Tom Cruise as master spy and daredevil team leader Ethan Hunt. Leading the clandestine government intelligence agency the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), Ethan and his squad of spycraft experts take on high stakes assignments all over the globe to maintain peace and order throughout the free world. And while each of the movies have added their own unique flair, engaging story, and ambitious set pieces, there are recurring elements and tropes that have consistently appeared across the film series as well. And with the "Mission: Impossible" movies not only continuing to build the franchise's success but steadily improve upon themselves , these tropes have only become more cleanly executed than appearing derivative.

Here are all the major features that have prominently appeared in each of the "Mission: Impossible" movies to date, from stylistic flourishes in the franchise's long-running formula to repeated narrative trends that help define Ethan and the IMF's ongoing adventures. 

Each movie kicks off with a stylish way to start the opening titles

The "Mission: Impossible" theme by composer Lalo Schifrin is one of the most recognizable themes in the history of television, with its bombastic horns and jazzy rhythm. The opening title sequence to each episode was similarly memorable, with the credits displayed over each of the characters in action as a lit fuse burns in the foreground. This trope was maintained for the movie series, with a decidedly more stylish edge, with each movie differing in how it kicked off this sequence.

The movies have ranged from the more conventional cold open transitioning to the lit fuse opening title sequence to an action incorporated in the prologue itself. "Ghost Protocol" kicks off the sequence with Benji (Simon Pegg) literally lighting the fuse to a bomb while "Rogue Nation" has Ethan pull the ripcord on a parachute. "Mission: Impossible 2" is the only movie that eschews the fuse setup, leaping right into an explosive crash caused by the film's villains before moving to the opening titles.

The mission briefing sets the stakes

Echoing the television series, the "Mission: Impossible" movies include a scene of the IMF field team leader receiving a briefing through a recording. Set to Schifrin's score from the show, the briefing introduces the key figures in a given assignment, the expected mission location, and any other relevant intel to the mission. This briefing concludes with the recorded message always self-destructing shortly after the transmission is complete, with this trend resurfacing in the movies.

The first several "Mission: Impossible" movies keep the briefing scenes relatively faithful to the television show's formula, but begin to twist on this expectation as the film series continues. "Ghost Protocol" has a delayed self-destruction timer, visibly throwing off Ethan after he receives his mission briefing, playing the trope for laughs. "Rogue Nation" gives the briefing a sinister edge, with the presumed briefing being a trap set for Ethan and subverting the expected formula for the audience.

The MacGuffin is always vitally tangible technology or data

A MacGuffin, a plot device that drives the story without being all that significant in and of itself, is a storytelling staple. For the "Mission: Impossible" movies, the MacGuffins are always a tangible item that leads Ethan and the IMF scrambling to keep it out of enemy hands. And given the crypto-thriller nature of "Mission: Impossible," these MacGuffins are always technological in nature, either through crucial data or deadly advancements in weaponry.

The first movie had Ethan using the NOC list, a database of all undercover CIA operatives, as bait to lure out the shadowy villain and clear his own name. Since then, MacGuffins in the film series have ranged from artificial contagions to nuclear devices, all posed to shift the balance of power in the free world. Each of these plot devices give Ethan a tangible target to obtain, often with an accompanying ticking clock component to keep the story moving at a brisk pace.

The IMF team infiltrates a dangerous scenario with an elaborate disguise

The first "Mission: Impossible" movie begins in the vein of many plans from the popular television series, with the IMF team deceiving a target through a set of impressive disguises. Perhaps the most signature gadget from the movies is the Facemaker, a tool capable of creating a hyper-realistic mask modeled after another character's face in a matter of minutes. And while the Facemaker doesn't play a major role in every "Mission: Impossible" movie, the propensity for the IMF team to rely on disguises and impersonations is a franchise staple.

The Facemaker proves key in the first two "Mission: Impossible" movies in helping Ethan outsmart his enemies to save the day. The disguise-crafting device also memorably appears in "Rogue Nation," giving Ethan the time he needs to keep his opponents off-balance. "Ghost Protocol" subverts the expectation to rely on the Facemaker, with the device malfunctioning, though the IMF team scrambles to develop a contingency disguise instead.

Ethan works closely with a femme fatale

In contrast to the much of the James Bond franchise, "Mission: Impossible" has its female characters serve as effective, competent foils to Ethan and integral to the overarching story. From IMF operatives like Zhen Lei (Maggie Q) and Jane Carter (Paula Patton) to arms dealers like Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby), there is no shortage of women who can match skills with Ethan and occasionally surpass him. Ethan has plenty of support from his other teammates staying on the sidelines but these characters, in particular, leave their own mark out on the field.

Given the "Mission: Impossible" franchise's roots in sophisticated spycraft and Cold War paranoia, many of the movies' most memorable women are characters that keep the audience guessing over their true allegiance. Rebecca Ferguson's star-making turn as Ilsa Faust in "Rogue Nation" kept the IMF team rushing just to keep up while uncertain of her loyalty. The first movie's Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) also kept Ethan unsure if he could completely trust her, leading to a heartbreaking turn by the end of the film.

Luther Stickell remains Ethan's only constant companion

Just as the "Mission: Impossible" television series featured a revolving cast based on what skill sets were needed for a particular assignment, the movies' main cast has similarly changed often. However, the only actor that has appeared in every single "Mission: Impossible" film alongside Cruise is Ving Rhames as IMF tech expert Luther Stickell. And as the movie series has continued, Luther has taken on a more proactive role in the IMF, often joining Ethan in the field.

Introduced in the original film as a disavowed IMF operative recruited by Ethan to clear his name and discover a traitor within the IMF's ranks, Luther has been a steady presence ever since. Luther's most minimal role in the series to date is a cameo at the end of "Ghost Protocol" appearing at the end to share a beer with his old friend. Ethan has been regularly joined by Benji and Ilsa for multiple movies but Luther remains the sole constant teammate for Ethan throughout the franchise.

The IMF and its loyalties are under fire

The IMF is established as one of the most effective and confidential intelligence agencies operating for the United States government, boasting an elite team of operatives in a variety of specializations. Despite this vaunted status within the American intelligence community, IMF personnel and partners tend to rogue, including Ethan and his team on occasion. And this legacy of betrayal and countermanding federal authority has become something of a recurring trope for the movies.

The first "Mission: Impossible" film centered on longtime IMF leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) betraying and massacring his own team as he turned into a traitor. 1996 movie's two immediate sequels featured other IMF personnel turning against the American government and their fellow operatives, with Ethan clashing against his old colleagues. Starting with "Ghost Protocol," Ethan and his team tend to be the IMF team that goes against orders, often to save the day on their own terms, bucking IMF leadership and overcoming other double agents.

The IMF's seemingly assured victory is always overturned

Given their high level of expertise and years of experience, victory for the IMF seems virtually guaranteed for the team ... but quickly becomes out of reach. So much of a "Mission: Impossible" movie's opening act is dedicated to meticulous planning and execution to the letter, with each IMF operative demonstrating why they deserve a place on the team. However, even the best-laid plans in every movie are quickly upended by unforeseen complications, leaving the team to scramble.

Many of these reversals of fortune occur with the primary antagonist already anticipating Ethan's next move and responding accordingly. The most gruesome instance of this trope is in the original "Mission: Impossible," with most of the team brutally killed while on a seemingly routine assignment in Prague. Other notable examples are the death of IMF operative Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) in "Mission: Impossible III" and the destruction of the Kremlin in "Ghost Protocol" just as victory appears assured in both incidents.

Tom Cruise is going to absolutely dazzle the audience with a harrowing stunt

While ostensibly about Ethan leading his fellow IMF operatives in precise spycraft around the world, the "Mission: Impossible" franchise has become synonymous with Cruise's escalating stunt work. With Cruise insisting on performing most of his stunt work himself , the movies are now largely a showcase for death-defying spectacle for Cruise to accomplish. The first film began innocuously enough, with Ethan descending by a taut wire to hack into the CIA, but each subsequent movie has upped the ante with its action set pieces.

Though "Mission: Impossible II" featured impressive enough stunts for Cruise to perform, including Cruise rock climbing in the American Southwest, it was "Ghost Protocol" where this emphasis on stunts became noticeable . The fourth "Mission: Impossible" film had Cruise climb the top of the Burj Khalifa, a towering skyscraper in Dubai, precariously sticking to its glass windows during his ascent. "Rogue Nation" and "Fallout" have featured set pieces of their own, from Cruise clinging to the outside of an airplane taking off to a thrilling rooftop chase in London.

A high-octane chase is a guarantee

It just wouldn't be a blockbuster espionage movie if there wasn't a high-speed chase involved and "Mission: Impossible" remains the gold standard for chase sequences in the genre. And like the action set pieces that have come to define the franchise, each "Mission: Impossible" chase relies increasingly on practical effects and high-octane stunts to dazzle audiences. Many of the resulting chases feature Ethan on foot sprinting through streets and across rooftops, and more than one memorable motorcycle chase has figured prominently in the franchise.

Like many of his other stunts, Cruise performs many of the chases himself, including some impressive helicopter piloting . These chases expertly balance showcasing the international locations where they are filmed and keeping audiences' attention riveted to the pursuers on the big screen. The "Mission: Impossible" movies have come a long way from its first movie having a CG helicopter chase a train into a tunnel, and the franchise is all the better for it.

How to Watch the 'Mission: Impossible' Movies in Order (Chronologically and by Release Date)

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch one of the best action franchises of all time.

The Big Picture

• Tom Cruise has been the face of the Mission: Impossible franchise for 25 years, playing the daring and intelligent Ethan Hunt.
• The franchise has released seven films so far, with Mission: Impossible 8 coming in summer of 2025.
• The movies can be watched in either release date order or chronological order, with each installment building upon the previous ones.

Tom Cruise helped revive a franchise in 1996 when he starred in the first Mission: Impossible film as Ethan Hunt, a member of a fictional spy agency called Impossible Missions Force, or IMF. The first film kicked off a successful movie franchise that's run for 25 years, with the number of Mission: Impossible nearing the double digits. The entire series focuses on the daring and intelligent Hunt, and while playing the same character for more than two decades is no small feat, Cruise makes the impossible look easy. While Cruise has been onboard for all of the Mission: Impossible films — seven so far, with the eighth having stopped filming due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike — the other actor who’s been by his side since day one is Ving Rhames , who plays Luther Stickell, an expert hacker at IMF and Hunt’s most trusted friend. Over the years, many great actors like Jon Voight , Philip Seymour Hoffman , and Angela Bassett have had roles in the franchise, whether as allies or antagonists to Hunt.

Thankfully, for anyone wondering how to watch the Mission: Impossible movies in chronological order or by release date, the action spy franchise isn’t as complicated as Hunt’s “impossible” missions. Here’s a straightforward guide.

Editor's Note: This article was updated on November 5, 2023.

Mission: Impossible

An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.

Mission Impossible Movies In Order of Release Date

Here’s every film in the Mission: Impossible movie franchise, in the order they were released in:

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Mission: impossible 2 (2000), mission: impossible iii (2006).

