Here’s how you know the “Mission: Impossible” movies are great: They were only made because the TV series “Mission: Impossible” was a gigantic, award-winning hit, and now hardly anyone even remembers that show.
What started as a crafty ensemble series about unlikely experts teaming up to perform impossible espionage missions evolved into a series of gigantic action spectaculars, less about a group of spies and more about Tom Cruise. Not even the character he played, Ethan Hunt. No, just Tom Cruise. It’s the franchise he made his own, a series of films that always portray him in a fawning, heroic light, in a series of productions that also made his daring do-it-yourself stunt mentality a beloved marketing ploy.
There are, truth be told, no “Mission: Impossible” films that aren’t at least mostly fun to watch. Some of them are great films. Some are merely great action movies. At least one is kinda bad but enjoyable anyway, and at least one film works on every level. These are all nine — yes, nine (everybody forgets there’s one without Tom Cruise) — “Mission: Impossible” movies, ranked from worst to best.
9. ‘Mission: Impossible 2’ (2000)
On paper, “Mission: Impossible 2” has it all. It’s directed by John Woo, the revolutionary director of action classics like “The Killer” and “Hard Boiled.” It’s written by Robert Towne, the Oscar-winner screenwriter of “Chinatown” and “The Last Detail.” It’s an unofficial remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious,” which is one of the best spy movies ever made. It co-stars Thandiwe Newton, for crying out loud. And yet somehow this film never quite comes together. Ethan Hunt enlists a master thief (Newton) to seduce a rogue agent and uncover his master plan, and eventually it explodes into motorcycle gun fights and many, many a dove. There are those who enjoy “Mission: Impossible 2” for its outlandish style, but even then, it’s a low point for the series.
8. ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1’ (2023)
The first half of the epic “Mission: Impossible” finale has a lot of things going for it, including a whimsical car chase, a spectacular motorcycle stunt and a death-defying cliffhanging train sequence (which looks suspiciously familiar to “Uncharted” fans). Even the premise, about a rogue AI taking over the global internet and inspiring religious devotion in its human servants, is exciting and relevant. But there’s something off about the whole enterprise. The editing makes it look like most of the characters are never in the same room at the same time — which is likely true, since the production was halted in the initial COVID outbreak — and the decision to execute one of the most beloved characters and replace them with a similar one feels frustratingly forced. There’s good stuff here, it’s just in a great big mess of a movie.
7. ‘Mission: Impossible vs. The Mob’ (1969)
The first “Mission: Impossible” movie was actually a two-part episode of the hit, award-winning TV series that got repackaged as a standalone feature abroad. (This was a fairly common practice at the time.) “Mission: Impossible vs. The Mob” is exactly what it says on the poster: the IMF team conspires to take down the mafia by faking newspaper headlines and tricking the mob into killing their own men. There’s also an elaborate scheme to replace the leader of the mob with Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), an actor who frequently worked with the team. Don’t expect much action, since the 1969 film is all about building Hitchcockian tension, but do expect to be entertained. The two-part episode that got recycled, “The Council,” is something we old folks used to call “a banger.”
6. ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’
“The Final Reckoning,” allegedly the final film in the franchise (at least until the inevitable reboot), isn’t just another “Mission: Impossible” film. Well, strike that. It is just another “Mission: Impossible” film, but it’s trying like hell to wrap up every loose end by bringing back old characters and referencing almost every other entry, all the time. But instead of feeling like a meaningful conclusion it just feels like everyone is tired, at least of coming up with excuses to put Tom Cruise through death-defying hell. It’s still a fun film, and the two centerpieces — aboard a sunken submarine and hanging for dear life on a biplane — are corkers, but the plot is overstuffed and overcomplicated, and everyone involved looks like they might be over it altogether.
5. ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ (2011)
Brad Bird’s first live-action film raised the bar for “Mission: Impossible,” at least as a stunt-driven franchise. The film’s highlight, featuring Ethan Hunt climbing the tallest building in the world using faulty equipment, is a vertigo-inspiring masterwork. Unfortunately “Ghost Protocol” peaks there and never quite comes back. Hunt goes rogue (again) to stop a madman who wants to nuke the world in order to save it, and he’s arguably got his best team ever, but once Paula Patton’s revenge plot is resolved at the halfway point there’s nothing left in the story to grab you, and everyone seems to be going through the motions. By the time Hunt is fighting the villain in a high tech car park, you suddenly realize they’ve never even spoken to each other. So the story means less than usual. But hey, it’s still pretty dang cool.
4. ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ (2018)
There are better “Mission: Impossible” movies than “Fallout,” but this one is arguably the best the franchise ever got when it came to wall-to-wall action. The criminal Syndicate from the previous film is still kicking around, this time trying to acquire plutonium cores, and use nuclear weapons to dismantle the world. So Ethan’s gotta get them first, and he’s gotta do HALO jumps and dangle from helicopters in order to do it. The plot is perfunctory, and to a fault, but there’s so much excitement in every scene that it’s hard to complain. Besides, it’s got Henry Cavill reloading his punching arms like shotguns. You can’t not love that.
3. ‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)
It’s easy to forget how fearless Brian De Palma’s “Mission: Impossible” was when it first came out. De Palma built up a fantastic IMF team full of familiar faces, killed the all off in the first few minutes, and then centered the entire film — and later, the entire franchise — on a brand new character, played by Tom Cruise. Then he turned the most beloved hero in the franchise into the bad guy. Damn, that’s cold. But it’s also slick, intelligent filmmaking, packed with unforgettable scenes like a helicopter flying into the Channel Tunnel, and Hunt dangling over motion sensors, silently hacking the CIA. Sure, De Palma was basically knocking off “Topkapi,” and everyone who’s seen it loves “Topkapi,” but it was “Mission: Impossible” that made that image iconic, and kicked off one of the great action movie franchises.
2. ‘Mission: Impossible 3’ (2006)
There are those who think “Mission: Impossible 3” is one of the worst films in the franchise. And if you only think about the “Mission: Impossible” movies as stunt shows, maybe it is. But if you think about these movies as, stick with me here, movies… you’ll find J.J. Abrams’ installment is consistently riveting. Ethan Hunt comes out of retirement when one of his proteges goes missing in the field, and winds up vowing revenge against a despicable arms dealer played, gloriously, by Philip Seymour Hoffman. “Mission: Impossible 3” cares about its characters, and makes us care about them too. It cares about the story, and makes all the action mean something, whether it’s stunt-driven or not. And the series never had a better villain than Owen Davian. God, how we miss the late, great Hoffman.
1. ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ (2015)
It’s fair to say that other “Mission: Impossible” films have better set pieces than “Rogue Nation.” Maybe the action is more memorable in “Fallout,” maybe “Ghost Protocol” has more iconic images, maybe the third film has the best villain. But there’s no film in the franchise where all the pieces come together better than “Rogue Nation.” Ethan Hunt goes rogue — again — and runs afoul of the charismatic assassin Ilsa Faust, played perfectly by Rebecca Ferguson, who could have (and should have) carried her own spinoff. Director Christopher McQuarrie, who would direct every subsequent installment, did something very clever with “Rogue Nation,” putting the film’s biggest stunt in the opening minutes, then gradually shrinking the action down until all that mattered was the characters. The story works, the action slays, the stunts are cool as hell. “Rogue Nation” is the best “Mission: Impossible” movie as a whole, and represents the very best the film franchise could be.
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