Light the Fuse: Ranking the ‘Mission: Impossible’ Franchise
For nearly thirty years, audiences around the world have watched one man accept impossible missions while performing ridiculous stunts to save the world from a destructive doom. That man is Thomas Cruise, and his character is IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent Ethan Matthew Hunt. Two sides of the same coin, Cruise has used Hunt and the Mission Impossible franchise as a vehicle to explore and create indelible cinematic memories that test the stress level of everyone who watches them. Based on the beloved television series of the late 1960s, Mission Impossible follows the on-going assignments of a small team of covert government agents that go to extraordinary lengths to save the world, providing they chose to accept their mission, knowing full well the risks involved, and if they are captured, these agents would be disavowed (a term used a lot within the Mission Impossible franchise) by the United States government and have to use their skills along with limited resources to save the day. So when the idea of turning this into a franchise came around in the 1990s, Cruise took on the task of making this series his own mission, injecting his love of entertainment cinema and daredevil lifestyle into a film that would span seven sequels, make billions of dollars at the global box office, dozens of fake skin-like masks, numerous exotic locations, all the while asking ourselves one of the most important questions of our time; is Tom Cruise going to die on camera making the next Mission Impossible film?
With the release of the latest (and potentially final) entry, Mission Impossible- The Final Reckoning, hitting theaters this weekend, now seems like the perfect time to rank one of the best franchises in modern filmmaking that also is a collection of films that mean a lot to me personally. Growing up, my family introduced me to the world of spy/espionage films through the James Bond series (specially the Sean Connery era). I grew an attachment to those films and franchises like it that felt like an escape to places around the world that I’ve never seen before. And while Bond still holds a special place in my heart, it is the Mission Impossible franchise that has risen above it over time as something that is a pure anomaly within modern cinema; prestige blockbuster filmmaking led by the marriage of a captivating, dedicated leading man in Cruise alongside notable directors bringing their own distinct flare to telling the on-going adventures of agent Ethan Hunt. Thinking back on it, I came to the realization that Mission: Impossible 2 was the first time I ever saw Tom Cruise on the big screen (more on this later), and there was also something cool about the idea of an actor of his stature going all in and pushing his chips in the middle of the table with a studio to make these absolutely ridiculous spy spectacles, using mostly practical effects, and pushing the limits one can do within something like this. For Cruise, there is also his own sentimental value in these films, as the first entry into the franchise was his first ever producing credit, as he learned from so many master filmmakers throughout his career on how to make a movie, and with Mission, he was able to take that knowledge and build it into something that has a playful tone mixed with mind-blowing, unmatched sequences of pure cinematic wonder that develops into genuine emotional connection to the characters found in the Mission series. It also helps that there isn’t a bad film within this franchise, though there are films in this franchise that clearly stand above others. So upon my latest rewatch of the first seven films and seeing The Final Reckoning in grand Mission Impossible fashion at the Cannes Film Festival, here is where I’ve landed as of now. So light the fuse, roll the iconic theme song created by composer Lalo Schifrin and let’s get into it.
8. Mission: Impossible III (2006)
In the largest gap within the film franchise, the third Mission Impossible entry was stuck in development hell. Unsure where to go after the second installment, Cruise and company turned to acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher to take on the next chapter of Ethan Hunt’s story, but in classic Fincher fashion, he dropped out of the project due to creative differences he saw for Hunt’s future (things worked out for old David, as he went on to make the best film of his filmography in 2007’s Zodiac). After a second round of creative disputes with director Joe Carnahan after fifteen months of development, Cruise turned to director J.J. Abrams (father of Gracie) to make the film, as he binged-watched the first two seasons of Alias and thought he could bring his style and creative signature to the franchise. That Alias influence is scattered everywhere throughout Mission: Impossible III, as we find Ethan settling in a life outside of the field, training IMF agents while going home to his finance Julia (Michelle Monaghan). But when one of his newly trained agents goes missing, Ethan must unretire and dust off his skills to get back in the field to stop arms dealer Owen Davian (Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) from locating and selling an unknown (and explained) danger known as the “Rabbit’s Foot.”
