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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

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Watch Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol with a subscription on Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Jeremy Renner

William Brandt

Paula Patton

Jane Carter

Michael Nyqvist

Kurt Hendricks

Movie Clips

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.
In the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Ethan Hunt and a new team race against time to track down Hendricks, a dangerous terrorist who has gained access to Russian nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike on the United States. An attempt by the team to stop him at the Kremlin ends in a disaster, with an explosion causing severe damage to the Kremlin and the IMF being implicated in the bombing, forcing the President to invoke Ghost Protocol, under which the IMF is disavowed, and will be offered no help or backup in any form. Undaunted, Ethan and his team chase Hendricks to Dubai, and from there to Mumbai, but several spectacular action sequences later, they might still be too late to stop a disaster. — shreesha bhat
IMF agent Ethan Hunt, who's been out for sometime, is given another mission. He has to break into the Kremlin to obtain some information. He gets in but when he gets to where he is suppose to go, the information is not there. And at the same moment, in another part of the building someone kills some people and takes some sensitive material. He then taps into Ethan's frequency, pretending to be part of his team. Ethan then calls an abort and just as he was leaving, the Kremlin explodes. Ethan is knocked out and wakes up in a hospital handcuffed to a bed and questioned by a Russian agent who thinks he's responsible for what happened. Ethan escapes and calls the Secretary who meets him with an aide named Brandt. Ethan gives them a description of the man he thinks is responsible and is told he's a rogue scientist. Ethan is told that IMF is being shut down. And since he's wanted, he is told by the Secretary that he can either turn himself in or go out and find the man responsible. That's when they're attacked by the Russian who thinks Ethan is the one responsible. The Secretary is killed, Ethan and Brandt escape and join two other agents and they set out to find the man and clear the IMF. — [email protected]
The terrorist Kurt Hendricks, a.k.a. Cobalt, plans to begin a Nuclear War and he hires the killer Sabine Moreau to steal the Russian launch codes in Budapest while he erases his records in the Kremlin. Ethan Hunt is assigned with his team to retrieve Hendricks's identity in the Kremlin, but the terrorist arrives first and bomb the Kremlin. The IMF is blamed for the bombing and the President of USA invokes the Ghost Protocol, shutting down the organization. Ethan Hunt and his team travel to Dubai first and to Mumbai later trying to clear the name of IMF and avoid Hendricks from bombing USA and begin the war. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Ethan Hunt is broken out of a Russian prison by IMF team members and begins his search for an international terrorist who has successfully stolen Russian arming codes for their nuclear missiles. They must first identify him and the only way to do so is to break into the Kremlin archives. The end result is that much of the Kremlin is destroyed and now Russian agents are after the IMF. They track the thief, now identified as Kurt Hendricks, to Dubai where an attempt to con him out of the codes fail. They then follow him to Mumbai where it's believed he will transmit the signals to launch the Russian missiles at the USA. — garykmcd
On assignment in Budapest to intercept a courier working for a person of interest code-named "Cobalt", IMF agent Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) is killed by an assassin named Moreau (Lea Seydoux). Hanaway's team leader, Jane Carter (Paula Patton), and newly promoted field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) extract Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) from a Moscow prison. Ethan insists on extracting his source Bogdan (Miraj Grbic) and they are rescued from the prison together. Ethan knew that as his informer Bogdan would be tortured and killed, so he rescued him and granted him his freedom. Jane tells Hunt that Hannaway was killed while intercepting a routine courier drop. The courier was carrying Russian nuclear launch codes & these were now in the hands of an assassin. But before being killed by Moreau, Hannaway was also attacked by other parties after the same codes. Hunt knows that IMF has been looking for an extremist, code name Cobalt. Cobalt is known to have threatened a detonation of a nuclear device however he can & with the theft of the launch codes, his identity is of crucial importance. Moreau has worked with him before. Cobalt was a nuclear strategist for Russian intelligence. Hunt is recruited to lead Carter and Dunn to infiltrate the secret Moscow Kremlin archives and locate files identifying Cobalt. Cobalt will do anything to destroy any records of his identity. Cobalt is already on his way to the Kremlin, which gives Ethan 5 hours to complete his mission. Halfway through the mission, Ethan manages to bypass all security inside the Kremlin and enter the archives room, but he finds the records room empty. Then, someone broadcasts across the IMF frequency, alerting the Russians to Hunt's team. Ethan orders an abort and while exiting the Kremlin, he sees another person coming out with a large briefcase in his hands. Although Hunt, Dunn and Carter escape, a bomb destroys the Kremlin. Ethan is caught up in the blast and wakes up in a Russian hospital. Russian agent Sidorov (Vladimir Mashkov) accuses Hunt of masterminding the attack, who is now again under Russian arrest. Hunt manages to escape from the hospital and calls in an immediate rescue for himself. The IMF extracts Hunt from Moscow. The Russians have called the attack an undeclared act of war and the US president activates "Ghost Protocol", a black operation contingency that disavows the entire IMF. Hunt and team are to take the blame for the attack but will be allowed to escape from government custody so that they may operate to track down Cobalt. Before Hunt can escape, the IMF's secretary (Tom Wilkinson) is killed by Russian security forces led by Sidorov, leaving Hunt and intelligence analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to find their own way out. Based on Ethan's description, Brandt identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist who believes the weak must die for the strong to survive, and so plans to start a nuclear war to start the next stage of human evolution. Hendricks bombed the Kremlin and acquired a Russian nuclear launch-control device, and now needs its codes from the Budapest courier (Moreau) in order to launch a nuclear missile at America. The team gather in one of the supplementary covert IMF sites that the secretary overlooked and plans their next move. The exchange between Moreau and Hendricks's right-hand man, Wistrom (Samuli Edelmann), is due to take place at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Ethan has to hack the server room by climbing outside of the Burj Khalifa using magnetic gloves. There, Hunt's team-members separately convince Moreau and Wistrom that they have made the exchange with one another, when actually they never meet each other and only meet members of the IMF team pretending to be Wistrom and Moreau (Their mask machine failed, so they went without masks hoping that Wistrom and Moreau never met each other). The objective was to let Wistrom believe that he has the authentic codes, so that he can lead them to Hendricks. For this, the real codes had to be given to Wistrom as he was checking them live. However, Moreau identifies Brandt as an agent. While Hunt chases Wistrom only to realize Wistrom is actually Hendricks in disguise. As Hendricks escapes with the codes, Carter detains Moreau. Moreau attempts to kill the inexperienced Dunn, and Carter throws her out a window to her death. Brandt accuses Carter of compromising the mission for revenge against Moreau, but Hunt accuses Brandt of keeping secrets from them, as he has displayed fighting skills atypical of an analyst. While Hunt seeks more information from Bogdan, Brandt admits he was assigned as security detail to Hunt and his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) while on assignment. Julia was killed by a Serbian hit squad, prompting Ethan to pursue and kill them before he was caught by the Russians and sent to prison. Brandt says that he could bear the brunt of failure and that his last day In the field. Bogdan and his arms-dealer cousin inform Hunt that Hendricks will be in Mumbai. Hendricks facilitated the sale of a defunct Soviet military satellite to Indian telecommunications entrepreneur Brij Nath (Anil Kapoor), which could be used to transmit the order to fire a missile. Bogdan's cousin also informs Sidorov about Ethan's location. While Brandt and Dunn infiltrate the server room to take the satellite offline, Carter gets Nath to reveal the satellite override code. But Hendricks has anticipated Hunt's plan and takes Nath's servers offline after sending a signal from a television broadcasting tower to a Russian nuclear submarine in the Pacific. The submarine fires a nuclear missile on San Francisco. This single missile would look like Russian retaliation for bombing of the Kremlin and would evoke an equivalent response from the US. The only way to stop the missile is via the abort sequence on the launch device that Hendricks is carrying. Hunt pursues Hendricks and the launch device to an automated parking facility, while the other team-members attempt to bring the broadcast station back online. Hunt and Hendricks fight over the launch-control device before Hendricks jumps to his death with it to ensure that the launch cannot be aborted. Dunn kills Wistrom, allowing Brandt to restore power to the station and enabling Hunt to deactivate the missile. He is confronted by Sidorov, who sees Hunt has stopped the missile, proving the IMF is innocent in the Kremlin bombing. The team reconvenes weeks later. Hunt issues them new assignments. Brandt refuses to accept the mission, but Hunt reveals that Julia's death was staged, as he knew he could not protect her and used her death as a pretext to infiltrate a Russian prison and get close to Bogdan, an IMF source on Hendricks. Relieved of his guilt, Brandt accepts his mission while Hunt watches Julia from afar. They share a smile before he goes off on his next mission.