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Mission Impossible Movies in Chronological Order of Events

The timeline of the Mission: Impossible franchise is pretty straightforward, but if you're wondering when Cruise climbed the Burj Khalifa, how many movies Ilsa Faust has been in, or who's been on Ethan Hunt's IMF team the longest, we've got you covered. Here's a breakdown of how to watch the Mission: Impossible films in chronological order and the important details to remember:

Based on the TV series of the same name that ran from 1966 to 1973, Mission: Impossible , the first film in what is now a multi-billion-dollar-earning franchise, takes the original story and turns it on its head. When a whole team of IMF agents is killed during a mission, Cruise’s Hunt is left as the only survivor. Unfortunately, surviving doesn’t do him much good, as IMF, in turn, suspects Hunt of being a mole in the organization and the one responsible for the killings. In order to prove his innocence, Hunt goes on the run in search of the real mole, intent on stopping them before they do any more damage. Along with Cruise and Rhames, Mission: Impossible also stars Voigt as Jim Phelps, one of the original series’s characters, Vanessa Redgrave as an arms dealer named Max, as well as Kristin Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez as other major characters. Directed by Brian De Palma , the 1996 film is more of a contained, paranoid spy thriller, and ultimately, the franchise goes above and beyond the first film’s story and action sequences, but Mission: Impossible will always be the one that started it all.

Released four years after the first film, Mission: Impossible 2 , directed by John Woo, features the return of Hunt and the IMF, as Hunt is tasked with finding and disposing of a biochemical weapon called “Chimera.” The villain of this mission is a former IMF agent named Sean Ambrose, played by Dougray Scott . Other new additions to the cast are Thandiwe Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall, Ambrose’s ex-girlfriend who helps Hunt accomplish his task, as well as Brendan Gleeson as John C. McCloy, the CEO of Biocyte, the company that creates both the Chimera weapon and its antidote, “Bellerophon.” Ambrose aims to start a pandemic so that he can earn billions of dollars by selling the antidote, and Hunt and Nyah must secure the virus before it’s too late. The second film in the Mission: Impossible franchise ups the ante, with Hunt traveling all the way to Sydney, Australia to chase down Ambrose, and the action sequences are jam-packed in typical Woo fashion .

The third film in the Mission: Impossible franchise took a really long time to be released, with six years between 2000’s Mission: Impossible 2 and 2006’s Mission: Impossible III . The third outing for IMF agent Hunt introduces two more key characters to the story — Michelle Monaghan as Hunt's fiancée, Julia Meade, and Simon Pegg ’s Benji Dunn, an IMF technician and trusted teammate of Hunt’s. In Mission: Impossible III , Hunt attempts to retire from fieldwork and settle down with Julia, but the organization can’t seem to let him go. He is called in to rescue a kidnapped agent and stop an arms dealer named Owen Davian ( Seymour Hoffman ) from receiving a dangerous MacGuffin called the “Rabbit’s Foot.” All the while, Hunt tries to keep the secret of his real job from Julie, but despite his efforts, she gets dragged into danger anyway. Directed by J.J. Abrams , the third Mission: Impossible film also features many other fantastic actors, including Laurence Fishburne , Keri Russell , and Billy Crudup .

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

In the new decade, this is where the action franchise really hits its stride. The first Mission: Impossible film to have a subtitle, 2011’s Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol does not disappoint. After a mission goes terribly wrong, ending with the Kremlin blowing up, the U.S. government disavows IMF in what is known as the “Ghost Protocol,” leaving Hunt and his team alone and without backup. Along with Cruise, Rhames, Pegg, and Monaghan, the fourth Mission: Impossible film also stars Jeremy Renner , Paula Patton , Michael Nyqvist , and Léa Seydoux . While Hunt’s previous missions have involved traitor agents and virus weapons, this particular adventure features Hunt working to prevent a nuclear war. The stakes are higher than ever, and Hunt must overcome both physical and emotional hardships in order to do his job and save the world. The Iron Giant and Incredibles director Brad Bird made his live-action debut with Ghost Protocol , and the film is a major step up from the previous three, escalating the action set-pieces (most notably, Cruise's instantly iconic climb up the Burj Khalifa ) and introducing a more ensemble-driven approach the franchise is still embracing today.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Enter Rebecca Ferguson . Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible series that never seems to stop. Alongside Alec Baldwin , Sean Harris , and Tom Hollander , this movie marks the first appearance of Ferguson's Ilsa Faust , an MI6 agent who encounters Hunt while undercover in the Syndicate crime organization; an international group of spies who went rogue. Ferguson’s character is definitely one of the most complicated of the series so far, and she adds new life and intrigue to the franchise. After Hunt is captured by the Syndicate, led by Harris’s character Solomon Lane, he is tortured for information and later escapes with Faust’s help. The Syndicate’s main goal is to reconstruct the world order through a series of violent terrorist attacks, and of course, Hunt gets blamed for the crimes, leaving him constantly on the run. It’s an age-old story. Hunt gets involved with a huge conspiracy then gets framed and must go on the run, relying on his amazing skills as an agent to take the Syndicate down before they can complete their plan. Considering that this formula has gotten the franchise this far, there’s really no reason to change it up, but director Christopher McQuarrie makes it feel fresh and new with extraordinary stunts and a deeper interest in Hunt as a character. It's no wonder that he's the only filmmaker to date to stick with the franchise for multiple sequels.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Mission: Impossible - Fallout follows Hunt, Faust, and the rest of Hunt's now-familiar team as they work to stop what’s left of the Syndicate. The organization has reformed as the Apostles, led by an unknown figure known as John Lark. After a mission to secure stolen plutonium cores doesn’t go well, Angela Bassett, finally joining the franchise as CIA Director Erika Sloane, assigns Henry Cavill ’s August Walker to oversee Hunt’s future missions. Meanwhile, an arms dealer named Alanna Mitsopolis, or the White Widow (a new character played by Vanessa Kirby ) causes trouble for Hunt and the IMF by stealing the plutonium to make a deal. According to Mitsopolis’s offer, Hunt must secure Lane (the villain from the previous movie) and deliver him to MI6, and she will give him the plutonium cores for the CIA and IMF. Of course, very little goes according to plan, as Hunt discovers that the person known as Lark is closer than he thought. Set two years after Rogue Nation , the two films’ plots are heavily intertwined, so it’s best to watch them together if you can.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

The latest chapter of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One features even bigger stunts than ever before and adds a host of exciting new cast members, including Hayley Atwell , Pom Klementieff , Shea Whigham, Esai Morales , Indira Varma , Cary Elwes , and Mark Gatiss , among others. Christopher McQuarrie once again wrote and directed the movie and will be doing the same for MIssion: Impossible 8 . The film introduces a new threat involving a familiar face, an organization known as the Community. It is by far the biggest film in the series, both in terms of cast and scope.

What's Next?

With every new installment, the Mission: Impossible franchise gets better and better. And while Dead Reckoning Part One may just be the best it's ever been, Cruise and McQuarrie will be looking to top that with Mission: Impossible 8 . However, the film has been delayed multiple times and has undergone a quiet name change. As of now, the eighth part of Ethan Hunt's story is set to premiere on Memorial Day, May 23, 2025.

Watch the Mission: Impossible franchise on Paramount+ in the U.S.

The 10 Best 'Mission: Impossible' Gadgets

These are the gadgets that the made the impossible...possible.

In the 22 years since the Tom Cruise first became Ethan Hunt, Mission: Impossible has proven it can hang tough with the best action franchises out there. The formula just works: a short prologue, a great theme, a self-destructing message, an inscrutable plot loaded with crosses and double-crosses, death-defying stunts, and yes, high tech gadgets that border on science fiction.

The sixth entry, Mission: Impossible–Fallout , executes that formula flawlessly. Before the film hits theaters this Friday, we took some time to revel in some of our favorite gadgets from the Mission: Impossible films.

The World's Greatest Comms

In the earlier Mission: Impossible films, you'd often see an IMF team member slip a tiny gewgaw in their ear and do a comms check(or even use a phone, like in the pic above).

By the time we get to Fallout that added step of verisimilitude is gone. Ethan (Cruise), Benjy (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames) and Isla (Rebecca Ferguson) are always in radio contact with one another, even though we don't see any gadget whatsoever.

No matter how much running, jumping, fighting or climbing is going on, whatever miraculous directional microphone is buried inside our heroes' ear canal can somehow pick up the conversation. Most of the tech in this series is something I would never actually use day-to-day but, man, I'd really like to get my hands on whatever comms system they have.

One of the most suspenseful sequences in any Mission: Impossible film is the opera house assassination attempt in Rogue Nation . Ethan is watching Isla (our introduction to Rebecca Ferguson), but he's also watching a guy backstage who transforms his flute into a high powered, sighted, and silenced rifle. And not just any flute, a weird-looking bass flute!

As the killer waits for a high A in the “Nessun Dorma” aria from Puccini's “Turnadot,” Ethan conducts himself in the most instrumental way: beating the crap out of the shooter. It's not the most futuristic gadget in the franchise, but it's certainly the most classical.

Exploding Gum

The silliest piece of tech is the scene-stealing exploding gum. It comes in an inauspicious silver wrapper, but if you mush the red and the green side together, blammo! Ethan uses this early in the first Mission: Impossible to escape the IMF director convinced Ethan is a mole by throwing the chewy weapon at a giant restaurant fish tank.

It sounds crazy, but Tom Cruise looks fabulous diving out a window amidst proto-sushi. His second stick appears at the big finish, slapping it against a helicopter that is hitched to a train as all zoom through the Channel Tunnel at high speeds.

Shazam for Faces

Ghost Protocol opens up with an IMF agent on the run from baddies in Budapest. After he leaps from a building (tossing a tiny contraption that manages to blow up into a humongous air mattress in about one second) he sees a woman, and then a warning on his phone: assassin.

Later we catch a flashback and see how one of his contact lenses has a mechanism that scans faces, then sends these images to some sort of database. Thus, he is able to find his mark at a crowded train station.

Orange, Metal-Eating Foam

Mission: Impossible III features an outstanding action sequence on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a 23-mile crossing that is exciting enough without nefarious henchmen shooting rockets at you.

Ethan Hunt has the ruthless black market trader Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) shackled up inside an armored transport vehicle. Davian's posse comes to rescue him, but when the moment strikes, a bunch of goons approach the side of the van and…spray it with something.

A moment later the metal shatters like glass and the bad guy gets away. It's never said what this miracle orange goop is but it's one of the great visual moments of the series.

Optical Camouflage Screen

When Ethan and Benjy sneak into the Kremilin in Ghost Protocol they need to slip right past the nose of a guard. It's a bit of a throwback to the famous “dangle” sequence from the first film, where a drop of sweat would set off an alarm inside CIA Headquarters, but no one thought to put a security camera in there. Anyway, the trick here is a movable screen that creates a false 3D projection.

Importantly it tracks the eyes of anyone looking at it to keep the perspective correct, which becomes a problem when additional people enter the hallway. The effect in exhilarating, but a little paranoia-inducing. Next time you ever think you are alone, double-check to make sure there aren't some jokers making faces at you behind some sort of plane of invisibility.

Climbing Gloves

Ghost Protocol also features one the series' best stunts: Ethan Hunt swinging along the side of Dubai's 163 story Burj Khalifa skyscraper. Yes, that's really Tom Cruise and, yes, he's got some cables holding him up that are removed by movie magic, but that probably doesn't reduce the pants-wetting factor as much as we'd like to think.

In the movie, though, Ethan Hunt is doing his human fly bit thanks to some high-tech gloves that stick to window panes. “Blue is glue, red is dead” he's told, and then, for some reason, one of the gloves does turn red. Why? Well, because it's great to see Tom Cruise figure out how to save himself a mile up in the air, that's why. But for the few moments when the gloves work, they are the sleekest accouterments Hunt's ever worn.