Given everything going on behind the scenes to get this made, it’s a miracle that this film is any good. Within an intense opening where Davian is coldly counting down from ten to one with the threat of killing Julia if Ethan doesn’t tell him where the Rabbit’s Foot is, Abrams thrust audiences into a new era of the Mission franchise, where the story is going to be less episodic and connect from here on out, much like the Jason Bourne and Bond franchises had pivoted to just a few years before. As a fan of Alias myself, the similarities within Ethan and Julia’s storyline felt like it was cut right out of that television show, and while it seemed good at the time, based on where the franchise would go and what it would become, the stakes of this movie seem so small and rather inconsequential in the end. The two things that standout are easily the Vatican sequence where the IMF team (which includes series constant Ving Rhames alongside the most mid-2000s acting duo ever in Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Meyers) kidnap Davian from a gala event, and Hoffman as Davian, who accepted the role in part of his time and connection with Cruise when making the 1999 Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece Magnolia. Menacing, unpredictable, and downright nasty as Davian, Hoffman is still hands down the best villain of the franchise, and provides a kick of danger necessary to propel this movie from being a standard episode of ABC television. Abrams, who became a producer for the next three installments after this, gets a lot of kudos points from me for saving this franchise, and much like his other franchise films like Star Trek and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, he brought life back into the Mission movies; even though this is the one that I would skip on a rewatch if I wasn’t such a completionist.
7. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023)
The first part of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie’s epic conclusion of the Mission franchise takes us down the strangest storyline in the franchise as Ethan and his team must stop their most dangerous enemy yet; an advanced AI weapon known as “the Entity.” Homed on a next-generation Russian submarine, and needing a two-piece cruciform key in order to control it, the race for this ultimate weapon comes down Hunt not only having to fight the US government and CIA run by his old IMF director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), but has to confront a shadowy, dangerous figure from his past in the form of Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is a hired assassin working for the Entity, hell bent on letting the machine run the world has it seems fit. Stuck in the middle of all of this is Grace, a thief hired to get the key in an attempt to get a big payday, but realizes she’s way over her and Ethan not only must do what he can to stop this lethal, world dominating threat, but save this newly introduced ally. Hunt is also being chased down by a collection of US Intelligence agents, assassins, black-market arms dealers, and henchmen, all trying to stop him from defeating the Entity.
It’s a big, complex idea on paper that Cruise and McQ come up with, with all of this plot centering around a massive stunt involving Ethan having to parachute onto a moving train by diving off a cliff while riding a motorcycle. I remember seeing this twice in the theaters two years ago, and each time this moment happened, my audience screamed as if they were the ones jumping off the cliff. It was a hilarious reminder of just how laser focused one can get when watching these films. But take out that set piece, and there are few problems within this silly movie. Between killing off the franchise’s best character in IIsa Faust, to leaning so hard into commentary on the on-going battle between Hollywood and the dangers of AI, to the underdeveloped new characters, it’s a flawed yet “entertaining enough spectacle” that’s “an up and down roller-coaster, both in the action adventure on screen and the tone swifts of its narrative.” It’s one half of a story that doesn’t work unless you’ve seen the full vision but when you have moments like the chase in Rome or the airport scene when Ethan uses basic magic with one half of the key while Benji is defusing a bomb, you can’t get too mad at a movie that earnestly is trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink at you.
6. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)
The second part of the Reckoning storyline (and potentially final film in the franchise) picks up just a few months after the events of the Dead Reckoning, and we find Ethan in hiding. Completely off the grid to avoid not just from The Entity, but every government in the world, Ethan had seen fit to still complete his mission to destroy this villainous virus once and for all before anyone tries to use it for nefarious purposes. Alongside Luther and Benji, who have come up with a plan to trap Gabriel, find out the location for the Russian submarine known as the Sevastopol, take the power source of the Entity and kill it once and for all using a “poison pill,” a tech Luther made to house and destroy the virus. But we all know things can’t be that easy, as Gabriel has seen most of this coming, and sets a trap for Ethan and his team that leaves our beloved IMF agent on a global trotting quest to clear his name one last time, get enough resources he can to stop Gabriel and the Entity, and do so before the world goes on the brink of nuclear annihilation. This involves connecting into a chamber that speaks directly to the Entity, turning himself into the US government, pleading his case to President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett, reprising her role from Mission Impossible: Fallout with a job promotion), going under freezing cold water to get to the Sevastopol, and battling Gabriel on the top of yellow biplane (which is one of the most thrilling action set pieces of the entire series).