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Movie Review | 'Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol'

Falling Off Skyscrapers Sometimes Hurts a Bit

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By Manohla Dargis

Dec. 15, 2011

What makes Tom Cruise run — run harder and run faster, leaping from one building and dangling off another, the world’s tallest — as he does to exhausting, unnerving effect in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” his latest exercise in extreme performance? The fourth in the franchise, this “Mission” has a solid cast, including a notable new co-star in Jeremy Renner; a new director, Brad Bird; and a story that’s as nonsensical as any in the series. Mostly, though, it has Mr. Cruise hurtling through the movie as if his life depended on it, which, to judge by the hard line of his jaw, his punishingly fit body and the will etched into his every movement, may be what’s at stake.

It’s fitting that Mr. Bird, the director of the Pixar movies “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” has taken over the reins of the franchise for his live-action directing debut. The “Mission: Impossible” movies belong to that outlandish, sometimes cartoonish class of action adventures in which lesser, Bond-like heroes walk or race from fiery explosions in between locking and loading, kissing and killing, and killing some more. The films, spun off the 1960s television show, fondly remembered for its rubber masks and Lalo Schifrin’s brilliant, pulsating theme music, added Mr. Cruise, who in the 15 years since the first installment has tumbled from his top spot as the world’s biggest movie star to lag behind neo-action figures like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp.

Mr. Cruise may be somewhat down (certainly his smile has dimmed), yet he’s scarcely out. That’s partly because of Mr. Bird, who has given this movie a self-aware levity that’s intended to clear away the bummer blues of the last “Mission,” five years ago. Directed by J. J. Abrams, who is also a producer of this movie, the third film skewed the series too dark with a nihilistic baddie (chilled to shivering by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a nightmarish torture scene. It also burdened Mr. Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, with a wife (Michelle Monaghan), an unwise move — American action heroes, latter-day fantasies of our native rugged individualism, walk alone, not down the aisle — which suggested that the soon-to-be-remarried Mr. Cruise was borrowing a chapter from his own life.

The new movie, written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, both alumni of Mr. Abrams’s television show “Alias” (mostly), ditches the wife and gets back to action basics with globe-trotting, nifty gadgets, high-flying stunts and less loquacious villainy (Michael Nyqvist). (It was also partly shot in Imax, which doesn’t really enhance anything.)

Ethan, after being broken out of a Moscow prison, where he had been idling among hordes of bull-necked Ivans and Igors, sets off on another mission with an old teammate, the tech whiz Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and the obligatory pretty lady, Agent Jane Carter (Paula Patton). The mission goes bust and boom, as does a debriefing with Ethan’s boss (Tom Wilkinson, uncredited), whose murder finds Ethan and his team blackballed (if still sleuthing) and keeping company with an intelligence analyst, William Brandt (Mr. Renner).

Mr. Renner, who played the main bomb specialist in “The Hurt Locker,” eases effortlessly into the blockbuster register, where star charisma and presence like Mr. Cruise’s matter more than emotionally selling a scene. Mr. Renner has to do some actual acting because of the role (surprise: there’s more to Brandt than a suit), and his low-key performance is a dividend in a movie in which almost all human interactions take exaggerated form, with more throttling than talking, or so it seems. Mr. Renner isn’t an obvious action type — he’s good-looking rather than roguish or boyishly pretty — but as soon as he rolls up his sleeves and picks up a gun, it’s obvious that he’s qualified for the job.

For his part, Mr. Cruise seems comfortable resuming his franchise duties, though there’s a palpable difference in his affect, even from the last movie. He still radiates intensity bordering on mania, but without the familiar “what, me worry?” air of invincibility. Maybe it’s age: he turns 50 next year, or perhaps Mr. Bird’s approach doesn’t sit well with him, even if it also fits. The wolfish Cruise smile seems tighter, at times reluctant, despite Mr. Bird’s efforts to lighten the mood with banter (much of it supplied by a chattering Mr. Pegg). Over the years Mr. Cruise, a divinely superficial presence in pop fodder like “Top Gun,” has grown progressively heavier, weighted down by stardom, ambition and the misstep of turning his personal life into a public drama. At times he can feel leaden.

Unexpectedly, though, his age and inescapable gravitas work for “Ghost Protocol,” partly because they invest the outrageous stunts with a real sense of risk. Mr. Cruise’s primary job in the “Mission” series is to embody a not-quite-ordinary man whose powers are at once extraordinary and completely believable, a no-sweat feat in the first few films.

Here, however, when Ethan ziplines off a building onto a truck and then rolls hard onto the street, Mr. Bird — while borrowing more than a little from the “Roadrunner” cartoons — also makes you aware of the fragility of the body ricocheting on screen, absorbing every blow for your entertainment. And when Mr. Cruise hangs off the even taller building , what you see isn’t just a man doing a crazy stunt but also one poignantly denying his own mortality.

“Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Largely bloodless, if at times extreme, violence, including gunplay and a fatal push from a skyscraper. Those with acrophobia beware.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Ghost Protocol

Opens on Friday at Imax theaters nationwide.

Directed by Brad Bird; written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, based on the television series created by Bruce Geller; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by Paul Hirsch; music by Michael Giacchino, “Mission: Impossible” theme composed by Lalo Schifrin; production design by Jim Bissell; costumes by Michael Kaplan; produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes.

WITH: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Jeremy Renner (Brandt), Simon Pegg (Benji), Paula Patton (Jane), Michael Nyqvist (Hendricks), Vladimir Mashkov (Sidorov), Josh Holloway (Hanaway), Anil Kapoor (Brij Nath), Léa Seydoux (Sabine Moreau) and Tom Wilkinson (I.M.F. Secretary).

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Mission: impossible – ghost protocol: film review.

Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt goes rogue to clear his organization's name in Brad Bird's first live-action film.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: Film Review

It may not be The Incredibles , but there is some fairly incredible stuff to be found in Mission: Impossible —Ghost Protocol , animation ace Brad Bird ‘ s first live-action film and a good continuation of the now-16-year-old series. The impact of spectacular action on striking international locales is moderated somewhat by the repetitive nature of the challenges faced by this rebooted team of American agents trying to thwart a villain who believes that a nuclear winter would be in the natural order of things. With Tom Cruise in top form here and IMAX presentation enhancing some of the key sequences, this Paramount release should add substantially to the grand total of a franchise that has hauled in $1.4 billion to date.

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Cast & crew.

Jeremy Renner

Paula Patton

Jane Carter

Michael Nyqvist

Spy franchise returns for more action-packed thrills.

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10 Years Ago, 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol' Gave Tom Cruise's Career New Life

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Revisited

(Welcome to Man on a Mission , a monthly series where we revisit the films of the Mission: Impossible franchise as we sprint toward the release of the seventh film.)

Modern action-movie franchises are typified by recurring tropes and action aesthetics. Watch an entry in the John Wick films, and you can rest assured you'll see bloody, intense, and impressively staged fight scenes. Check out the latest Fast and Furious film, and you know that you'll see increasingly outlandish and ridiculous chases and fights, from underground heists to scenes literally set in outer space. And if you watch a Mission: Impossible movie, you are all but guaranteed to see at least one stunt in which Tom Cruise appears to indulge in one of the most grandiose death wishes known to man.

Even now, a decade later, it's possible that the fourth entry in the series, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol , has the most jaw-dropping stunt of all, simply because of how willing Cruise was to place himself in a deadly, risky situation just to entertain an audience he can't see.

An Animated Leap

Mission: Impossible III was well-liked by critics, and its reputation a few years later was far stronger than that of Mission: Impossible 2 , in spite of the 2000 film vastly outgrossing it at the box office. But the intervening few years were spotty for star Tom Cruise. After the very public controversies he courted (and largely created for himself) related to his Scientology beliefs and his relationship with Katie Holmes, films like Valkyrie and Lions for Lambs fizzled at the box office, and more action-heavy fare like Knight and Day failed to make an impact. ( Lions for Lambs is the last straight-up drama Cruise has appeared in. Just about everything since that time has been either a full-on action/genre film, or a film with elements of action, like Valkyrie . The jukebox musical Rock of Ages is the exception to this rule.) The only late-2000s film featuring Cruise that raised his profile in a good way was Tropic Thunder , the outrageous comedy in which he appeared in prosthetics as an obnoxious and aggressive Hollywood executive.

The one standard for Cruise was the Mission: Impossible franchise. Even with the third film being less successful at the box office, Paramount was willing to pursue a fourth entry. As with the previous three entries, Cruise would work with a different director, though J.J. Abrams would shift to a position he's become vastly more comfortable with throughout his career, as producer. (His Bad Robot Productions shingle has produced all remaining Mission: Impossible films, including the upcoming entries.) In some ways, the choice for the director of the fourth entry made vastly more sense than Abrams did. But just as Abrams made the jump from television to feature films with Mission: Impossible III , so too would the Ghost Protocol director jump: from animation to live-action.

By the late 2000s, Brad Bird had proven himself to be one of the great living animation filmmakers. He was invited to join the braintrust at Pixar Animation Studios earlier in the decade, serving as the first filmmaker to be both writer and director, helming the dazzling and propulsive superhero action-comedy The Incredibles . Upon the success of that 2004 film, he took over the struggling production of a story of a rat in France who wants to cook, and turned it into Ratatouille , the best film Pixar has ever made. And if those titles weren't enough, he'd previously written and directed The Iron Giant , a fine feature debut, and served as creative consultant on the first eight seasons (AKA the best seasons) of The Simpsons . But Bird hadn't directed live-action...until Cruise and Abrams took a chance on the animation filmmaker (roughly around the same time that Disney was taking a chance on fellow Pixar filmmaker Andrew Stanton with John Carter ).

The Next Ethan Hunt

There's one other aspect of Ghost Protocol that serves as the production considering taking a chance on an untested quantity. Early in the film's production, there were whispers that perhaps it was time for Cruise to move on, or pass the torch symbolically. Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit confirmed as much a couple years ago: the film was originally meant to end with Ethan becoming the next Secretary of the IMF, with another agent taking over in the field.

Just as the public seemed to move past Tom Cruise in the late 2000s, the thinking went, maybe Ethan Hunt needed to take a rest, especially with the star approaching his 50th birthday. (He turned 50 just six months after Ghost Protocol was released in theaters.) Enter Jeremy Renner, the Academy Award-nominated breakout star of Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker . That film's success led to some big-deal roles for Renner: he was going to be the next Jason Bourne in The Bourne Legacy , he got a meaty supporting role in The Town that netted him his second consecutive Oscar nod; and he was going to be one of The Avengers as gifted archer Hawkeye. But he approached receiving another feather in his cap: being the next Ethan Hunt.

That, at least, is part of the story of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol . The film spends its first half in Eastern Europe, as Ethan is broken out of a Moscow prison to help out on a mission with two newer IMF agents: Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and a now-in-the-field Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg, who joins Ving Rhames here as a rare returning cast member). Ethan presumes their breaking him out must mean things are worse on the outside. And as you'd expect, Ethan's right: they soon learn that a mysterious, fiercely intelligent, and obsessed nuclear strategist, Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), is trying to get his hands on nuclear weapons to invoke the apocalypse and restart with a new world order. When an attempt to stop Hendricks from getting valuable intel at the Kremlin goes south, the IMF is blamed for a massive explosion at the Russian landmark. As you may already know, the U.S. President has to invoke ghost protocol. (Or, if you were online enough a decade ago, "ghotocol". Do you remember " ghotocol "? Good times.)