Voice Changer

“Playing Halloween” is a key trope in the Mission: Impossible series. Every time someone pulls off one of the highly detailed rubber masks to reveal they are the other guy, it's a thrill.

In Mission: Impossible 2 the impersonation game steps up a notch to include not just the look but the sound. A little appliance that sticks over the larynx is all you need to change your voice to that of your mark.

The masks are a pivotal part of this beloved series, but it isn't until the third film that we get to really dig in and see how the process works. A 3D printer (which becomes considerably more portable by entry number 6) is shown shaving and painting away to create a new version of Philip Seymour Hoffman's head.

It takes some suspension of disbelief to make the leap from what's clearly a disguise to, you know, another actor, but some tricky editing and smooth visual effects transitions always gets the job done. Between the voice changer and the mask maker, anyone can be anyone.

Remote Control Car

Something a smidge more believable happens at the beginning of Fallout . Ethan, Luther and Benjy are in a jam, and they need to get moving fast. Benjy whips out a very small tablet (perhaps even a phablet) and, as if he were playing Need For Speed on mobile, his snazzy vehicle races over with just the twirl of his thumbs.

A lovely grace note: Ethan reminds him to open the doors, which he does with a little poke. With the Internet of Things already changing climate controls and radio stations in vehicles, driving the damn thing can't be too far off.

Bonus: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

There is no technological wonder as extraordinary as the 56 year-old action star known to the world as Tom Cruise. While not exactly a slouch of a thespian (see Magnolia or Jerry Maguire ), the Mission: Impossible films are not really about great acting. They are about movement and propulsion and, in the case of Cruise, doing absolutely bonkers stunts.

Throughout the franchise, he's dangled in the CIA's Headquarters, rock climbed in Moab, leapt on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, swung around on the world's tallest building, and hung on the wing of an airplane in mid-flight.

And in Fallout he takes a HALO jump and, later, is flying a helicopter himself. Tom Cruise is the clutch piece of machinery for this franchise, and he hasn't glitched once.

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The 14 Best Lines In The Mission: Impossible Series

Contains spoilers for "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One"

When you think of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, there's a good chance your mind goes to stunt work. While death-defying stunts weren't always a part of the series' DNA — the first film's  bullet train sequence  relies heavily on CGI — they've now become synonyms with both Tom Cruise and the property as a whole. While action is the name of the game for IMF members, there's one aspect of "Mission: Impossible" that often gets overlooked: the dialogue.

Sure, the lines uttered by Ethan Hunt and his team are no Shakespeare, but they do have a goofy brilliance to them. Though Ethan's a pretty serious guy, he's not opposed to the occasional quip when the time is right. For badass heroes like him, attitude is just as important as skills, and the fact that Cruise delivers these lines with the utmost sincerity doesn't hurt.

Ethan's teammates — and his enemies — also have their fair share of memorable retorts. When you have a supporting cast that includes stars like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, and Angela Bassett, how could you not offer them something good to chew on? There's plenty to enjoy about the franchise, and we're here to give these terrific quotes some love. Here are the best lines in the "Mission: Impossible" series.

Kittridge, you've never seen me very upset (Mission: Impossible)

The first "Mission: Impossible" film — directed by cinema legend Brian De Palma — begins with a mission that goes terribly wrong. Ethan and his team travel to Prague to retrieve an important list. Things don't go to plan, and Ethan's entire team (or so he thinks) is killed. What he learns shortly thereafter is that the mission was a trap intended to weed out a mole within the IMF. With Ethan the only survivor, his boss, Kittridge (Henry Czerny), concludes that he must be the mole.

Kittridge confronts Ethan with this information in a glass-fronted restaurant filled with IMF agents, mistakenly believing he has Ethan cornered. When Kittridge condescendingly tells Ethan that he seems upset, Ethan responds, "Kittridge, you've never seen me very upset." Ethan is shaking with anger at this point, and it's clear Kittridge has underestimated his opponent. Ethan uses a special explosive gum his dearly departed friend Jack (Emilio Estevez) had given him earlier in the film to make his escape, destroying a huge fish tank in the process.

Cruise's performance in the scene is quite good, and this line reading is no exception. His snarling grimace tells us just how dangerous he can be — as if his combat skills weren't evidence enough. It's true Ethan generally keeps a cool head under pressure, and this witty quote perfectly encapsulates his character and is a harbinger of things to come.

Well, this is not mission difficult, Mr. Hunt, it's mission impossible. (Mission: Impossible II)

Once you learn that IMF literally stands for "Impossible Missions Force," it becomes obvious that a certain amount of absurdity is central to the franchise. Though the IMF is supposedly the only thing keeping the world from falling into total chaos, its members can't help but be a little silly. Case in point: "Mission: Impossible II," which is arguably the worst film in the series, but has its moments.

One of the best aspects of "Mission: Impossible II" is the inclusion of the great Anthony Hopkins, who has an uncredited role as Ethan's boss, Commander Swanbeck. Sadly, Hopkins doesn't have much to do in the film apart from giving Ethan his mission — which involves stealing a deadly virus from a group of terrorists — but he makes the most of his screen time. The most chuckle-worthy line in the film comes when Ethan questions the mission's difficulty. "Well, this is not mission difficult, Mr. Hunt, it's mission impossible," Swanbeck responds.

It's a goofy line, sure, but it's a treat to watch Sir Anthony Hopkins try his hand at this kind of campy action nonsense. Obviously, the mission is not truly impossible because Ethan saves the day (and the girl), but we're grateful to Hopkins for giving us the series' one and only title drop.

Now I'm out (Mission: Impossible III)

One of many "Mission: Impossible" characters gone too soon — we're looking at you, Emilio Estevez — Keri Russell took a brief foray into the IMF in "Mission: Impossible III." She plays Lindsey Farris, a young agent Ethan trained who has been captured. Lindsey sadly dies due to an explosive device put inside her head, but not before Ethan does everything in his power to save her.

Ethan frees Lindsey from where she's being held, but they still have a warehouse full of armed men to contend with. After Ethan injects Lindsey with an adrenaline shot, the dynamic duo fights off the gunmen with graceful synchronicity. When Lindsey runs out of ammo, she asks Ethan how much he has left. "Enough," he replies. It turns out he only has one bullet left, which he uses to blow the remaining goon out of the window. "Now I'm out," he grunts.

The scene is a beautiful example of what makes Ethan an impressive agent. He can do a lot with very little and can always pivot if things don't go his way. The "Now I'm out" line reminds us why we love Ethan so much — he defeats his enemies with panache.

Humpty dumpty sat on a wall (Mission: Impossible III)

Every "Mission: Impossible" movie includes at least one brief line or moment that is totally absurd. The best of these are not sequences that make us roll our eyes but instead make us laugh in sheer delight. You might miss one of the greatest comedic moments in franchise history if you aren't paying attention, but luckily we are. In "Mission: Impossible III," Ethan and his team travel to the Vatican to capture a notorious arms dealer played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. To get into the Vatican, Ethan must do something he is very good at — scale a wall.

Climbing up and down walls is an old hat for Ethan, and he does it with ease. But what's so great about this scene is not Ethan's climbing skills but what he says when he completes the task. The iconic theme concludes just as Ethan reaches the top, then he looks almost directly into the camera and declares: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall."

Only Tom Cruise could deliver this line in a way that is both hilarious and sounds believably like something Ethan would say after scaling a wall. It's a triumph of adventurous whimsy, and moments like these make the series what it is.

I'm going to die unless you kill me (Mission: Impossible III)

Following an infatuation with his boss's wife in the first film and an ill-fitting romance with Thandiwe Newton in the second, Ethan finally finds someone he's compatible with in "Mission: Impossible III." Ethan and Julia (Michelle Monaghan) have a speedy wedding before Ethan jets away on his mission, and she's on his mind the entire time.

As it turns out, Ethan is right to worry about getting back home to his new wife. His target for this mission, Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is extremely pissed at Ethan for hanging him out of an airplane, so he kidnaps Julia as revenge. He also implants an electrical charge in Ethan's head — the same one that killed Lindsey at the start of the film.

By the time he finds Julia, the device in his head is just moments from going off. Luckily, Julia is a nurse and knows how to use a defibrillator. Ethan quickly explains to Julia what's going on and tells her, "I'm going to die unless you kill me." She gamely electrocutes him to death and back to life, shooting the traitorous Musgrave (Billy Crudup) in the interim. It's an oddly romantic line for a couple who are far from average, and as far as Ethan-isms go, it's an especially pithy one. How else do you explain to the woman you love what she needs to do to save your life?

Mission accomplished (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)

Though Tom Cruise utters his fair share of comical catchphrases throughout the "Mission: Impossible" series, none are as on the nose as one of the climactic lines in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol." During a mission in Russia, Ethan and the team are blamed for a deadly terrorist attack on the Kremlin. The entire IMF is disavowed and the remaining agents set out to stop a dangerous group led by Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist). After scaling the Burj Khalifa — just another work day for Tom Cruise — Ethan has one final showdown with Hendricks inside an automated parking garage.

Ethan falls several floors and almost certainly breaks several bones, but not before disabling Hendrick's nuclear missile just moments before detonation. Ethan can hardly move at this point, but he still has time to mutter two fateful words: "Mission accomplished." It's the kind of line that can only be spoken once without becoming totally hokey, and Cruise chooses his moment perfectly.

Not in the plane, on the plane (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)

Every "Mission: Impossible" film ramps up the stakes higher and higher, and the fifth film in the series, "Rogue Nation," includes several jaw-dropping stunts . One of these involves Tom Cruise on top of a moving plane . Yes, you read that right, on top of a plane. The other characters in the film are just as shocked by Ethan's antics as the audience is, leading to one of the film's most amusing lines.

One of the most thrilling sequences in "Rogue Nation" comes right at the beginning, in case viewers forgot what movie they were watching. Ethan and the team are on a mission to intercept a cargo plane in Belarus. Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) fail to hack the plane's system, so Ethan takes matters into his own hands — literally. He grabs hold of the plane as it's about to take off and asks Benji if he can open the doors. "How'd you get in the plane?" Benji asks. "Not in the plane, on the plane," Ethan responds.

Benji looks up from his computer to see Ethan dangling off an Airbus 400, and he's so astonished he briefly forgets what Ethan's asked him to do. Meanwhile, Ethan is still hanging off the plane as it reaches altitude, and he has to hang on even longer when Benji opens the wrong door. It's an incredible set piece to open the film, and Ethan's frustrated declaration about what he's doing is the cherry on top.

Shoes please (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)

"Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" gave fans one of the greatest gifts the franchise has seen: the addition of Ilsa Faust, played by the lethal Rebecca Ferguson. An MI6 agent with a mysterious past, Ilsa's obligations to her employer complicate her relationship with Ethan. They have their second meeting at the Vienna State Opera, where Ilsa — in a striking yellow dress — has been sent to assassinate the Austrian Chancellor. Ethan stops the assassination, of course, but this puts Ilsa in a spot of trouble, as she is attempting to infiltrate the Syndicate.

As they try to evade the men with guns, Ethan and Ilsa find themselves on the opera house's roof. Ethan's plan to escape involves a rope and a very long repel, and Ilsa is willing to follow him as long as she can make one minor wardrobe adjustment. As they prepare to jump down to the lower part of the roof, Ilsa makes her request. "Shoes," she tells Ethan. When he looks at her in confusion, she repeats herself. "Shoes, please." Ethan quickly removes her strappy stilettos so they can make their exit.