Convoluted in nature, the first hour of The Final Reckoning is the best outcome possible for the conclusion of this overacting storyline. If you can recall my review of Dead Reckoning, I made a comparison to that film being similar to The Matrix Reloaded, a film that blows up the ideas and action sequences of its predecessor in order to make a bold, grand statement about the issue facing our world. In doing so, both films use a lot of their runtimes explaining or introducing ideas that will need to be fully paid off within their concluding chapters. For the original The Matrix trilogy, I believe they do that, whereas for The Final Reckoning, the landing is far bumpier given the directions McQuarrie, Cruise, and company took with the seventh entry into the franchise. Gone is the spy craft that is the calling card of this series and elevated are a series of scenes in the first hour explaining or cutting back to moments in other films that help explain an ambitious idea for the Mission series that the artists behind the project just couldn’t wrap up without digging themselves deeper holes to climb these characters out of. Once you get past all the silly dialogue that’s scattered throughout the series but amplified in the first act of this movie, then the fun begins and it is still thrilling to see Ethan and his team race against the clock to save the world for (supposedly) one last time. Emotional moments surrounding Ethan’s connection with Luther and Benji make up for most of the underdeveloped characters around them, including Grace, who feels like she is relegated to the Ilsa role for this movie (which only highlights the mistake McQ made in the last film for writing off that special character). While the villains or side plots don’t pay off at all in the film (any call back to the first film is rather silly and unnecessary), the thing that shines brightest is Cruise’s physical dedication to completely go all the way with these stunts and give us a thrilling experience unlike anyone else in film today. For now, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning sends the franchise out on more of a polite shrug than a disappointing whimper or grand triumph; one that I will gladly watch again to see if it has the potential to grow for me or not.
5. Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Cue Limp Bizkit, a phrase you don’t normally get to or want to say a lot in life. But that’s who we hear at the start of Mission: Impossible 2 as we see a camera zoom in on Ethan Hunt rock climbing on his scheduled vacation. Cruise dangling for dear life while free solo climbing at Dead Horse Point State Park in Moab, Utah was an idea that Cruise said would be the best way to get the audience reintroduced to Hunt after a four-year absence on screen. With no safety net, a thin wire and a harness, I was on the edge of my seat as Cruise made his way to the top, thinking this was one of the coolest things I had ever seen at the ripe age of eight. But things would only get wilder from there at Ethan is sent on a mission to track down a professional jewelry thief (Thandiwe Newton) that is connected to former IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) who is in possession of a genetically modified disease, Chimera, and looking to sell it to the highest bidder.
The main reason this movie, which has been deemed by many Mission Impossible fans as the worst one in the franchise, works so well is because of the direction by the master of action films John Woo, whose slow-motion, high flying bullet per second, doves soaring in everything other scene style works wonders in this ridiculous action packed sequel. In all of this wild action also lies what we would see countlessly throughout other installments, which is Ethan’s soft spot for the people he trusts and comes to have feelings for. Cruise and Newton’s chemistry throughout the film is electric, and their relationship adds propulsion to Ethan’s mission to defeat the virus and Ambrose as she has been injected with the virus and has less than twenty-four hours to live. It’s nostalgic, dumb fun filmmaking from the 2000s that still holds up today. I remember going to see this opening weekend when it came out, even though my Mom told my Dad I couldn’t see it for something I did that got me into a massive amount of trouble. My Dad swore to me to keep it a secret and not tell my Mom about seeing it, as he bought two tickets to see it at our local Regal Theaters for an afternoon Saturday screening. Without going to that screening, who knows if I would’ve fallen in love with these movies, so sorry Mom but it was totally worth it. This is only the second biggest “What If?” involving M:I-2 as Scott turned down the role of Wolverine in X-Men to be in this film. Would Dougray Scott be best friends with Ryan Reynolds? We will never know.
4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
After the third film earned less than the previous two films at the box office, studios started to wonder if it was time for a fresh start, and a different direction. But this is why you can’t count out Cruise because he raised the stakes with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, delivering the biggest stunt in the franchise to date, and one where we start to ask that important question we asked at the top of this article; does this man have a death wish? After a mission at the Kremlin ends up in catastrophe, Ethan, and his new IMF team consisting of Benji (Peggs first time in the field, Jane Carter (Paula Patton, a fairly new agent in her own right), and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner, The IMF Secretary’s aide, an intelligence analyst) are on the run at the US government has initiated “Ghost Protocol,” disavowing the IMF. In order to clear their names, they must stop a Russian nuclear strategist (Michael Nyqvist) from setting off a nuclear code that could destroy half the planet and send the rest into World War III.
