Every Mission: Impossible Movie, Ranked Friv 0

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Tom Cruise is 61 years old, but you wouldn't know it from watching Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. He moves with the intensity and dexterity of a man half his age--coincidentally, three decades is almost exactly how long he's been making these Mission: Impossible movies.

The first movie came out in 1996. When Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two--the eighth film--comes out next year, Cruise will have played Ethan Hunt for 28 years. That's 28 years of the actor tossing himself off of cliffs, out of planes, and out of buildings for our entertainment.

In the new movie, Cruise drives a motorcycle off of a cliff and then performs a mid-air base jump. In the behind-the-scenes footage, we learn that Cruise actually performed this stunt six times, to ensure that the crew captured the best possible footage. It's a testament to his physicality, his preparedness, and his impressive and ridiculous need to do the most dangerous activities in the films himself.

It also begs the question: what will Cruise do to top this? According to director Christopher McQuarrie, the crew still has to shoot the action setpiece that will anchor the eighth movie. He didn't give many details, although he does say that it is "massive" and unprecedented. And while it was reported that the next film would be the last one for the franchise, Tom Cruise might have his own thoughts on the matter. Discussing Harrison Ford's longevity, Cruise commented that he would love to make Mission: Impossible movies until he's Ford's age. That sounds promising, and so long as Cruise's body holds up as well as his spirit, we're here for it.

Here is every movie in the Mission: Impossible series, ranked. Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One, is out in theaters now. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two, its sequel, will release on July 28, 2024.

7. Mission: Impossible 2

Director: John Woo

Release Date: May 24, 2000

The sequel to the first film was directed by Hong Kong filmmaking legend John Woo, who's famous for his operatic fight sequences, featuring slow-motion gunplay and hand-to-hand combat. But what makes the Mission: Impossible movies so fun are their intrigue and doublespeak--the action is the means to the end, not the end itself. This is a decent movie--easy on the eyes, with sweeping panorama shots that put the other films' camerawork to shame. But the clash of styles makes this more of a John Woo film than a Mission: Impossible film, and that relegates it to last on this list.

6. Mission: Impossible

Director: Brian De Palma

Release Date: May 22, 1996

The first movie in the Mission Impossible series had an impossible task. After the successful 1966 television series and the 1988 sequel series, expectations were sky-high. The filmmakers had to pay homage to its predecessors while also bringing the franchise into the modern day. They had all the ingredients: a decorated director, an A-list leading man, and massive action set pieces, anchored by Cruise's tense wire descent into a high-security vault.

But the plot, which framed Hunt for the murder of his entire IMF team, is a bit murky and overly complicated. And the movie didn't strike the right tone--it's dark, and it doesn't have the sense of fun and levity that defines the later entries and counterbalances the action.

5. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Director: Brad Bird

Release Date: December 16, 2011

This movie has it where it counts--the acting, the stakes, the action, and the heart. The plot is by-the-numbers spy stuff. Ethan and his team have to intercept Russian nuclear launch codes, and stop a bomb from striking San Francisco. But the story is told clearly, in a way that is breezy, accessible, and fun.

Highlights include Cruise scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and then chasing a suspect through a subsequent sandstorm. This is the ideal popcorn flick that doesn't aspire to be more, to its benefit. And it's such a good time that you'll overlook that you've seen much of it before, but rarely executed this well.

4. Mission: Impossible III

Director: J. J. Abrams

Release Date: May 5, 2006

It's become fashionable to hate J.J. Abrams, between his handling of the Star Trek franchise and his subsequent handling of the Star Wars franchise. But whatever else he does, one can never take away what he accomplished with the criminally underrated Mission: Impossible III--the rejuvenation of a franchise that was in sore need of a consistent tonal direction.

III introduced Simon Pegg to the series as technician (and later field agent) Benji, who injected some needed humor and levity into the franchise Benji has appeared in every subsequent film as an indispensable resource and friend to Ethan. And the movie features the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the main villain, a sadistic, smarmy weapons dealer that invades Ethan's personal life and makes the fight personal.

3. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Release Date: July 27, 2018

Should we consider this the first half of a bigger film, or a complete work in its own right? At the moment, Dead Reckoning ranks in the upper-middle of the pack. It contains a prescient, cautionary message about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and the main villain of the film is an AI that has gained sentience and access to security files from all over the world. How does one stop something that is everywhere and nowhere at once?

The film ends with an incredible train sequence. The train heist is a classic bit of American storytelling, and it's surprising that the movie franchise has never attempted one until now. But it is well worth the wait, and it concludes with a climb up a train as it's falling off a cliff. Perhaps it is a homage to the classic opening of Uncharted 2. And best of all, there's more to come; we'll be getting the sequel in approximately a year's time.

2. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Release Date: July 31, 2015

Christopher McQuarrie made his franchise directorial debut with Rogue Nation, in which Ethan Hunt and his team have to fight the Syndicate, a collection of rogue agents-turned-terrorists that has infiltrated global intelligence from the inside.

One of the best things about having the same director for the last three entries of the series is the level of logical and narrative consistency that the films have achieved. This movie gets better after watching Fallout and Dead Reckoning Part One; we can see how the introductions of former MI6 Agents Ilsa Faust and Solomon Lane pay off in spectacular ways. But as a standalone, Rogue Nation gets narrowly beaten by another of McQuarrie's films.

1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Release Date: July 27, 2018

The best film in the franchise is Mission: Impossible - Fallout, and it comes down to the final action sequence. Ethan and his team must defuse two nuclear bombs at the same time. They are programmed to be failsafes to one another; disarm one, it will cause the other to explode. Benji finds a single technical loophole; they must arm the bombs and start their countdowns in order to shut them down.

What follows is a virtuoso bit of filmmaking, which cuts between four different locations as the different members of Ethan's team--not to mention Ethan himself--must work in perfect unity to save the world. Other films in the series have pulled this trick before. But it's rarely cut this close, literally down to the last second. And for the first time, the film feels like a true ensemble piece. Everyone gets a chance to shine and play a crucial role in a successful mission.

The movie creates interpersonal drama by adding August Walker (Henry Cavill) as a CIA agent who's there to either help or kill Ethan, depending on whether Ethan decides to go rogue on his mission parameters (which of course he does.) Walker helps bridge the gaps between the action scenes, especially while we're still trying to figure out his loyalties--is he a bad guy, or is he just a douchebag? Everything feels fluid: the leadup to the missions, the missions themselves, and then the post-mission debriefings, where everyone reflects and questions what they do next. Nothing feels forced.

Fallout also brings back the prior movie's villain, which makes this feel like a proper franchise, rather than a collection of loosely stitched together stories with common elements. And it brings back Julia, Ethan's ex-wife, in a way that makes sense for the characters and finally gives Ethan a sense of closure. If the series ended here, the story would feel complete. Thankfully, it didn't. But until we can Dead Reckoning Part Two next year and make a final judgment on the whole, Fallout is the best Mission: Impossible film.