The "Mission: Impossible" films move at such a quick pace, and small, quippy moments like these make all the difference. It's a delight to see Ethan look out of his element for once as he removes a woman's high heels. The line also tells us a lot about Ilsa, who Ferguson calls "a practical character." As the famous quote goes, Rebecca Ferguson can do everything Tom Cruise does — backward and in high heels. But barefoot will do too.

Sir, Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny -- and he has made you his mission (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)

Poetic may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of Alec Baldwin, but he does have the honor of speaking one of the most eloquent lines in "Mission: Impossible" history. Baldwin plays Alan Hunley, a character who appears initially as an antagonist in "Rogue Nation." As CIA director, Hunley has a bone to pick with the IMF and becomes convinced Ethan made up the Syndicate in order to exercise his only political agenda. He eventually comes around to Ethan's point of view, but not before Ethan pulls a few snazzy tricks.

Ethan and the IMF team learn that the Syndicate is after the British Prime Minister, so Ethan impersonates MI6 Chief Atlee (Simon McBurney) to get a one-on-one with the PM. Hunley is also in the room, and he gives a rousing speech about Ethan's unique abilities, warning the Prime Minister not to underestimate him. "Sir, Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny — and he has made you his mission," Hunley concludes.

The sentiment is beautifully put, and Hunley is correct in his assessment of Ethan. There is nothing Ethan can't do — if he puts his mind to something, it will happen. The performance elevates what is already a clever and well-written line. If you're a connoisseur of Baldwin's work, you know the man has a way of annunciating like no other. Every word becomes staccato and multi-syllabic in his mouth. The speech is quite theatrical, and it becomes even more so when Ethan rips off his mask and reveals he's been listening to the whole thing.

I am the storm (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)

Ethan Hunt may be the most impressive secret agent the world has ever seen, but he's a pretty humble guy, all things considered. Sure, he occasionally mutters a witty quip here and there, but he mainly stays focused on the job at hand. In "Mission: Impossible — Fallout," writer-slash-director Christopher McQuarrie came up with a brilliant way to get Tom Cruise to deliver a stirring line without feeling cheesy or forced.

"Fallout" opens with Ethan having a terrible dream involving his former wife, Julia, before getting into the meat of the film. Ethan's first order of business is to pick up a mysterious package. In order to receive the package, he must recite a secret password. "Fate whispers to the warrior — you cannot withstand the storm — and the warrior whispers back — I am the storm."

There's something spine-tingling about watching Ethan standing in a dark alley in the rain whispering "I am the storm." Ethan would never say something like that in regular conversation, which is why it was smart to write it into the script in that way. Despite its considerable length, "Fallout" has no wasted moments. This sequence sets the tone for the entire film and serves as a succinct synopsis of Ethan's impenetrable resolve.

That's the job (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)

The "Mission: Impossible" franchise has included many great actors over the years who have added poise and power to the series. The biggest get in "Fallout" is the great Angela Bassett, who brings her unparalleled gravitas to the role of CIA Director Erika Sloane. Sloane doesn't trust Ethan and the rest of the IMF, so she brings along her right-hand man, Walker (Henry Cavill, of arm-cocking fame ), to accompany Ethan on his mission. Sloane makes her dislike of Ethan clear, and she reminds Hunley that they wouldn't be in the pickle they're in had Ethan not let go of the plutonium. Hunley counters that Ethan's entire team would be dead if he had done that, to which Sloane responds, "That's the job."

Were Sloane played by any other actor, "That's the job" would be a forgettable, run-of-the-mill line. But this is Angela Bassett we're talking about here, and she delivers the line with total austerity. She pronounces every syllable with perfect elocution while her expressive eyebrows go on their own journey.

Frankly, all of Sloane's lines are delightful in large part because Bassett is the one speaking them. Earlier in the scene, she calls the IMF "Halloween" and describes the agents as grown men "playing trick-or-treat." Later, she declares: "You use a scalpel. I prefer a hammer." The reason "That's the job" clinches a spot on the list is its bare simplicity. It gives Bassett a chance to show us her unmatched command of a script in just three words.

We'll burn that bridge when we get to it (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)

The IMF is filled with smart, skilled people who are quite capable of making detailed plans. However, when Ethan and his team are around, plans tend to go awry. If we were to describe Ethan's in-the-field modus operandi in a phrase, it would be something like "flying by the seat of his pants." Ethan's strategy is all about acting first and dealing with the consequences later, and there are almost always consequences to his actions.

His spontaneous way of doing things is epitomized in a classic Ethan line in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." Ethan is having a discussion with Walker about the film's big bad, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Ethan is attempting to impersonate a terrorist named John Lark and make nice with the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) by kidnapping Lane, and Walker worries that Lane will spill the beans that Ethan was the one who captured him in the first place. "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it," Ethan responds.

As far as mixed metaphors go, it's a fairly clever one. When it comes to Ethan and his team, there's always another dangerous obstacle — a bridge, if you will — looming in the distance. Ethan has no use for keeping up appearances or maintaining relationships with so-called allies, hence his propensity for burning bridges. It's also a visually evocative metaphor — though it hasn't happened yet, it's easy to imagine Ethan literally burning a bridge in order to complete his mission. While the line may not get an A+ on an English exam, it gets an A+ in our book.

You're playing four-dimensional chess with an algorithm (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One)

Apart from Tom Cruise himself, Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell is the most senior member of Ethan's IMF crew. We first meet Luther in the original "Mission: Impossible" film when Ethan hires him to help pull off the iconic CIA vault heist. Since then, Luther has been a stalwart ally to Ethan, and his unparalleled hacking skills are an essential element in every mission. Unlike his partner in tech, Benji, Luther always remains collected under pressure, and he's probably the most level-headed player on the team.

Rhames delivers all of his lines with utmost cool, which is why we were so excited to hear Luther get such a juicy line in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One." In the franchise's seventh film, Ethan is up against his most dangerous enemy to date: an all-powerful artificial intelligence known as The Entity. Luther sums up how impossible it is to fight The Entity with a pithy description: "Ethan, you're playing four-dimensional chess with an algorithm," he warns.

It's a mouthful of a sentence, but Rhames plays it naturally and with absolute seriousness. Every film in the series has at least one line that highlights just what's at stake with each death-defying mission, and Luther's clever appraisal is one of the best. The quote is also a memorable summation of what it's like to go to war with an AI, a situation that's difficult to wrap one's head around.

Your life will always matter more to me than mine (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One)

Ethan Hunt gets a lot of flack from the intelligence community. They all say he's brash, reckless, and terrible at following orders. It's true that he is always going rogue, but for good reason — none of the other agents care about people like Ethan does. We've known this from the very beginning, but "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" reiterates this fact to an extreme. The film introduces us to Grace (Hayley Atwell), an accomplished thief who gets herself tangled in a deadly game. Though Ethan hardly knows Grace, he puts his life on the line to keep her safe.

One of the film's most poignant moments occurs when Ethan offers Grace the chance to join the team. She worries what it will mean for her future, and questions whether Ethan will really be there to protect her. Ethan, with all the sincerity he has left, tells her "Your life will always matter more to me than mine." It's a heartbreaking line — especially given the tragedy that occurred in the previous scene — and Grace's eyes well up at the sentiment.

We don't know much about Grace or her history, but given the transitory nature of her profession, it's unlikely that she has anyone in her life who's in her corner the way Ethan is. The idea that friends are the most important thing to these characters is emphasized several times throughout, and Ethan's promise to Grace proves how profound that devotion really is.

All of Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" movies, ranked from worst to best

• Tom Cruise has starred in seven "Mission: Impossible" movies since 1992.
• The actor recently reprised his role as Ethan Hunt in 2023's "Dead Reckoning Part One."
• Here are all of the "Mission: Impossible" movies, ranked from worst to best.

7. "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000)

"Mission: Impossible 2" should be given way more love than it gets — mainly because Hong Kong cinema legend John Woo helmed it. Yes, the "Hard Boiled" and "Bullet in the Head" director brought his signature bullet ballet style to the "Mission: Impossible" sequel, with all the slow-motion flair you could ask for.

Is it cheesy? Sure. Does the script need some work? Definitely. Is there any smart subtext or meaning underneath all the action? Absolutely not. This is a peak 2000s action movie, and it knows it. 

"Mission: Impossible 2" is so over the top that once you've made peace with it, it's best to just go along for the ride. Come on, Tom Cruise and Dougray Scott play motorbike chicken with each other before a mid-air tackle sends them both crashing to the ground… What's not to love? It's the type of vehicular chaos that Dominic Toretto would be proud of.

Even so, "Mission: Impossible 2" ranks at the bottom of the bunch.

6. "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" (2011)

The 2011 film "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" takes the franchise into the modern era. It follows Ethan Hunt and his team as they're forced to go on the run when they're framed for bombing the Kremlin.

It quickly becomes a race to stop nuclear strategist Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who wants to start a nuclear war so that only the strongest members of humanity will survive. 

It's this plot that keeps "Ghost Protocol" from ascending the list, because, as spy thrillers go, stopping a nuclear war feels predictable, and the film fails to do anything unique with the premise. Plus, there's nothing particularly extraordinary about Hendricks as a villain.

But generic plot devices aside, the film features some brilliant fights and gripping set pieces. The stand-out moment is when Cruise's hero climbs the Burj Khalifa in Dubai with nothing but sticky gloves and rope.

It's a nail-biting scene, especially when the gloves begin to fail and Hunt must stop himself from tumbling off the side of the building. 

One of the most surprising elements of the film is Jeremy Renner 's William Brandt, a disgraced former agent who's grappling with the guilt of failing Ethan on a former mission. That sub-plot works very well amongst the rest of the action, and it's a clever way of injecting a bit of heart into the mission.

5. "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006)

Two words: JJ Abrams . The "Lost" and "Fringe" creator took to the big screen in 2006 with "Mission: Impossible 3," which takes a mid-noughties approach to the Impossible Mission Force and gives it a brutal edge.

The sequel pits Ethan, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Zhen (Maggie Q), and Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) against nefarious arms dealer Owen Davian, played by the incomparable Phillip Seymour Hoffman .

Part of what elevates "Mission: Impossible 3" from previous films is that it never actually explains what Ethan and the gang are chasing. It's known only by its mysterious codename, the Rabbit's Foot. It could be an infectious disease, a computer virus, a hard drive teeming with currency, or nuclear codes… And that's what makes it so compelling. 

It's also refreshing to see Ethan settled and in love with Michelle Monahan's Julia Meade. What does married life look like for a superspy? How does that complicate his responsibility to save the world? 

The sequel feels very busy, as Abrams packs a lot into a tight two-hour run time. And some beats don't quite work, like Ethan's dynamic with his young mentee Lindsay Farris (played by Keri Russell). But there are some stellar sequences throughout, like the ballistic shoot-out on the bridge — which is an eye-popping piece of action choreography.

4. "Mission: Impossible" (1996)

Taken from the 1966 TV series of the same name, 1996's "Mission: Impossible" introduces Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) as he works for Jim Phelps ( Jon Voight ), the main character from the show. 

It has audiences instantly on their toes when Ethan's entire team, and Phelps, are assassinated by a double agent in the opening — and the hero goes on the run after being framed for their deaths.

"Mission: Impossible" earned itself a place in cinema history thanks to the brilliantly intense break-in scene, where Cruise is suspended on wires while hacking a CIA mainframe computer.

And of course, the high-octane ending on top of the channel tunnel train is a pulse-pounding affair set to the iconic theme music. 