Ghost protocol, as explained by the oft-mentioned but now finally seen IMF Secretary (an uncredited Tom Wilkinson), means that Ethan, Jane, and Benji, and a single caravan of equipment are all that remains of the IMF. Well...them and IMF analyst William Brandt (Renner), who soon begins carrying himself with a bit more physical aplomb than the traditional analyst would. But he's onboard for the ride after he and Ethan survive an attack that offs the Secretary. That attack occurs after what is truly the most hilariously demented moment in any Mission: Impossible film, when Ethan draws a detailed police-sketch-style drawing of Hendricks on the palm of his hand in the span of 15 seconds and demands that Brandt identify the person.

Hanging On for Dear Life

Plot is rarely important in the Mission: Impossible films, but it feels especially unimportant in Ghost Protocol . (The script is credited to Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, but a couple of years after they worked together for the first time on Valkyrie , Cruise enlisted Christopher McQuarrie to revise the script, in an uncredited capacity. It's a collaboration that has led to many fruitful results.) The premise of the film is, in its own way, very much the same as it is in every Mission : the IMF is whittled down to a bare few, and in hoping to win the day, they must prove their own viability as an organization. Perhaps the best running gag of Ghost Protocol is that the equipment the IMF has now, at least the bare-bones gadgets that our remaining quartet can access, are woefully unable to actually do the job. Remember the masks of previous entries? They're gone here because, in a key moment, the mask-making machine that Benji has brought with him conks out. The infamous "This tape will self-destruct in five seconds" device? It's on the fritz – Ethan has to bang on an old-school telephone booth to make the tape blow up, like he's jostling a stodgy desktop computer.

The most obvious example of technology making things harder for Ethan and his crew comes in the middle of a centerpiece sequence, primarily set at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. There are many contenders for this title, but the 30-minute section in this film's middle, from when Ethan and the agents arrive in Dubai to the conclusion of a race between Ethan and Hendricks through a sandstorm, is the single greatest section in any of these movies. There's much more to the sequence than the part you remember – the IMF team has to fool a wily assassin (Lea Seydoux) who previously killed Jane's boyfriend and fellow agent, while also fooling Hendricks' henchman and a hapless nuclear physicist, trying to swap out real nuclear codes for fake ones and retrieving the real ones before any baddies use them.

But before any of that goes down, they have to get access to the security center at the Burj Khalifa, which means that Ethan has to break into a server room from the outside...of the tallest building in the world. Ghost Protocol , above all else, is known for the image of Tom Cruise climbing up the side of the Burj Khalifa, with just his hands and feet holding him up. (Ethan is supposed to be aided by two powerful gloves that adhere to the windows of the Burj, but they stop working almost as soon as he starts climbing.)

Watching the scene now, it's a little difficult to communicate exactly how breathtaking it was to behold the vertiginous sight of Tom Cruise hanging by almost literally a thread in a proper IMAX theater. (Bird, to his credit, advocated for filming roughly 30 minutes of the film with IMAX cameras, as opposed to the film simply being placed in IMAX theaters without using the tech itself.) The shot of Ethan, wearing goggles to protect his eyes from the gusting wind, slowly approaching the side of the building was presented with the aspect ratio gradually shifting from 2.35:1 to 1.66:1, a shift that feels mammoth on an IMAX screen. Rarely has the IMAX tagline that you can "be part" of a movie felt more apt – watching Tom Cruise desperately ascend the Burj Khalifa is thrilling enough, but in IMAX, it felt like the audience was climbing up with him.

A Template for the Future

If there is anything to truly criticize with the Dubai section of Ghost Protocol , it's that the film cannot possibly approach the high quality of its middle portion elsewhere. Throughout, it's eminently clear that Brad Bird is as gifted a filmmaker when working in the medium of live-action as he is in animation. Even the spatial geography of Ethan and a fellow inmate he's breaking out in the opening sequence is communicated clearly, which should not feel revolutionary to the modern viewer, but is simply because of how few action films are staged and choreographed coherently. In the final chunk of the film, set in Mumbai, Ethan's battle with the maniacally determined Hendricks in a revolving and rotating circular parking garage is carefully staged to heighten the suspense. The sequence can't hold a candle to the mid-section, but it's here in Ghost Protocol that an important element of the first entry in the series is brought back to the fore: action that you can actually visually understand .

It's a stylistic choice that hasn't been consistent in each Mission: Impossible – whatever else is true of the third film, Abrams' directing style is intentionally jittery and harder to visually parse. But clean, crisply shot action is now a hallmark of the franchise, thanks in no small part to Bird's outstanding work in Ghost Protocol . Reviews on the film were positive, by far the highest to date in the series. And more importantly for Paramount, audiences flocked to the return of Ethan Hunt in droves: inflation aside, Ghost Protocol was the highest-grossing entry in the franchise worldwide to date, and nearly outgrossed the second film domestically.

Considering that the film doesn't end as was originally planned, it was a clear-cut case of audiences willing to embrace Cruise as a movie star once more, at least in this specific role. Renner's character William Brandt sticks around at the end, and the Mumbai finale even gives Brandt a brief visual callback to the fantastic CIA break-in sequence of the original Mission: Impossible . But it's clear that Hunt is still calling the shots, a creative decision Elswit (in the above link) acknowledges occurred thanks to the arrival of Christopher McQuarrie to the production. As noted above, McQuarrie's connection to Cruise led to some major creative success.

Next Time: McQuarrie moves beyond just being an uncredited writer, taking the reins with a Rogue Nation .

Who’d be crazy enough to accept this mission?

It has been claimed that Cruise “insisted on doing his stunts himself.” Say what? The character Ethan Hunt is seen like a human fly clinging to glass, thousands of feet in the air, and you’re telling me we aren’t looking at CGI? If that’s really Tom Cruise , he seems like a suitable case for treatment.

If it is or isn’t, this movie’s Burj Khalifa action sequence is one of the most spellbinding stretches of film I’ve seen. In the way it’s set up, photographed and edited, it provided me and my vertigo with scary fascination. The movie has other accomplished set pieces as well. It opens with Ethan Hunt’s breakout from a Russian prison. There is a staggering fight scene inside a space-age parking garage where moving steel platforms raise and lower cars, and the fighters jump from one level to another. There’s a clever scene in the vaults of the Kremlin Archives in which a virtual reality illusion is used to fool a guard. And a scene at a fancy Mumbai party in which Indian star Anil Kapoor thinks he’s seducing MI team member Jane ( Paula Patton ) in an elaborately choreographed diversionary technique.