Cruise and J.J. Abrams brought on famed Pixar director Brad Bird to make live action debut, providing his creative vision to the franchise, and wanting the scale of this film to feel large. Using IMAX cameras, Bird and the team brought their A game as the whole film centers around this massive set piece involving Ethan climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. An image burned into my mind is the one of Ethan scaling the glass of this behemoth, as Bird slowly zooms the camera out to see just how terrifying this whole set piece is, upping the stakes and urgency of getting the nuclear launch codes before they end up in the wrong hands. While the setup in Dubai is extraordinary and cinema at its finest, the thing that makes Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol work is the idea of this team needing to come together in order to defeat the enemy, not putting all of the responsibility on Ethan’s shoulder to save the day as a solo act. Mix that end with a Luther cameo at the end, Ethan screening “Mission Accomplished” when pushing the button to stop the bomb, to the touching moment between Julia and Ethan from as far as they no longer can be together because she will always be in danger if she is near him, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol hits all the right notes, even for a movie that behind the scenes needed several rewrites to get to what we saw on the screen. But if not for that adversity in getting the film completed, Christopher McQuarrie would’ve never been asked to come help with the finish of the film per Cruise’s request, then we wouldn’t have gotten the second half of this franchise, as McQ has become a vital piece to the Mission puzzle.
3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
We enter the McQuarrie era of Mission Impossible with a bang right from the get go, with Ethan Hunt on a mission to try to stop an enemy from stealing some weapons. In order to do so, he has to jump on the side of a cargo plane and hang on midair till Benji is able to hack into the plane’s system to let him in. As thrilling as the film’s opening is, the rest of the film doesn’t let up as Ethan and his team, disavowed again, are trying to track down The Syndicate, a secret consortium of rogue field operatives from various intelligence agencies led by a former British spy Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Finally meeting his match intellectually, Ethan must go toe to toe with Lane in order to make sure The Syndicate doesn’t gain billions of funds to continue to run their terrorist plots of disrupting the modern world. At the same time he is battling Lane, he meets Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a disavowed MI6 Agent undercover in The Syndicate who is trying to stop Lane and clear her name within her organization.
Cut from the same cloth, Ethan and Ilsa have a deep connection from the moment they meet, and Cruise and Ferguson’s chemistry is electric, sexy; like long lost soulmates finding each other at the right time in their lives. With nods to old Hollywood relationship dynamics and story structure, Cruise and McQ develop their relationship as a couple falling in love through action, and it’s beyond effective, as they both have to swim underwater for seven minutes straight to chase each other on motorcycles in Casablanca. Ferguson, a relative unknown at the time of this release, became a household name after this film, and rightfully so as she steals the show from Cruise and company to make this movie a profound step up in the franchise.
2. Mission: Impossible (1996)
The one that started it all and it is still rules. Like stated before, while working on Interview with a Vampire, he, alongside his long term producing partner Paula Wagner, came up with the idea of taking the beloved 1960s television show and fleshing it out into their first producing project. At the same time, while having dinner with director Steven Spielberg, he was introduced to auteur director Brian De Palma, and being a massive fan of his work, Cruise offered De Palma the chance to direct the first installment, to which the director said yes. The first installment centers around Ethan being blamed for the deaths of the IMF team he is a part of, including the death of the team leader, Jim Phelps (the original lead character from the television show, played in the film by Jon Voight. In order to clear his name, he must retrieve the CIA’s NOC (non-official cover) list, which reveals the identities of all their undercover agents in Europe. In doing this, we get the most iconic shot, not just within the Mission franchise, but debatably the entirety of Cruise’s career of him hanging on by a rope from above, slowly downloading the content of the NOC list deep inside CIA headquarters. If you close your eyes right now, you know exactly what it is.