Cruise effortlessly brings Hunt to life alongside top-notch performances from Voight, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ving Rhames , which really help sell the paranoid atmosphere that director Brian De Palma bakes into the adventure.

3. "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" (2015)

"Rogue Nation" is where frequent Tom Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie properly put his stamp on the franchise, and he expands the world in a fascinating way with the introduction of the Syndicate, a vast organization made up of rogue agents from every intelligence agency on the planet.

Their mission (should they choose to accept it) is to create disorder and chaos to destabilize the global intelligence community, although their true goals don't become apparent until 2018's "Mission: Impossible - Fallout." Hunt is determined to root out the Syndicate, and its sinister leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

"Rogue Nation" also introduces Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a murky British agent who has a delicious will-they-won't-they dynamic with Cruise's hero.

A brawl in the rigging above an opera stage in Vienna is a stunning highlight, as is Cruise's dive into a submerged computer program. Cruise actually broke the world record for holding his breath for six minutes while completing that stunt in 2014.

2. "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023)

"Dead Reckoning Part One" sees Hunt's IMF team chasing a key that will lead them to an unstoppable AI that could wreak havoc on the world if left unchecked.

And, of course, every government agency in the world wants to get their hands on it — so Hunt and his team are effectively on the run from everyone. 

"Dead Reckoning's" focus on AI gives it a grounding in the real world, but the film also continues to elevate the sheer scale of action that audiences have come to expect from the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. 

That jaw-dropping mountain jump in the movie's climax has to be seen to be believed, and it only gets more bonkers after that.

It's a testament to Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie that MI films continue to feel fresh and new — even though "Dead Reckoning's" script does drag on at points. 

Then again, audiences are coming to see Cruise throw himself off a mountain, not to hear Oscar-winning dialogue.

Let's hope "Dead Reckoning Part Two" is just as fun.

1. "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" (2018)

There's no question that Christopher McQuarrie's "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is the best movie in the franchise, which is saying something considering it's the sixth outing for Hunt and the gang. 

It continues the Syndicate storyline from "Rogue Nation" and dives further into Solomon Lane's (Sean Harris) world-threatening scheme. He wants to destabilize the world by irradiating the Siachen Glacier, which supplies water to India, Pakistan, and China. This would kill off a third of the world's population and drastically change society in the process.  

But the bulk of the story revolves around a CIA and IMF mole who goes by the codename 'John Lark.'

The hunt to find this rogue agent crosses the world, introducing the likes of Henry Cavill's CIA agent August Walker and Vanessa Kirby's underworld matriarch, Alanna Mitsopolis. 

The scope of McQuarrie's movie is massive, and its huge stunts mirror that size. A gobsmacking scene sees Hunt dive with Walker from a plane and parachute into Paris. Cruise shot the stunt alongside a cameraman to properly capture the chaotic dive . 

Then, of course, there's the film's exhilarating helicopter chase through a New Zealand mountain range — just another example of McQuarrie and Cruise's commitment to filming these stunts in the most jaw-dropping way possible.

"Fallout" is a thrilling chapter of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise that deepens the audience's understanding of Cruise's hero while delivering a stunning cinematic experience.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

• Christopher McQuarrie
• Bruce Geller
• Erik Jendresen
• Hayley Atwell
• Ving Rhames
• 1.4K User reviews
• 357 Critic reviews
• 81 Metascore
• 15 wins & 66 nominations total

• Luther Stickell

• The White Widow

• See all cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The frequent delays caused by COVID-19 ballooned the budget to $291 million, making it the most expensive Mission: Impossible film (surpassing Fallout, $178 million), the most expensive film of Tom Cruise 's career (again surpassing Fallout), and the most expensive film ever produced by Paramount (surpassing Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) , $217 million). The insurance company Chubb originally gave Paramount only £4.4 million (about $5.4 million) for the delays, arguing that the cast and crew could still fulfill their duties to the production despite being infected with COVID-19. Paramount sued Chubb in 2021, and the two companies settled in 2022. In 2023, Chubb gave Paramount a £57 million (about $71 million) payout for the COVID-caused delays, reducing the film's budget to about $220 million, which still makes it the most expensive film for Cruise, Paramount, and the franchise.
• Goofs Steam trains, especially moving at high speeds, need to be continuously provided with fuel, in this case coal. With the engineers killed and the controls opened all the way, the locomotive would have gradually slowed down and come to a halt as the pressure in the boiler dropped. That train would never have reached the bridge for that distance with no coal provided. Since the early 1900s, when firebox coal consumption exceeded the efforts of two men, the trains have used mechanical stokers. The coal would continue feeding without one missing coal shoveler.

[from trailer]

Eugene Kittridge : Your days of fighting for the so-called greater good are over. This is our chance to control the truth. The concepts of right and wrong for everyone for centuries to come. You're fighting to save an ideal that doesn't exist. Never did. You need to pick a side.

• Crazy credits Disclaimer as one of the last entries in the end titles scroll: "The production company would like to make it clear that at no point were vehicles driving on the Spanish Steps. These sequences were filmed at a set on a studio backlot."
• Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Most Anticipated Franchises Returning in 2023 (2023)
• Soundtracks The Mission: Impossible Theme Written by Lalo Schifrin

User reviews 1.4K

• Jul 8, 2023
• How long is Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One? Powered by Alexa
• July 12, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Mission: Impossible 7
• Helsetkopen, Møre og Romsdal, Norway (motorcycle jump)
• Paramount Pictures
• Skydance Media
• TC Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $291,000,000 (estimated)
• $172,135,383
• $54,688,347
• Jul 16, 2023
• $567,535,383

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• Runtime 2 hours 43 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital

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Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Cruise control: An homage to the relentless reliability of 'Mission: Impossible'

Linda Holmes

Tom Cruise returns again (and again, and again, and again) as Ethan Hunt in the latest Mission: Impossible film — Dead Reckoning Part One. Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption

Tom Cruise returns again (and again, and again, and again) as Ethan Hunt in the latest Mission: Impossible film — Dead Reckoning Part One.

More than Marvel or DC, more than Jurassic World , maybe even more than James Bond with its revolving 007s, the Mission: Impossible franchise runs on its ability to meet expectations. Not just any expectations — high expectations. People go in wanting top-flight action, beautiful locations, a modest amount of melancholy character business about Ethan Hunt's mounting personal losses, Tom Cruise doing a lot of his own stunts, and an uncomplicated story in which a bad guy has (or wants) something and a good guy has to go get it. And that's exactly what they get.

And unlike Fast & Furious , this franchise hasn't shape-shifted over and over. It has remained remarkably stable at its core, despite taking several films to settle on writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and changing up the women in Hunt's life every movie or two.

'Mission: Impossible' is back, but will you accept it, or will it self-destruct?

It is axiomatic even within this universe that the idea of the government's underground "Impossible Mission Force" is absurd; the films have even started having characters comment on it. It also seems unlikely that Hunt would be forever on the edge of being disowned and deemed a traitor, given that no human being has ever been forced to demonstrate his trustworthiness so many times. If there were really a spy like Hunt — he flies helicopters! he climbs skyscrapers! he does close-up magic! — you have to assume he would be popular with spy leadership instead of constantly seeming like he's at risk of a negative performance review. But these things are utterly unimportant, because I know them going in, and the fact that they make no sense (and repeat over and over) is a given.

In fact, I'm not sure anything has ever really surprised me in one of these movies, which might seem contradictory given that they are, in part, "thrillers." By the time an M:I guy who has seemed to be a good guy is revealed as a stealth bad guy, you've probably spent a good amount of time thinking, "Who's the stealth bad guy in this movie? Oh, I bet it's him." There don't tend to be complex motivations behind any of what happens; the villains are generally just kind of international dirtbags who have something they shouldn't. A list, a bioweapon (twice!), some launch codes, some data and of course, the sentimental favorite: big shiny balls of plutonium. In the case of the new installment Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , the battle is over two halves of a key that, in some gauzily defined way, can be combined to stop a godlike AI spoken of only as ... The Entity.

This all probably sounds like criticism, and it emphatically is not. Talking about the predictability or thinness of a story in a Mission: Impossible movie is like talking about the nutrition information on a box of Pop-Tarts — if you were focused on this aspect of the thing you are about to consume, you would have chosen something else. The story of The Entity is somehow vague and overexplained, not to mention unpleasantly adjacent to a kind of "tech as replacement for an all-knowing God" attitude that the movie doesn't actually care about, and that it doesn't really give the audience much reason to care about either. And that turns out to be completely fine.

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One . Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One .

Because what Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One cares about is jumping a motorcycle off a mountain and then creating, though its marketing, an entire sub-narrative about the 60+ action star who trained to do the stunt himself and shot it on day one so they wouldn't waste any money if he died . What it cares about is a train dangling from a mountain. A car chase that is as witty and inventive as any you'll see anywhere. A fabulous race through an airport full of glass walls. Refreshing the cast with a woman as charming as Hayley Atwell, who is wonderfully entertaining as a scrappy pickpocket named Grace. Relying on Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, as Benji and Luther, to anchor the Impossible Mission Force team.

Movie Reviews

Tom cruise hangs on for dear life to his 'mission' to save the movies.

The biggest problem (if there is one) with Dead Reckoning is not its story, per se, but how much time it spends explaining it. It's worth noting that, as with action blockbusters generally, these films have gotten longer ... and longer ... and longer. At around two hours and 45 minutes, Dead Reckoning is roughly an hour longer than the original Mission: Impossible . It tries heroically to avoid dragging by featuring such genuinely exciting and inventive action sequences. But two hours and 45 minutes is a long time to sit in a seat having your needs met, and every time the film slows down to discuss (1) The Entity (a term that sounds sillier and sillier with repetition), (2) the keys, where they've been, and what they may open, or (3) the entire concept of a godlike AI and what it might be able to do, it gets a little ... well, fast-forwardable for future home viewers.

But again, this is what one expects. It is film as both exquisitely crafted entertainment and ruthless consumerism, fulfilling the order made at the counter with the certainty of fast-food fries that will always be the same – and will always be good.

There is some cost to this. For whatever reason, Mission: Impossible avoids the questions that are so often asked about Marvel movies in particular, about what Ryan Coogler or Chloé Zhao would be doing if they weren't making superhero movies, or about what the actors would be doing if they weren't tied into these franchises for years. Tom Cruise has mostly stopped doing the more intimate projects in comedy and drama that he did earlier in his career; he's a three-time acting Oscar nominee who pretty much does just action blockbusters now. He seems thrilled and delighted to be in this half-actor half-stuntman lane, and at 61, that's certainly his right. But there doesn't seem to be, for instance, another Magnolia in his future.

I do worry that having one's expectations precisely met – neither exceeded nor even simply upended – is becoming the only way to get people into theaters. Yes, perhaps we will take a risk for something at home that we can always turn off if we don't like it. But to get audiences to a theater, does a film need to be a sequel or a piece of IP or a franchise like this that delivers and satisfies, as neatly as a bed with hospital corners? There are signs that we're not quite there yet; Everything Everywhere All at Once did great, for instance, and an expectation-meeter it was not. But I worry about the longer-term difficulty of getting people into theaters to see something more ... well, more weird (not that all the Entity talk doesn't get a little weird).

Seeing a movie that is so very good at doing what it promises drives home that point that it takes both movies that do what they promise and movies that do something you couldn't have anticipated to make up an industry that thrives.

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Can Tom Cruise get audiences to care about Mission: Impossible 8?