Ethan and Jane are joined by Mission mates Brandt ( Jeremy Renner ) and Benji ( Simon Pegg ) in an attempt to foil a madman named Hendricks ( Michael Nyqvist ), who has gained control of a satellite and possession of Russian nuclear codes, and wants to start a nuclear war. His reason, as much as I understand it, is that life on Earth needs to be annihilated once in a while so it can get a fresh start, and Hendricks is impatient waiting for a big asteroid to come along in his lifetime.

The movie benefits greatly from the well-defined performances of the Mission team. Cruise, hurting from the death of his wife (remember her in the third MI picture?), plays a likable man of, shall we say, infinite courage. Simon Pegg, with his owl face and petulance, is funny as Benji the computer genius, one of those guys who can walk into the Burj Khalifa with a laptop and instantly grab control of its elevators and security cameras. Paula Patton is an appealing Jane, combining sweet sexiness with vicious hand-to-hand fighting techniques. And Jeremy Renner’s Brandt, entering the plot late as an “analyst” for the IMF secretary ( Tom Wilkinson ), is revealed to have a great many extra-analytical skills.

Brandt and Benji have a scene that reaches a new level of action goofiness even for a “ Mission: Impossible ” movie. Brandt’s mission, and Ethan makes it clear he has to accept it, is to wear steel mesh underwear and jump into a ventilating shaft with wicked spinning fan blades at the bottom. Benji will halt his fall with a little mobile magnet at the bottom of the shaft, so Brandt can break into massive computers. Renner does an especially nice job of seeming very scared when he does this.

The movie has an unexpected director: Brad Bird , the maker of such great animated films as “ The Iron Giant ,” “ The Incredibles ” and “ Ratatouille .” Well, why not? Animation specializes in action, and his films are known for strong characterization. You’d think he’d been doing thrillers for years.

Now I want to get back to Tom Cruise, who we left clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa, allegedly doing his own stunts. I’m not saying he didn’t. No doubt various unseen nets and wires were also used, and at least some CGI. Whatever.

I remember a story Clint Eastwood told me years ago, after he made “ The Eiger Sanction ” (1975). There’s a scene in the movie where Clint’s character dangles in mid-air at the end of a cable hanging from a mountain. He’s thousands of feet up. Clint, who also directed, did the scene himself.

“I didn’t want to use a stunt man,” he said, “because I wanted to use a telephoto lens and zoom in slowly all the way to my face — so you could see it was really me. I put on a little disguise and slipped into a sneak preview of the film to see how people liked it. When I was hanging up there in the air, the woman in front of me said to her friend, ‘Gee, I wonder how they did that?’ and her friend said, ‘Special effects.'”

Note: I should add that I saw the film in the IMAX format. Wow. The skyscraper scene had incredible impact.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
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How Tom Cruise pulled off that 'Mission: Impossible 4' skyscraper climb and canceled his retirement from the blockbuster franchise

As the star of the Mission: Impossible movie series, Tom Cruise has been pulling off impossible missions — and improbable stunts — for a quarter century and counting. From the 1996 franchise-starter to the currently filming seventh and eight installments, the first of which will hit theaters in 2022 , the actor's alter ego, super-agent Ethan Hunt, has traveled the globe and saved the world many times over.

But Cruise's license to thrill almost got revoked a decade ago in the fourth installment, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol . Directed by Brad Bird and released in theaters on Dec. 15, 2011, the movie was widely assumed at the time to be the star's final outing. In a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Ghost Protocol stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz confirms that's how things went down in the original script, which features an extended climax where Ethan chases rogue nuclear strategist Kurt Hendricks (played by Michael Nyqvist) around a towering carpark.

"There was a point in the script when he's fighting Michael Nyqvist where he was supposed to get his leg broken," Smrz remembers now. "They wanted it hyper-extended at the knee, just shredded — end of career, you know? The studio was going to write him out, and Tom did not want it. He was strapping in his harness, looked at me and said, 'I ain't going nowhere.' Then he walked out on set and did his thing. We had [the leg break] all set and ready to go, and it disappeared."

Turns out that Cruise called his shot correctly. Far from becoming his last Mission: Impossible movie, Ghost Protocol relit the franchise's fuse with a mighty $210 million domestic box-office gross and a wave of ecstatic reviews. The movie also boasts a sequence that consistently ranks on or near the top of any list of the very best Mission: Impossible stunts : Ethan's nail-biting climb up the side of Dubai's world-famous Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

As stunt coordinator, Smrz — who first collaborated with Cruise on Mission: Impossible 2 — oversaw that scene and agrees that it's one for the record books. "I said to Brad, 'Do you have any idea what we're doing?'" he recalls. "'We're climbing 1,700 feet in the air, 200 feet up a building. This has never been done before, and it'll never be done again, because they're never going to allow it.' It's a work of art, and I don't think it can ever be beat as far as a climbing sequence on a building."

And as Smrz reveals, it's a stunt that very nearly didn't happen. Early on in pre-production, Paramount seemed poised to cancel Ghost Protocol outright before shooting started. "We had started prepping the building climb immediately on a studio lot, and were on the payroll for about before weeks when we heard that they were going to pull the plug. Tom went to have a meeting with [the studio] and we would know the outcome at the end of it."

Fortunately, Cruise emerged from that meeting with a greenlight, and Smrz and his team restarted preparations for pulling off the Burj Khalifa climb — a sequence that was always designed to serve as the movie's spectacular centerpiece. Initially skeptical that the building's owner would let them turn the 2,722-foot skyscraper into a movie set, the crew recreated three floors of the Burj on a soundstage in Prague. "We built an adjustable wall, slowly raised it until it was vertical and practiced for 200 hours on it with a crew of seven or eight guys. But Tom kept saying, 'I really want to climb that building.'"

Eventually, a compromise was reached: the production could shoot for one day on the exterior of the building, and the rest of the sequence would be shot on another 60-foot adjustable wall that has been constructed in the desert outside of Dubai. Once again, though, Cruise changed the course of production with a single sentence. "The first day [on the Burj] went so well that Tom said, 'We're filming the whole thing here on the real building.' We ended up doing one day of shooting over on the set, and the rest of it was on the real building."

With Cruise leading the charge, the Ghost Protocol crew worked out a deal with the building's owners that gave them full access to several floors that weren't yet in use. Smrz and his team then knocked out roughly 17 glass panels to make room for the stunt and camera cables and other rigging.

"I told them, 'We won't scratch your building; we're not going to damage anything.' As they saw that we were not destructive and really cared about their building, they started to work with us. There was this one guy I called Dr. No, because every time I'd ask if we could do something, he'd go, 'No!' at first. But towards the end, if I said, 'Hey, we need to drill another hole,' he'd say, 'Just tell me where.'"

As designed by Cruise, Bird and Smrz, the eight-minute Burj sequence has two distinct movements: Ethan's slow, deliberate climb up the side of the Burj in order to recover all-important nuclear launch codes and then his rapid descent. The upwards journey includes a gasp-inducing plunge where Hunt falls from an unsteady perch outside his target floor. Cruise performed the fall himself, dropping roughly forty feet from a height of 1,700 feet off the ground.

