Every ‘Mission: Impossible’ Movie, Ranked

One of Hollywood’s most annoying trends is the splitting of movies into two “parts,” which is an attempt to make as much money as possible by stretching out a hit movie the way a dive bar owner waters down the whiskey. The result is a “part one” that doesn’t have a satisfying ending (Wicked notwithstanding — and trust, part two of that musical blockbuster will obey gravity and crash). The division of Cruise’s Mission: Impossible swan song means Dead Reckoning, a.k.a. M:I-7, ends on a cliffhanger — a helluva cliffhanger — but the final moments feel more like a streaming show’s season finale. Christopher McQuarrie returns as director after helming the previous two M:Is. (He also directs this film’s second part, The Final Reckoning.) Henry Czerny shows up for the first time since the original Mission: Impossible as Kittridge, the most snide and condescending upper-middle-manager in the U.S. intelligence community. All the elements that make Mission: Impossible movies big and fun are supercharged in this penultimate chapter: The exotic locales are exotic-er, the MacGuffin is even more mysterious and unknowable (it’s A.I., which is a hot SEO keyword), and the stunts on planes, trains, and automobiles are some of the most impossible-est. It’s also two hours and 43 minutes long (a record that will be broken quickly). The plot is confusing, but the big stunt almost makes up for the long, tedious stretches: Cruise rides a motorcycle off a cliff before deploying a parachute.

This is it — the final reckoning. All two hours and 51 minutes of it. In what has been billed for years as Cruise’s last hurrah, Ethan Hunt has finally become a superhero who is the only thing standing between humanity and total nuclear annihilation, which is something that happened before in his career. This is the most sentimental film in the series, and it tries to tie all the movies together with a single bow, semi-successfully. It would have been a delight to see the return of old IMF boss Laurence Fishburne or the onetime heir to the Mission: Impossible franchise, Jeremy Renner, but no dice. Instead, we get a few flashbacks to the old days and a satisfying redemption arc for a character we haven’t seen since 1996. Oh yeah, and more Kittridge. Baddie Esai Morales should have been given more to do than glower and cackle, and the Entity – the formal name of the evil A.I. (aren’t they all?) —  could have been more… interesting? Had a more memorable voice? The Final Reckoning is clichés inside clichés, and every countdown clock and ultimatum and stunt feels like it’s all been done before. And yet, it’s impossible not to smile while watching sixtysomething Cruise hang off a biplane soaring upside down.

This is the franchise’s most maligned movie, but for many a favorite, flaws and all. Legendary Hong Kong action director John Woo was brought in to inject Cruise’s sequel with his trademark chaotic style. This mission is full of Woo’s famous flourishes, from excessive slow-motion to ridiculous, physics-defying fight choreography to flocks of birds fluttering for no good reason. It is these excesses that earned Mission: Impossible II its reputation as the worst movie in the series. The criticism is fair. Cruise unleashes far too many dramatic flying spin-kicks, for instance. And then there’s the gunplay. Woo loves to capture men soaring through the air while unloading twin 9mms. After Mission: Impossible II, Hunt’s use of handguns greatly diminishes. But this movie has one of the best openers, Cruise free-climbing up the side of a butte in Utah. Thandiwe Newton is the love interest, and her role is, well, dated: She’s a master thief used as bait to hook her ex, the bad guy. Newton is a tremendous actor who almost has chemistry with Cruise. This movie embraces action more than skullduggery, and the entire last act is insane, including a final exhausting fight on the beach between hero and villain. But Tom Cruise riding a motorcycle through flames? Iconic. M:I-2 also features the best one-liner in the series, delivered by an uncredited Anthony Hopkins as a testy IMF boss. After Hunt affirms that his new mission is “difficult,” Sir Tony retorts: “Well, this is not mission difficult, Mr. Hunt, it’s mission impossible. ‘Difficult’ should be a walk in the park for you.”

Television powerhouse J.J. Abrams was brought in to direct and save the Mission: Impossible franchise, and he did it the same way he would rescue Star Trek’s cinematic fortunes in 2009 — by understanding what made each TV series click. Abrams’ sequel, first and foremost, surrounds Cruise’s Hunt with a competent IMF team — the main villains in the first two movies were IMF turncoats. Mission: Impossible III also marks the debut of Simon Pegg as Hunt’s wisecracking British sidekick, a welcome bit of casting. Multiple action scenes stand out, including a thrilling Vatican City break-in and a memorable man-versus-missile scene on a bridge. The plot revolves around the best MacGuffin in the series: the Rabbit Foot. What does it do? Nobody knows, but everyone wants it. (The Rabbit Foot will be retconned for no good reason later in the series.) What makes this movie special is its villain, Owen Davian, a cruel, cold-blooded arms dealer, played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman is intense and dead-eyed, especially in the movie’s opening scene, where he threatens Hunt’s wife, an excellent Michelle Monaghan, with a gun to her head. It’s a chilling scene, and Hoffman is so good that he pulls a vulnerable performance out of Cruise, one of his best.

Here’s where the Mission: Impossible series really starts to cook. This entry is more confident than any of the previous ones, and it opens with one of the most impressive stunts of the entire series: Cruise hangs off the side of an Airbus A400M transport plane that takes off and soars almost 8,000 feet over the English countryside. Yes, he’s securely attached — but also he’s outside the damn plane. It’s a funny double-shot of adrenaline and the rest of the movie is just as fun. The formidable Rebecca Ferguson is introduced as a former British secret agent, an ally, and a sort-of love interest. There’s a brief escape scene where a handcuffed Hunt shimmies up and off a pole before fighting for his life — a great flash of Cruise’s athleticism. Hunt and company fight assassins during a performance of Puccini’s Turandot at the Vienna State Opera, an elegant setting for a face-off. Rogue Nation is also the movie in which Cruise flaunts his superhuman lungs: He holds his breath for six minutes during a terrifying underwater break-in, four minutes longer than your average Navy SEAL. Alec Baldwin is another IMF chief who gets a chance to extoll Hunt’s virtues to a foreign head of state, calling him, among other things, the “living manifestation of destiny.” It’s a hilarious tribute that leads to a big reveal. This is a hugely rewatchable movie. Let’s not forget the mysterious villains: the Syndicate, a sort of evil Impossible Mission Force. Don’t they sound dangerous?