The underwhelming box office of the seventh instalment has now been followed by a year-long delay for the next chapter

S ince 1996, the Mission: Impossible franchise has put Tom Cruise through the wringer. He’s scaled skyscrapers. He’s leapt out of planes. He’s broken bones. He did whatever the hell it was that Mission: Impossible II was about. And yet, despite this pathological desire to risk life and limb in the pursuit of mass entertainment, it’s starting to look like Cruise’s most difficult job yet will be to get anyone to see Mission: Impossible 8.

The most recent Mission: Impossible film, this summer’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , did not exactly proceed as anticipated. The movie was initially slated for release in 2021, only for Covid to shut down production twice. And then, when it did eventually make it to screen, people stayed away in bafflingly large numbers. Despite being a critically acclaimed orgy of giddy set pieces, the film struggled at the box office. As things stand, Dead Reckoning Part One is the second lowest-grossing entry in the franchise after 2006’s Mission: Impossible III, earning almost $50m less than 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. All in all, Paramount looks set to lose about $100m on the film .

And now, to make matters worse, the next one is going to be delayed as well . Although the plan was to release it one year after Part One, the effects of the Sag-Aftra strike have caused Paramount to shunt the film back. It will now be released on 23 May 2025. That is unless anything else goes wrong before that, which at this rate almost certainly will.

The task now facing Mission: Impossible 8 is, well, extremely difficult. Dead Reckoning Part Two isn’t just a normal M:I film, but a direct sequel that was made in the retrospectively wrongheaded belief that everyone would go bananas over its predecessor. And even the few people who did see that film will have waited so long for its sequel that they will have probably forgotten what actually happened in it. Not to be a downer, but at this rate you shouldn’t be surprised if Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two ends up making even less money than Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One .

So now the question is what Mission: Impossible can do to reverse its fading fortunes? Obviously, my suggestion would be to do nothing at all. For those who saw it, Dead Reckoning Part One was likely to be one of the most intense cinematic experiences of their lives. It’s a relentless pounding of a film that exists purely to give a modern action audience what it wants in greater quantities than it can possibly handle. It is a magnificent film – one of the best in the series, even – and I would argue that its failure is more a symptom of the death of theatrical cinema than a rebuke against the quality of the film itself. My advice would always be for the franchise to keep doing exactly what it’s been doing, in the knowledge that its long-term legacy will outweigh contemporary gripes.

But I said that when it came out, and everyone stayed at home anyway, so it just goes to show what I know. So maybe Mission: Impossible does need to course-correct a little to remind audiences what they’re missing. We could, of course, start with the obvious. Saying (and typing) “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is an almighty pain in the bum, and the title hints at the sort of bloat that is bound to affect an almost 30-year-old franchise. Maybe for the next one, just give it a one-word subtitle. Mission: Impossible – Pow, maybe, or Mission: Impossible – Oi.

Also, as much as that video of Tom Cruise jumping off a motorbike on a mountain cheered us all up in the depths of Covid, there might also be a lesson to learn here. Why on earth would any film choose to lead with repeated shots of the film’s biggest stunt being executed? By the time the actual film came out, everyone assumed that they’d already seen the best bit for free on YouTube. Next time, Mission: Impossible should try saving some excitement for the actual film.

Next we should probably look at the films that actually did make money this summer. M:I was far from alone in underperforming, with fellow presumed dead certs like Indiana Jones and The Flash also tanking. The two big shining lights of the summer were Barbie and Oppenheimer. Were they perfect films? No. But they got audiences hyped up beyond all recognition anyway. The day that Barbie came out, for instance, my local cinema was decked out in bright pink, with many of the staff coming to work dressed in Barbie costumes. Is that something that Mission: Impossible could attempt? Would the promise of being shown to your seats by someone dressed as Simon Pegg be enough to turn things around? Actually, probably not.

In the end, Hollywood is an industry ruled by the bottom line. And if the Mission: Impossible films are going to make money again, this can only mean one thing: they need to become a lot cheaper, and fast. There are ways to scrape away at the edges of the budget, of course. They could make the next one in fewer locations, and pare down the cast to its bare bones. But the big money-suck on the Mission: Impossible films are the stunts. I hate to say it, but these might need to be trimmed back. This isn’t the end of the world, though. I firmly believe that you could centre a very good Mission: Impossible movie around a sequence where Tom Cruise gets pushed down a concrete staircase in a shopping trolley. If anyone needs me to write it, I’m right here.

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The new Mission: Impossible movie plays on everyone's fears about AI

The film series has a knack for amplifying the dangers of powerful technologies.

What if artificial intelligence surpassed humans and went on to rule the world? Would we start begging AI to spare our lives?

These are some of the questions that linger in viewers’ minds   after watching the latest edition of the Mission: Impossible series, Dead Reckoning Part One , released on July 10.

The movie’s early popularity helped star Tom Cruise shatter a Rotten Tomatoes record . It also scores points for its timely portrayal of the potential dangers of AI, which is provoking deep anxieties in real life.

In Dead Reckoning , an all-conquering AI tool named “T he Entity” goes rogue. Impenetrable by any human technology or weapon, it can scrub live video feeds, impersonate voices, crack identity security codes — even those using fingerprints — and orchestrate large-scale mayhem. Not surprisingly, governments yearn to possess it, to make themselves more powerful.

Tom Cruise has a warning for AI enthusiasts

Even as AI designers keep warning of its risks , with some saying that AI models can learn skills they weren’t trained for , Mission: Impossible   amplifies worries about the technology, depicting a sentient AI tool capable of mass extermination.

That scenario echoes the concerns of tech industry leaders such as Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder, who recently signed a letter calling for a six-month pause on the training of AI models more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model. The letter, which has more than 33,000 signatures , asks AI innovators to stop “the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models.”

One fear is that a “superintelligent” AI like the Entity could emerge, with disastrous results for humanity. “If it’s much smarter than us, then it can get more of whatever it wants. First, it wants us dead before we build any more superintelligences that might compete with it,” Eliezer Yudkowsky, a co-founder and research fellow at Machine Intelligence Research Institute, wrote in the Guardian . “Second, it’s probably going to want to do things that kill us as a side-effect, such as building so many power plants that run off nuclear fusion.”

The Mission: Impossible catalog of existential threats to humanity

With its AI spin, Dead Reckoning is just the latest Mission: Impossible movie to highlight the hazards of the powerful technology du jour. But it’s worth remembering that, in most cases, our worst fears about them haven’t come to fruition.

H ere’s a roundup of previous Mission: Impossible films, their tech villains, and how those menaces have played out in real life.

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Bloody Tom Cruise sprints through London with wild hair in ‘Mission: Impossible 8’ set photos

It’s impossible not to marvel at his stamina.

Tom Cruise showed off his incredible athleticism in new photos from the set of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” in London on Sunday.

In photos obtained by The Post, Cruise, 61, can be seen sporting shaggy hair and a white shirt drenched in fake blood as he sprints across Westminster Bridge. Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster appear in the background in the action-packed shot.

While little is known about the film, which has been reported to serve as Cruise’s final appearance as Ethan Hunt, it can be assumed that Hunt will be forced to flee some sort of fancy gathering.

In addition to Cruise , several photos were captured of Parliament Square being barricaded off and filled with background actors dressed in army uniforms and helmets.

Many of the extras were spotted carrying prop guns as they milled around several army jeeps waiting for their next take.

Several fences that were put up around the area had various warnings such as “Restricted Area,” “Police security operation” and “Security checkpoint ahead.”

Despite the seriousness of the scene, the “Jerry Maguire” actor — who is well known for doing his own stunts — was spotted laughing and chatting with the crew.

The eighth installment of the “Mission: Impossible” series , which stars Simon Pegg , Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, is set to be released nearly two years after the first part , which was nominated for Best Sound and Visual Effects at the 2024 Oscars .

Despite the rumors that both parts of the film were designed to serve as a send-off to Cruise’s character, director Christopher McQuarrie told the  “Light the Fuse” podcast that fans can’t believe everything they hear.

“Let me tell you, I’ve been working with Tom Cruise for 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been standing next to the man, witnessed an event and then read about it in the trades the next day and none of what they describe is actually true,” McQuarrie, 55, told the podcast.

“Mission: Impossible” is not the only franchise Cruise is reportedly working on at the moment.

According to  Puck News , the action star is also working on a third “Top Gun” film.

The new project would see the return of Cruise’s Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and  “Top Gun: Maverick”  co-stars Miles Teller and Glen Powell. 

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” will hit theaters on May 23, 2025.

Screen Rant

Tom cruise's 14 mission: impossible stunts ranked by most dangerous.

Tom Cruise continues to perform his own dangerous stunts for the Mission: Impossible movies, each death-defying sequence upstaging the last.

Both the Mission: Impossible franchise and its lead actor and producer Tom Cruise have become synonymous with blood-curdling, dangerous stunts. With each new film, Cruise insists on doing his own stunts , taking it upon himself to risk his life in increasingly, treacherous sequences for the quality of the finished product. At this point, Cruise is a bona fide stunt performer whose bravery in dangerous stunts allows the capture of unique moments not seen in other movies.

Luckily, Cruise's training, dedication, and ambition, coupled with experts' guidance, film direction, and stunt coordination make these sequences as safe as possible so that Cruise's stunts can get even bigger. Nonetheless, unpredictable elements and variables and there being nothing Cruise won't do for a Mission: Impossible stunt make them life-threatening. Here are 14 of the most dangerous times Tom Cruise has risked everything to make Mission: Impossible's audience's pulse race.

14 Helicopter-Train Jump in Mission: Impossible

Seemingly shot before Cruise had a death wish, the stunts in Mission: Impossible seem tame compared to that of the franchise's later entries. However, that's not to say there weren't a few perilous moments, and one that stands out is during the film's climax. After tussling with Jon Voight's villain Jim Phelps on top of a TGV bullet train and jumping onto a helicopter that soon explodes, Cruise's Ethan Hunt then jumps back onto the train.

This stunt was filmed on a sound stage in Pinewood Studios using a wind generator firing dangerous winds of 140 mph to emulate the blast. Considering his stunt career trajectory, Cruise was initially reluctant to include the stunt. Therefore, this stunt could be the origin story of his passion for doing his own Mission: Impossible stunts. After completing the jump four times, Cruise was bleeding, bruised, and cut; however, it was a sign of even more danger to come.

13 Cable Drop in Mission: Impossible

One of the most iconic scenes, not only in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but in spy movies, sees Hunt rappel down from the ceiling into a locked-down room. Breaking into Langley, the CIA's headquarters, Hunt is lowered into the room to avoid triggering alarms. As if this weren't dangerous enough, Hunt's wire lifeline is also let go by Franz Kreiger, causing him to plummet to the ground and stop just inches from the floor.

The stunt was all about balance, as Cruise discovered quickly, repeatedly overbalancing and thwacking his head on the floor. Brian De Palma was about to shoot the scene differently when Cruise filled his shoes with pound coins for counterbalance and got the shot. Though this sequence is not one of Cruise's most dangerous stunts, hanging and falling 40 feet from the ceiling for days and repeatedly enduring blows to the head isn't exactly health and safety conscious.

12 Aquarium Explosion in Mission: Impossible

Another entry from the movie that started it all, this stunt involves Cruise outrunning 16 tons of water bursting out of an exploding aquarium. After learning that he's been double-crossed, Hunt makes his escape from his untenable position by throwing a piece of exploding gum at a fish tank in a Prague restaurant. After stunt specialists delivered underwhelming attempts, de Palma grudgingly let Cruise undertake the sequence.