"That was probably the most nail-biting day of the show," Smrz says, adding that they only did a single take of Cruise's fall. "Somebody said, 'What if the cable breaks?' And I said, 'That's not an option.' We actually did the math, and there was enough time of free fall for him to text me on the way down, and for me to receive it!"

But Smrz also makes it clear that he would have overruled Cruise if he truly felt the star would be in danger. "If he wasn't an actor, Tom could have been a stuntman, and I would put anybody in anything if I didn't think it was safe for a stunt guy. I've got to be 99.9 percent sure it's going to be successful before we do it, whether it's a stunt person or an actor. So putting Tom into the harness was no different than a stunt guy. I expect the stunt to work, because we've already proven it over and over. "

Ethan's journey down the Burj starts with him running down the side of the building until he literally reaches the end of his rope. But he's the opposite of home free: He's still one floor above the rest of his team — William (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Jane (Paula Patton) — and has to make a daring leap into the void to reach them. In order to gain the necessary momentum, Ethan runs in the opposite direction alongside the building and then power jumps into the air, swinging on the cable in a wide arc as he heads for the open window where William and Jane stand.

"When Tom swung on that rope around the building, Brad wanted him to go out farther," Smrz remembers. "I said, 'We'd have a problem: He has to come back, and I can't soften the impact on the glass. So the farther he goes out, the harder he's going to hit the glass, and he's already hitting it really hard.' Brad came from the world of animation where anything he wanted to do was possible, but I have a reputation for trying to keep everything real. I like to see when they hit the ground, that it hurts. But Brad was great to work with, because we'd always just sit down and talk and make sure we both were happy."

Ethan's cable swing also includes some shots that were filmed on the recreation of the Burj, including the moment where he unclips in mid-air and the moment where he flies at the window, hitting his head. But the scene where Renner clutches Cruise's leg high above Dubai was filmed on location. "We had Tom suspended on the real building, and then we dropped him," Smrz explains. "Jeremy and Paula were on cables, and they actually did dive out the window and caught Tom by his ankle. The actors did a fantastic job, especially because it was hot. We were working on glass, and it got up to 125 degrees."

The Burj Khalifa climb wasn't just a franchise-best stunt: It was also a personal best for Cruise, one that the actor has been trying to top ever since. "He wants to beat it," says Smrz, who hasn't worked on a Mission: Impossible movie since 2015's Rogue Nation , where Cruise awarded him the opportunity to choreograph the wild motorcycle chase of his dreams . "We took it to a whole other level, but it wasn't beating the building, you know what I mean? It was just a motorcycle chase. So they came up with that plane stunt . Tom's going to try to step it up to the next level in every movie, but he's also getting older: I used to tell him, 'Tom, you're going to end up walking like I do if you keep this up!'"

In that case, it's just as well that Cruise is better known for his running anyway. Asked about the actor's famously meme-friendly fleet feet , Smrz confirms he's the last person you want to be in a race with. "He can run 17-and-a-half miles an hour," he marvels. "In the scene where he's running away from the Burj, I had my stunt guys chasing him, and he was killing them. I said, 'Can you slow down a little?' And he started laughing and said, 'I'm not slowing down — tell them to speed up!' He's really fast and he has this odd style where he really lifts his legs high, and he's got the arms and legs pumping. Maybe that's his secret."

Reflecting on the Burj Khalifa climb a decade later, Smrz feels that it's increasingly rare for a studio to allow a movie star, and a stunt crew, the time and resources necessary to pull off a major setpiece on that level. "The big thing was that we really could have done that entire sequence on a stage and with visual effects. But Tom refuses to do that, because he wants climbing the Burj to be part of the thing that he does. He likes to do his own stuff, it's great for publicity and he enjoys it. It's always funny when somebody tells me, 'Tom's not going to do that — the studio's not going to allow it.' And I just say, 'He'll be doing it.'"

At the same time, with the tragedy on the set of Rust still fresh in everyone's minds , Smrz acknowledges that the industry is potentially facing widespread change in terms of how major action sequences are handled, especially when guns are involved. For his part, he believes that safety is always paramount even if it comes with a price tag. "I've been told [by studios], 'You and your guys are too expensive,'" Smrz says. "But at the end of every film, I always ask, 'Still think I'm too expensive?' and they go, 'No, we got what we paid for.' It's so busy out there right now ... and it has a lot to do with the experience of the person they hire. And right now, they're kind of hiring anybody, so it's a little scary.

"I don't think squibs and gunfire are going to go away," Smrz continues. "It's part of the job, and you have to be extra safe and unafraid to stand your ground. You have to be willing to get fired if you know that you're right and they want to push on anyway. On five occasions, I've started to walk off the set and never made it off because they realize how serious you are. You're willing to leave the movie, and that's what it takes if they expect us to keep it safe. I don't think it can get any safer: I mean, if they're going to make it so problematic that they'll just stop doing stuff, it'll all be cartoons."

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is currently streaming on Paramount+.

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

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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.

Movie Features

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How mission impossible 4 tricked you with a physically impossible camera movement in burj khalifa stunt.

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Beetlejuice beetlejuice: cameo of frequent tim burton collaborator explained by writer, mark wahlberg & mel gibson's action thriller release date delayed (but avoids box office competition).

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol pushed boundaries by using a camera trick to capture Tom Cruise climbing and reacting to a sandstorm through a glass window.
The stunt was filmed on a partial set piece in Vancouver, with the skyline and sandstorm added in post-production.
The success of the Mission: Impossible movies is due in part to the dedicated behind-the-scenes artists who push the limits of filmmaking.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol may have had Tom Cruise scaling the world’s tallest building, but a subtle camera trick used during the stunt sequence is what truly pushed the boundaries of what was possible. Serving as the first live-action movie for The Incredibles director Brad Bird, 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol saw Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his team attempt to steal nuclear launch codes during a clandestine meeting held at the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. However, to access the building’s secure server and trick the original buyer, Hunt is forced to scale the side of the building in one of the movie's more memorable sequences.

During a new episode of Corridor Crew ’s "VFX Artists React" series on YouTube with guest, ILM VFX artist Todd Vaziri, the hosts are stunned by a moment when the camera moves around Cruise’s head, seemingly moving right through the glass window he is climbing to catch his reaction to an incoming sandstorm. Vaziri revealed that portion of the stunt was filmed on a partial set piece in Vancouver against a blue screen, and that while Cruise was only 20 feet in the air, the Dubai skyline and incoming sandstorm were composited in during post-production. Check out the full explanation in the quotes and video below:

So this is on a partial set piece in Vancouver. He’s 20 feet off the ground, and some of the sky is the real Vancouver sky. On the flip side is a blue screen. We are looking at the beginning of the shot into the set piece of the reflective window into a blue screen, so that’s all synthetic back there. [Digital artist] Mark Nettleton did an amazing job in this shot. As the camera swings around, the window is removed so that the camera can swing around and get an over-the-shoulder of Tom. That’s a real reflection of Tom, but not of Dubai.