Questioned by fans at the time, the idea of using Jim Phelps as the way into the group, only for the audience to fall in love with Ethan as a character, and see the corruption of Phelps in the process if some of the best use of existing IP to a film’s advantage. Not that it is too much of a stretch for Voight to play a bad guy considering who he is now, but he is the perfect foil to Cruise’s confident but young IMF agent. Much like the second film, the star of the show is De Palma, whose Dutch angles and zoom-ins allow for each twist and turn to feel organically tense, creating a wonderful jumping point for the franchise with a perfect edge of your seat tone that we would find throughout the rest of the franchise. Also, for a late 1990s action film, the train sequence in the third act is far superior than the one found in Dead Reckoning Part 1, which showcases the difference between the way films nearly thirty years ago didn’t rely heavily on CGI to make the scene effective. From the get go, Cruise had a hit on his hand and De Palma delivered one of the best films of his career.
1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
“Fate whispers to the warrior. A storm is coming. And the warrior whispers back. I am the storm.” When Ethan got his new mission instructions from a delivery guy and they uttered this four-line authentication of dialogue, I knew Mission: Impossible – Fallout was going to have the goods and be another stellar addition to the series. What I didn’t expect was that this sixth entry was going to be one of the definitive action films of the last twenty-five films; an action packed epic that rivals Mad Max: Fury Road as a freight train of story moving at a hundred miles and an hour and never stopping at thrilling the audience at the awe of its spectacle while also moving you to your core. Two years after the events of Rogue Nation, Ethan and his team are tasked with recovering nuclear plutonium from getting in the hands of the Apostles, a terrorist group formed by former members of the Syndicate. But when they lose their chance to get the plutonium, Ethan becomes unreliable in the face of the US government and the CIA, so they put August Walker (Henry Cavill), a ruthless CIA assassin on his team to keep an eye on IMF team and make sure the mission is down without Ethan’s usual love for collateral damage. In the process of this mission, they form an unlikely partnership with an arms dealer known as the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), who tells them the only way to get what they want and make sure the world isn’t blown into pieces is to break Solomon Lane out of his protected custody from the French authorities. This not only tests everything that Ethan has come to know, but everyone he holds dear, from his team of Luther and Benji, to his fondness for Ilsa, to his bond with his former wife Julia.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the culmination of Ethan Hunt’s storyline, and honestly is the ending that the Mission series deserves. In testing Ethan to his core, McQuarrie gets one of the best performances of Cruise’s career, showcasing not just what Cruise can do physically in the role, but allowing Ethan to show cracks of vulnerability and a sense of impossibility that this mission can be completed. Every single cast member is phenomenal in this film, but the stand out of this film is the longest running cast member outside of Cruise, and that is Ving Rhames. In speaking to Ilsa about Ethan and how he will stop at nothing to protect her and the best thing to do is leave so Ethan can complete the mission, Luther shows us that he, alongside Benji, carry just as much of the emotional burden that Ethan does because if something were to happen to them, they could never forgive themselves. Ethan has saved them so many times, put his life on the line for them, they would then do anything for him. It’s the profound insight into these characters six movies in, alongside the memorable fight sequence in the bathroom (who doesn’t love seeing Henry Cavill lock and load those arms) and the halo jump scene that Cruise spent years getting ready for this film, that makes it so damn special.
This is a film that is in my easy rotation of rewatchable films, but not for reasons you may think. A couple of years back, I was admitted into the hospital with a rare skin infection that inflamed parts of my body. I was there for a week, and it was truly a nightmare as I didn’t know what caused this and what it might need going forward if the diagnosis wasn’t good. In the ER, while I was waiting to get taken up to a room of the hospital for observation and case, Fallout was playing on FX. I watched it starting at the halfway point of the film, where Ethan is chasing after Walker, and Cruise in real life broke his foot shooting a part where he has to jump to another building (they kept that shot in the film; if you slow it down, you can see it; it’s awesome). It brought me comfort in a time when I needed something the most. It played two more times while I was there, and I watched, slowly getting better and finally able to go home after a week. The first film I watched when I got home was Fallout, mostly due to needing something comforting to watch, aiding my recovery. I’m not saying Tom Cruise and McQ saved my life, that’s a silly statement. But I do believe in the power of art, in the case of film, it can leave a lasting imprint on us that provokes a wide range of emotions and feelings that we might’ve not known we had in ourselves and help us tackle our most difficult options. In that moment, Mission: Impossible – Fallout did that for me, and for that I’ve never been more grateful in seeing Tom Cruise being chased down the streets of Paris by police while he’s on a motorcycle or dangling from a helicopter or the side of a massive cliff.
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