It says something about Cruise's body of stunt work that this one is low down the list. The aquarium sequence was incredibly dangerous when taking into account the water, shattering glass, and miscommunication regarding the exact timing of the stunt. Although Cruise limped away with a hurt ankle (not for the last time), the stunt made for a spectacular scene.

Related: Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked - From The 1996 Original to Fallout

11 Casablanca Bike Chase in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

In a movie with such iconic stunts, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation's bike chase is somewhat eclipsed. The thrilling sequence sees Hunt racing after Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust, first by car and then on a BMW S1000RR motorcycle. Although Hunt's chase is unsuccessful and Faust escapes, this sizzling pursuit around the extreme turns of the Casablanca highway put Cruise's life firmly in danger.

Having started riding motorcycles at the age of 10, it is no surprise that Cruise is keen to use them in his stunts. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie even wrote the script around this motorcycle chase, and it pays off as it injects a high-octane punch brimming with raw danger. Cruise rides up to 130 mph and leans over sometimes just inches from the ground, and all without a helmet.

10 Paris Bike Chase in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Mission: Impossible - Fallout somehow managed to outdo its predecessor's motorcycle chase, but this time Hunt becomes the hunted. For this sequence, Cruise and his fellow biker stunt performers abandoned their safety rigs, meaning that did the whole chase by free riding. All the turns weaving in and out of oncoming traffic and going well above the Parisian speed limits executed by Cruise, were all as dangerous as they look.

Hurtling through the streets at over 100 mph with cars and bikes pursuing and coming at him head-on sounds like enough to deal with, but McQuarrie revealed Mission: Impossible - Fallout's motorcycle chase was more perilous than it seemed. Between numerous automotive variables, slippery wet cobblestones, and cameras seeking close-ups at stomach-turning speeds just inches away from his head, it's amazing Cruise escaped from shooting this sequence without a scratch. Further, a miscommunication problem with the local stunt drivers meant they sometimes failed to hit their mark.

9 Free Climbing Cliffhanger in Mission: Impossible 2

The opening of the franchise's second film establishes that even in Hunt's time off between missions he enjoys getting his heart pumping. It is during some R&R mountain free climbing at Dead Horse Point in Utah that Hunt gets his mission that sets up M ission: Impossible 2 . Despite safety precautions taken by the film's production, it shows what Cruise is made of.

Unlike his adrenaline junkie character, Cruise wore a safety rope throughout the sequence, however, the margin of error was so chillingly slim that even director John Woo had to look away. The only scene where the free climber in the shot isn't Cruise is when Hunt almost slips and tumbles between two cliffs. Other than that, it's really him hanging off the red rocks, 600 feet above a talus slope and a further 2000 feet from the ground. It's a precarious, impressive feat and a great opening sequence.

Related: Every Time Tom Cruise's Hunt "Died" In The Mission: Impossible Series

8 Roof Jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

One of the most famous stunt accidents in recent years, Cruise's ankle break occurred while filming a relatively straightforward stunt in London for Mission: Impossible - Fallout . As he leaps from one building to another, misjudging it horribly, Cruise clatters into the building's side and bends his foot nine ways to Sunday.

Though it might not seem as dangerous as the other stunts on this list, as anyone who has seen the nauseating footage of the injury can attest, this jump looked very painful. It was also an expensive injury, as Cruise was unable to continue filming it halted production for seven weeks and cost the studio $80 million. This was of the few times a Mission: Impossible stunt has gone wrong, and it shows how real the stakes are and that Cruise is, in fact, human.

7 Eye-Watering Knife Fight in Mission: Impossible 2

A similarly disturbing stunt that features in Mission: Impossible 2, and the risk was even higher. During the third-act battle, Dougray Scott's villain Sean Ambrose tries to sink his very sharp knife into Hunt's eye. To ensure maximum realism, Woo wanted Scott to genuinely push down with all of his force onto Cruise's eye. During the stunt, the blade gets as close as a quarter-inch away, Cruise being protected only by a steel cable attached to an overhead rig. Needless to say, if these cables malfunctioned, the consequences could be at the very least life-changing and at the very most life-ending.

6 HALO Jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

The mission in Paris in Mission: Impossible - Fallout begins with a high-altitude low-open jump that goes awry when Henry Cavill's character August Walker's oxygen supply malfunctions. The sequence is breathtaking and its realism is palpable with Cruise's face alight as he exhibits both expert skydiving and high-caliber acting. It's the fruit borne by hard work and sheer nerve in the face of danger, and not just from Cruise.

Falling from 25,000 feet, Cruise, Cavill's stunt double, and a videographer jumped 106 times (including rehearsals) and shot the sequence in three-minute takes, once per day, to ensure the dusk lighting was perfect. The scene is three takes stitched together, each more dangerous than the last. Jumping out of the plane is hazardous enough, and there was a serious risk of colliding with Cavill's double when filming Hunt plummeting to Walker's aid. Finally, during the take in which Hunt saves Walker, Cruise had to judge the height at which to stop providing him oxygen and deploy his parachute.

5 The Airbus Scene In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

During the comic opening scene and plane stunt of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Benji Dunn fails to remotely open the door to let Hunt onto a plane in Minsk, Belarus. This gave Cruise the opportunity to perform a stunt in which he clings to the side of an Airbus A400M plane as it takes off. The scene follows Hunt ascending thousands of feet into the air; as the seconds elapse the danger proliferates.

Considering Cruise was bolted to the plane via a harness, at speeds of 260 mph, birds and debris became the biggest dangers. Indeed, the actor was actually injured by a pebble at high speed. The stunt is even more terrifying considering that, according to McQuarrie, Cruise was wearing earplugs and contact lenses, meaning he couldn't see or hear. Further, the toxic fumes from the engine added potential long-term effects to the mix.

Related: Tom Cruise’s New Cliff Stunt Creates A Big Mission: Impossible 8 Challenge

4 Helicopter Chase in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

During the Mission: Impossible - Fallout helicopter chase stunt , Hunt finds himself on a rope hanging from a moving helicopter, eventually crawling up the rope to fly it and chase Cavill's character. Again, all that stands between Cruise and certain death, as he hangs out of the side of the helicopter, is a harness. That said, what makes this sequence especially dangerous is the proximity to which the two helicopters come to each other.

Cruise piloted the helicopter himself after becoming certified in an unusually accelerated timeframe and training hard for 16 hours per day. Moreover, flying in dim seasonal light Cruise got as close as a few feet from the other helicopter's rotor blades. It was so dangerous that director McQuarrie has said that he wouldn't have begun filming the sequence had he known beforehand what it took to capture.

3 Underwater Heist in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Hunt and his team are tasked with swapping a file in an underwater database. When he fails to open the escape hatch, Faust must come and save him to prevent him from drowning. This extremely dangerous stunt had real stakes; both Cruise and Ferguson risked their lives holding their breaths while exerting themselves, burning through oxygen at a rapid rate.

Cruise's underwater Rogue Nation heist stunt was filmed in a succession of continuous shots, meaning the actors had to train to hold their breath for over six minutes. According to McQuarrie, by the end of the stunt's 10-day shooting schedule, Cruise was spent, with nitrogen in his blood and brain fog so bad that he couldn't memorize his lines. As if this life-threatening sequence weren't enough, Cruise also had to perform a jump off of a 120-foot ledge to get Hunt into the subaqueous security system.

2 Climbing the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

The franchise's most memorable stunt saw Cruise climbing the side of the Burj Khalifa , the tallest building in the world. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Hunt had to 11 floors of the 2,722-foot skyscraper to get to the 130th floor with only adhesive gloves, one of which fails. Though secured with a harness, Cruise actually performed this climb almost half a mile in the air, including the part where he plummeted when the glove failed.

Both the scene and the shoot itself were a race against the clock. It was time sensitive to film, as Cruise's harness was at risk of cutting off the actor's circulation, and it doesn't tend to be easy to breathe at that height. This stunt is the epitome of danger, a truly petrifying feat; nevertheless, the sensational scene speaks for itself.

1 ​​ Motorcycle Jump in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Cruise himself has labeled the marquee motorcycle cliff stunt Mission: Impossible 7 as the greatest in cinema history. It's a stunt he's wanted to perform since he was a child, and is the most dangerous yet. It certainly delivers the wow factor in the film's trailers.

Shot in Norway, the stunt involves Cruise riding his motorcycle off of a cliff, propelling into a nosedive, and deploying a parachute. Cruise performed 13,000 training jumps for the sequence to ensure he could execute it with the precision required. This Evel Knievel-like jump that's been all over the marketing campaign has unquestionably piqued fans' interest in the eagerly anticipated next Mission: Impossible installment.

Sources: The New York Times , The Independent

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Tom Cruise Seen Sprinting Down Street in London as He Shoots Next Mission: Impossible Movie

The eighth 'Mission: Impossible' film, which does not yet have a title, is expected in theaters May 23, 2025

Mega / Dean - Click News And Media / SplashNews.com

Tom Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down in the next Mission: Impossible movie.

On Sunday, Cruise, 61, was seen sprinting down a street in London while filming a scene for the upcoming eighth film in his signature action franchise. The actor could be seen wearing a black suit with a white shirt opened at the top, with fake blood drenched over his chest while filming the sequence.

Cruise most recently appeared as his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt in last year's Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning , which made $172 million at the  domestic box office . Dead Reckoning also earned the franchise its first-ever Academy Award nominations when it received nods for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the recent 96th Oscars ceremony.

A title for the upcoming eighth Mission: Impossible movie has not yet been announced. The next film was originally set for release on June 28, but production delays related to 2023's SAG-AFTRA strike forced the film to restart production in the fall and delay its release until May 23, 2025, as Deadline reported back in October.

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Dead Reckoning left Cruise's character Ethan Hunt and series regulars Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) at odds with villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) and forging new alliances with characters like Grace (Hayley Atwell) over a battle for control over a sentient artificial intelligence.

James Gourley/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

The eighth Mission: Impossible film is just one movie among a number of projects Cruise has in development. In February, PEOPLE confirmed Cruise will star in the next movie from The Revenant filmmaker  Alejandro G. Iñárritu , while The Hollywood Reporter  reported in January that Paramount is developing Top Gun 3 as a sequel to Cruise's major 2022 success Top Gun: Maverick .

Cruise, known for his penchant for performing his own stunts, was recently seen climbing the iconic Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills on March 16 accompanied by a film crew. A representative for Cruise did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Monday. While it's unclear what Cruise was filming on Saturday, the stunt did not appear related to the next Mission: Impossible film.

Mission: Impossible 8 is expected in theaters May 23, 2025.

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15 Times Tom Cruise Got Hurt (or Almost Died) Doing His Own Stunts

These are the most harrowing stunts Tom Cruise has done so far throughout his career.

Tom Cruise is most well known for his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Throughout his lengthy career —he has played over 40 roles — Cruise has made a name for himself as an action star. He is also known for doing many of his own stunts , sometimes at great risk to himself. Indeed, there have been stunts in which the actor has significantly damaged himself and even placed his life in danger. The presence of skilled stunt coordinators does not guarantee that the stunts he is performing are completely safe.

With six Mission: Impossible films to his credit, as well as the Jack Reacher films, Oblivion , Edge of Tomorrow , The Last Samurai , and Top Gun , Cruise doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. He has scaled the outside of the world's tallest skyscraper, dangled from the side of an aircraft in mid-flight, and fallen multiple feet from a soaring chopper. The actor is well into his 50s, yet the daring thrill-seeker still craves the intensity of being in action. Remarkably, none of Cruise's injuries were fatal.