How The Mission: Impossible Series Continues To Push Filmmaking Boundaries

When Tom Cruise first rebooted the classic 1960s spy show Mission: Impossible in 1996, few would have believed that he would still be helming the blockbuster franchise some 27 years later with plans to return for even more. While this year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One did not perform as well at the box office as first anticipated, it still did manage to bring in over $560 million worldwide and push the cumulative total of the franchise past a massive $4 billion milestone.

A large part of the franchise’s ongoing longevity and enduring appeal comes from Cruise’s willingness to engage in a series of death-defying stunts, with each movie featuring a series of increasingly more impressive feats. Yet, as this latest revelation about the fourth installment suggests, there is still far more behind-the-scenes VFX and camera work needed to bring the final sequences together. For every nail-biting moment that Cruise places himself in danger for the sake of entertainment, a swarm of dedicated camera operators, VFX crew and digital artists are also pushing the boundaries of their respective fields to deliver a polished product.

This latest behind-the-scenes revelation about Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol simply reinforces the vast amount of careful forethought and planning that goes into capturing Cruise’s amazing stunt work. Whether it be the clever use of drone technology in order to capture him hurtling off a cliff on the back of a motorcycle, or making it seem as though a window on a 163-story building could miraculously disappear, the success of the Mission: Impossible movies owe a great deal to their dedicated behind-the-scenes artists.

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It has been more than 25 years since the first Mission: Impossible film hit theaters. The spy series has only grown more popular over the years, as evidenced by the sixth installment, Mission: Impossible - Fallout , becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise. Mission: Impossible has enjoyed an incredible lead in Tom Cruise, whose hard work has gained him recognition as one of the world's greatest movie stars.

Update October 27, 2023: This article has been updated following the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and the recent delay and title change of Mission: Impossible 8.

The franchise originally showed no signs of stopping, but after the disappointing box office of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One and the next entry in the franchise being delayed out of the summer movie season of 2024 into 2025, the franchise might be calling it a day soon. But with more than 25 years of Mission: Impossible films, it can be overwhelming for a newcomer to keep track of them all. Whether you're new to the franchise or have been a lifelong fan, here's a handy list of all Mission: Impossible movies in chronological and release order.

All Mission: Impossible Movies in Chronological Order

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 8 (2025), mission: impossible.

The film that started it all, Mission: Impossible , was directed by Brian De Palma , the director behind Carrie , Scarface , and The Untouchables . The film introduced Cruise as Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt, who was framed for the murder of the rest of his team. It was the first Mission: Impossible film that featured the iconic sequence of Ethan descending into a vault, just barely avoiding touching the floor that would have resulted in catastrophic failure.

You can stream Mission: Impossible on Netflix and Paramount+.

Mission: Impossible 2

Mission: Impossible 2 saw Ethan Hunt embark on a new mission to stop a biological weapon from being released. Hunt teamed up with professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton), the former partner of the rogue IMF agent who possessed the weapon. Mission: Impossible 2 was the highest-grossing film in 2000, grossing more than Gladiator and Cast Away .

You can stream Mission: Impossible 2 on Netflix and Paramount+.

A Mission: Impossible 7 clip goes behind the scenes of Tom Cruise's dangerous speedflying stunt in the upcoming film.

Mission: Impossible III

Ethan came out of retirement in Mission: Impossible III when a powerful arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman) emerged to threaten everything he held dear. The film introduced Michelle Monaghan as Julia Meade, a nurse who became Ethan's fiancée and, simultaneously, a target for the film's villain. Mission: Impossible III was also the film that introduced Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, who appeared in every film afterward.

You can stream Mission: Impossible III on Netflix and Paramount+

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol

The fourth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Ghost Protocol harked back to the franchise's beginnings by having Ethan blamed for another crime he did not commit. Following a mission gone wrong, the U.S. President initiated "Ghost Protocol," which ordered the immediate shutdown of the Impossible Missions Force. Ethan formed a team with Benji and new member William Brandt ( played by Jeremy Renner ) in spite of the shutdown, desperate to clear their names and prevent a nuclear war.

You can stream Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol on Netflix and Paramount+.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

2015's Rogue Nation was the first Mission: Impossible film directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie, who went on to direct and write Fallout , Dead Reckoning Part One , and the now-titled Mission: Impossible 8 . Rogue Nation featured new antagonists in The Syndicate, a terrorist organization that sought to establish a new world order. Rebecca Ferguson made her debut as Ilsa Faust in Rogue Nation , becoming one of the franchise's main characters.

You can stream Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation on fuboTV and Paramount+.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Not only was Mission: Impossible - Fallout the highest-grossing film in the franchise, but it was also the best-reviewed film in the franchise. In this installment, The Syndicate are back and planning to simultaneously explode plutonium cores over three different cities. The film reunited cast members Cruise, Ving Rhames, Pegg, Ferguson, and Michelle Monaghan. Fallout additionally starred Henry Cavill as August Walker, an ally of Ethan's who was eventually found to be the villainous John Lark.

You can stream Mission: Impossible - Fallout on Paramount+.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Read our Review:

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Review: Blockbuster Action Overcomes Long Runtime

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One was Cruise's first film after the success of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022. Marketing for the seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible series saw IMF's most dangerous mission yet as Ethan comes face to face with new enemies, and a weapon that threatens the very future of the human race. Henry Czerny has reprised his role as former IMF director Eugene Kittridge after having been absent from the franchise since the first film. Vanessa Kirby has reprised her role from Mission: Impossible - Fallout as Alanna Mitsopolis / White Widow, with new cast members including Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, and Pom Klementieff.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is available for purchase and rental on PVOD.

Mission: Impossible 8

The 8th entry in the long running Mission Impossible franchise. Starring Tom Cruise and Vanessa Kirby.

Paramount originally scheduled the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two for Summer 2024. However, in view of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors strike, like several other long-awaited sequels , the expected release date has been pushed back to May 23, 2025. The film also reportedly will not be called Dead Reckoning Part Two and, as of this moment, is just being referred to as Mission: Impossible 8 . Variety previously reported that the film would be a "sendoff for Cruise's Ethan Hunt character," however, in June 2023, director Christopher McQuarrie told Fandango that the series would not end with Dead Reckoning (via Games Radar ).

Director Christopher McQuarrie sheds light on the decision to split Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning into two parts.