Update July 24, 2023: This article has been updated following the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One .

To celebrate his latest, jumping off a precipice in a motorcycle to parachute down into a moving train for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , below are a few Tom Cruise stunts that could have gone tragically wrong and resulted in disaster.

15 Knife to the Eye - Mission: Impossible II

Close to death? Close to being hurt? How about just "close"? John Woo's Mission Impossible II is the weakest of the bunch. It's got a dull storyline, not the best stunts, and Cruise sporting a look that makes him apt for shooting a shampoo commercial. However, one of its scenes will make you squirm because it involves eyes.

As Ethan Hunt fights one of the bad guys, a knife is drawn, and Hunt begins to lose the fight. When he falls, the other guy tries to stab him and directs the knife toward Hunt's right eye. Painfully, dangerously, and unbelievably close. The stunt was shot using a device that made everything safe, but think, would you get your eyes so close to the tip of a knife?

14 Wind and Skyscraper — Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

In the fourth installment, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol , Cruise's Ethan Hunt must ascend to the 130th story of a building. From the outside. Hunt uses a single suction glove to achieve the ascent. Cruise was attached to the structure by a cord, the equivalent of a piano wire. The action sequence was staged in Dubai at the world's highest tower, the Burj Khalifa. In addition, Cruise had to rappel back down from the structure after finishing the scene.

Related: 10 Motorcycles Tom Cruise Has Ridden in Movies, Explained

Reporters at the Dubai Film Festival questioned Cruise on what went through his head when he initially ventured out of the windows and into the fierce windy conditions that smashed him into the side of the skyscraper on the first day of filming the sequence. His words were: "I hope I don't fall."

13 Falling From a Helicopter — Mission: Impossible - Fallout

While filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout , Cruise completed one of the riskiest feats in the whole espionage franchise. At the conclusion of the film, Ethan Hunt hangs from a flying helicopter. He loses his grasp and falls several feet, but he manages to seize a netting freight load being hanging from the helicopter. Cruise had to reshoot the scene 5 times even though each impact knocked the wind out of him.

12 Driving Scene — Edge of Tomorrow

Emily Blunt, who co-starred with Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow , told Conan O'Brien on his talk show that she caused a stunt accident on set. The actress recalled during the shooting of a driving scene, "I hear him [Cruise] under his breath as I approach the right-hand turn, going 'Brake, brake, brake. Brake. Brake, brake, brake... Oh, God. Brake, brake, brake. Brake it hard! Brake hard!' I left it too late, and so drove us into a tree… I almost killed Tom Cruise". Blunt also admits she was foolish to ignore what she thought was merely unpleasant advice at the time, but she is delighted she and her co-star were able to laugh about it later.

11 Sword Fight — The Last Samurai

Cruise's eight months of rigorous samurai training proved insufficient to adequately prepare him for a battle sequence that almost resulted in his decapitation when filming his 2003 action epic The Last Samurai . Cruise and Japanese martial arts star Hiroyuki Sanada were riding robotic horses gearing up to face off during one of the film's combat sequences.

Sanada's horse had a mechanical failure and did not halt precisely where it was meant to. "We were filming one day, and I was on a mechanical horse, and Hiro was on one as well," Cruise recounted. "He was approaching me when his horse suddenly struck me, and his sword was exactly here (points an inch from his neck)."

10 Climbing - Mission Impossible II

As the Mission: Impossible movies got released, the stunts became more related to the story. In the beginning, they didn't necessarily represent something crucial. In Mission: Impossible II , this would be proven as the film's introduction shows us Ethan Hunt solo climbing for a reason that's completely irrelevant to the plot, if there was actually a reason. In any case, it showed Cruise doing his thing at the very top of a rocky mountain.

No wires are visible, but tricks were already good enough to hide the only things that made Hollywood's greatest asset safe from certain death. If you don't consider this being close to dying, you're probably one of those climbers that defies death constantly.

9 Car Crash — Days of Thunder

In Tony Scott 's 1990 action thriller Days of Thunder , Cruise played hotshot racer Cole Trickle. The actor discovered the hard way that stock vehicles are expressly engineered to turn left. Hut Sticklin, a real life NASCAR racer, joined the team as an advisor and cautioned Cruise about the hazards of going right, per USA Today. "He didn't really know what I was talking about," Stricklin stated.

When Cruise climbed into one of the stock cars and drove out on the track at Volusia County Speedway outside of Daytona Beach, FL, he attempted to emulate what he had seen racers do on television. It could have ended in catastrophe. "He turned to the left, the car turned left. But when he goes back to the right..." Stricklin continued. Cruise swerved around and hit the wall. The sole casualty was a $100,000 new camera that did not survive the brief collision.

8 Underwater Scene — Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Cruise underwent intense training for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation to be able to hold his breath underwater for a longer period of time. Ethan Hunt jumps into the tank from a 120-foot cliff in the action-packed underwater sequence.

Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator, verified that the whole sequence was shot without the use of a stunt double, stating that, "The difference between Tom and a stuntman is he acts the character after hearing ‘action.’ A stunt person just does the stunt to double the character." Eastwood said that Cruise had multiple blackouts during training, but they finally found that he was able to hold his breath for approximately six and a half minutes. The scene turned out to be memorable, and among the best of the franchise.

7 Another Driving Scene — Collateral

Cruise went against type as a salt-and-pepper hitman in Michael Mann's 2004 neo-noir Collateral . In the film, Cruise plays Vincent, a contract assassin who kidnaps a Los Angeles taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) to help him complete a hit. Foxx admitted that he feared he murdered Cruise when a car accident stunt went wrong. "I hit the gas, the cab goes straight head-on into [Cruise's] Mercedes, and the Mercedes lifts off the ground and goes off the set," Foxx said. Fortunately, everyone was OK, and Cruise went on to continue a career full of stunts.

6 Trying to Save Goose - Top Gun

Cruise portrayed reckless jet pilot Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Tony Scott's Top Gun . Nobody can forget the heartbreaking scene in which Maverick's co-pilot and best buddy Goose (Anthony Edwards) is killed after ejecting from the plane and slams his head into the canopy. Maverick jumps into the water and drags Goose's lifeless body. One of the actors, Barry Tubb (Wolfman), told the New York Post in 2011, "They were refilling the camera or something, and luckily one of the frogmen in the chopper saw Cruise's chute ballooning out. He jumped in and cut Cruise loose right before he sank. They would have never found him. He would have been found at the bottom of the ocean." he went on to say.

5 Flying Stones — Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Another one in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation . Cruise hangs onto a flying jet during takeoff and no straps can be seen. There is no professional stuntman in the daredevil action sequence, nor is there a single frame of CGI. And he performed eight different takes of the crazy scene.

Related: Tom Cruise's Best Running Scenes in Movies, Ranked

If anything (even the smallest stone) had hit Cruise when he was flying high in the air, it might have caused significant harm or perhaps death. One stone was on its way to become a fatal weapon."I remember I got hit by a stone that was so tiny, you cannot believe," Cruise told Forbes. "I thought it broke my rib. Luckily it went to my vest and not my hands or my face - it would have penetrated me and gone right through."

4 Jumping Buildings — Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Cruise did not emerge unharmed from the 2018 blockbuster action thriller Mission: Impossible - Fallout . According to People, he injured his ankle while jumping from one building to another.“I was chasing Henry [Cavill] and was meant to hit the side of the wall and pull myself over, but the mistake was my foot hitting the wall,” he explained. “I knew instantly my ankle was broken, and I really didn’t want to do it again so I just got up and carried on with the take. I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital’ and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangements.” Luckily, the injury healed well with intensive rehab, and he was back filming a few months later.

3 Busting - Jack Reacher

A funny one. Sort of. When filming Jack Reacher , Cruise had to fight the bad guys as usual. Only this time, he didn't have so many resources at hand. In one scene, he's required to kick someone's privates. Repeatedly. Cruise revealed in a talk show soon after the release of the film that he got injured when shooting the scene. He had to do it so many times his ankle was swollen. Now, did anyone think about the other guy actually receiving the kicks?

2 A Motorcycle Crash - Oblivion

In Oblivion , Cruise's Jack Harper rides a futuristic motorcycle through the wasteland. Anyone could say there was no chance an accident could happen. Unfortunately, it did happen, and Cruise was unharmed due to sheer luck. As much as he likes to ride bikes in his movies, it doesn't mean he can't make mistakes and that they can't malfunction, being that usually they're custom-made for the film. Add to that the fact that he's not wearing a helmet for the scene.

1 Exploding Fish Tank — Mission: Impossible

The Mission: Impossible film franchise began with the 1996 movie aptly titled Mission: Impossible . There is an outstanding action scene in the film that sees Ethan Hunt blowing up a massive aquarium in order to make a hasty getaway. The action takes place at a restaurant with glass walls. Huge amounts of water and pieces of broken glass are discharged as the fish tank bursts. There was absolutely no way the stunt crew could have predicted where each pointy shard of glass might land. Furthermore, with millions of gallons of flowing water, the actor may easily have been carried away and perished. Fortunately enough, Cruise walked away with only a bruised ankle.

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Tom Cruise Covered in Blood, Runs Through Streets of London For Mission Impossible 8; Video Goes Viral

Curated By : Dishya Sharma

Last Updated: March 26, 2024, 12:58 IST

London, United Kingdom (UK)

Tom Cruise is filming for Mission Impossible 8.

Tom Cruise was filming for Mission Impossible 8 in London. Photos and videos leaked from the sets.

No mission is impossible for Tom Cruise and he has proved it yet again. The international actor, who is 61 years old, is currently filming for Mission: Impossible 8 and a few photos along with a video from the sets have surfaced online. Tom was seen shooting a chase scene on the Westminster Bridge. In the video, Tom was seen covered in blood as he ran through the bridge. The team was also shooting in Whitehall and Parliament Square.

The photos were first shared by The Sun. The UK publication also shared a video from the sets. Check out the photos and video below:

Tom Cruise sprints through the streets covered in blood as Mission Impossible 8 filming shuts down central London pic.twitter.com/POjiHijRip — The Sun (@TheSun) March 25, 2024

He looks good tho pic.twitter.com/oXA1M7JpRb — Navy (@TomCruiseNavy) March 25, 2024

New photos from last nights filming!!!! Mission impossible 8 pic.twitter.com/3cR4sp8fF0 — Navy (@TomCruiseNavy) March 25, 2024

Baby pic.twitter.com/mWvPDgwwfP — Navy (@TomCruiseNavy) March 25, 2024

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission Impossible 8 was referred to as Dead Reckoning – Part Two. The film will conclude the events that played out in 2023’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. Last year, director McQuarrie opened up about divided the seventh film into two parts. “I knew I wanted to expand the cast, and I knew I wanted to give each one of those characters more to do, so I knew the movie was going to be bigger and longer than [previous installment] Fallout,” he told Variety in the summer last year. “And at which point I said, ‘Why are we fighting this? Why are we going to try to jam this into two hours?'”

The first of the two-part movie introduced AI as a villain. Tom had several stunts in the film, one of which included him cruising off a cliff.

According to Box Office Mojo, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One recorded a box office collection of $567,535,383 worldwide. The domestic collections stood at $172,135,383 while the global collections were $395,400,000.

Meanwhile, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part Two was supposed to release in summer of 2024. However, the film has now been pushed to May 2025.

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