Release Dates of All Mission: Impossible Movies

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Ranking Every Mission Impossible Movie

7. Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible II is the worst of the series, it's predictable and oddly dull - the last thing you'd expect from an action movie. Nothing from this movie really works, and slow motion sequences feel so useless. | © Paramount Pictures

6. Mission: Impossible

The franchise's first movie feels more like a set of crafted individual scenes rather than a unified story. The movie significantly lacks storyline and solid character development. Still, better than the second. | © Paramount Pictures

5. Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible III is the lowest-grossing film in the franchise, and that's mainly because it came out around the time when Tom Cruise was hated worldwide. Despite that, it feels very of its time and has the series' best villain. | © Paramount Pictures

4. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Ghost Protocol remains the most rewatchable movie in the franchise, mainly because all of its high-wire set pieces hit with maximum impact. Although it lacks twists, the film has fast pacing and a perfect runtime. | © Paramount Pictures

3. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation

Rogue Nation delivers everything Mission: Impossible fans crave: intense action, heart-stopping stunts, and an immersive blockbuster experience. | © Paramount Pictures

2. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Impossible - Fallout is just a great action movie done right. It doesn't get overkilled by CGI and relies on stunts, great choreography, and editing. It has the same old villain but rebranded in an interesting way. | © Paramount Pictures

1. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Dead Reckoning Part One is the latest and most successful Mission: Impossible movie. It has constant momentum and breakneck pacing. And Tom and Hayley bring the film so much joy with their surprisingly strong on-screen chemistry. | © Paramount Pictures

Tom Cruise's daredevil stunts have become synonymous with the Mission: Impossible franchise, making it one of the most thrilling action series in history. From scaling the Burj Khalifa to hanging from a helicopter, which one stands out as the best? Today, let's rank the Mission: Impossible movies from worst to best!

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) Blamed for a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the entire IMF agency are disavowed by the U.S. government, while the president initiates the Ghost Protocol. Forced to go "off the grid" -- left without resources or backup -- Hunt must somehow clear the agency's name and prevent another attack. Complicating matters even more, Ethan must undertake the impossible mission with a group of fellow IMF fugitives whose actual motives are suspect.

Product details

Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches; 2.88 ounces
Director ‏ : ‎ Brad Bird
Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC, Color, Widescreen, Anamorphic
Run time ‏ : ‎ 133 minutes
Actors ‏ : ‎ Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist
Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, French, Spanish
Language ‏ : ‎ Unqualified (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008BUK0XI
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1

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Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: Directed by Brad Bird. With Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner. The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #1
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #1 - Tom ...
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol BEHIND THE SCENES
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol BEHIND THE SCENES - Burj Khalifa Climb (2011) HDSubscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6hThe IMF is shut down when it's ...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
Official trailer from "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" with Tom Cruise, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner | Cinema: 21 Dec 2011 | For more clips & trailer...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - Plot
'Mission: Impossible
In "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," directed by Brad Bird, Tom Cruise does his stunts with an unnerving intensity.
Mission: Impossible
Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt goes rogue to clear his organization's name in Brad Bird's first live-action film. ... but there is some fairly incredible stuff to be found in Mission: Impossible —Ghost ...
Mission Impossible 4: How Tom Cruise Did The Burj Khalifa Stunt
How Tom Cruise Did The Burj Khalifa Stunt
Mission: Impossible
Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The mission has never been more real, more dangerous or more impossible. Action 2011 2 hr 12 min. 93%. 13+. PG-13. Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg. Director Brad Bird.
10 Years Ago, 'Mission: Impossible
Ghost protocol, as explained by the oft-mentioned but now finally seen IMF Secretary (an uncredited Tom Wilkinson), means that Ethan, Jane, and Benji, and a single caravan of equipment are all ...
Who'd be crazy enough to accept this mission?
Now I want to get back to Tom Cruise, who we left clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa, allegedly doing his own stunts. I'm not saying he didn't. No doubt various unseen nets and wires were also used, and at least some CGI. Whatever. I remember a story Clint Eastwood told me years ago, after he made "The Eiger Sanction" (1975 ...
How Tom Cruise pulled off that 'Mission: Impossible 4 ...
But Cruise's license to thrill almost got revoked a decade ago in the fourth installment, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. Directed by Brad Bird and released in theaters on Dec. 15, 2011 ...
Mission: Impossible Movies in Order
Mission: Impossible Movies in Order - Chronologically and ...
How Mission Impossible 4 Tricked You With A Physically Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol may have had Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building, but a subtle camera trick used during the stunt sequence is what truly pushed the boundaries of what was possible. Serving as the first live-action movie for The Incredibles director Brad Bird, 2011's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol saw Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his team attempt to ...
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
If you're a fan of action-packed movies, you won't be disappointed with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt, the fearless and resourceful agent who must save the world from a nuclear threat. This time, he and his team must navigate a web of international espionage and treachery to uncover the identity of a ...
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible (film series)
Mission: Impossible (film series)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Tom Cruise is back for a new Mission Impossible. How impossible? More impossible.*Best of HitFix
All Mission: Impossible Movies in Order Chronologically and by Release Date
All Mission: Impossible Movies in Order Chronologically ...
Mission: Impossible
Amazon.com: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital) : Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, ... I've enjoyed many of the mission impossible movies with Tom cruise. Ghost protocol was great. Read more. Helpful. Report. Schroeder. 5.0 out of 5 stars Mission Impossible.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #2
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #2 - Tom Cruise Movie (2011) HDSubscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6hThe IMF is shut down when it's ...
Ranking Every Mission Impossible Movie
Tom Cruise's daredevil stunts have become synonymous with the Mission: Impossible franchise, making it one of the most thrilling action series in history. From scaling the Burj Khalifa to hanging from a helicopter, which one stands out as the best? Today, let's rank the Mission: Impossible movies from worst to best!
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (även känd som Mission: Impossible V) är en amerikansk actionfilm i regi av Christopher McQuarrie efter ett manus av Drew Pearce och Will Staples. Tom Cruise spelar återigen rollen som IMF-agenten Ethan Hunt.Filmen var från början planerad att ha premiär 25 december 2015, men för att undvika konkurrens från filmer som Star Wars: The Force Awakens ...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) Blamed for a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the entire IMF agency are disavowed by the U.S. government, while the president initiates the Ghost Protocol. Forced to go "off the grid" -- left without resources or backup -- Hunt must somehow clear the agency's name and prevent another attack.

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Mission Impossible Movies In Order of Release Date

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Mission Impossible Movies in Chronological Order of Events

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How The Mission: Impossible Series Continues To Push Filmmaking Boundaries

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All Mission: Impossible Movies in Chronological Order

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Ranking Every Mission Impossible Movie

7. Mission: Impossible II

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4. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol