The Mission Impossible Rankings

Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It

About a month ago I realized the new and final Mission: Impossible movie was on the horizon and asked my girlfriend if she wanted to see it. She replied that she’d never seen any of them before so no, she wasn’t planning on it. In that moment the choice was offered. Continue to lead an Ethan Hunt-less life or watch the preceding seven Mission: Impossible films with the time we had left before the new one arrived. Luckily for me, she chose the latter. We dove right in starting with the original and our marathon culminated with watching Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning in theaters this week. Since I’ve now seen them all recently and their pros and cons are all still fresh in my mind, I’d like to go through and rank them all and see how my evaluations stack up against the other lists and opinions I’ve seen. I’ll even tack on a rushed rankings of the best stunts in this series, since they’re clearly the other major star of the show. If you’re not familiar with the Mission: Impossible series and want a little more context, find a different list.

8. Mission: Impossible 2

Let me preface this list by saying there are no bad Mission: Impossible movies. There are only entries that are less good than others. With that being said, let’s take a baseball bat to this one’s knees. Look at at that poster. M:i-2. What the fuck is that? I’ll grant that the colon belongs since “Mission: Impossible” has always been the standard naming convention but why the hell is the M capitalized and the i isn’t? And why in god’s name is there a hyphen between the i and the 2? That’s not how it works. Imagine if every sequel looked like Star Trek-2 or The Godfather Part-2. It’s so dumb. And so is this movie. You’ll see Mission: Impossible 2 at the bottom of most people’s lists if they have even half a brain. It’s the cheesiest of the bunch with an emphasis on Ethan’s long hair, his seduction skills, excessive slow motion, black leather jackets and glasses. This one was definitely copying The Matrix’s homework just a little bit. And while every Mission: Impossible could double as a tourism ad for the countries it visits, this one seems like it got a very healthy tax break from the Australian tourism board. They really try to make sparks fly between Thandiwe Newton and Tom Cruise and if you’ve ever seen a Tom Cruise movie you already know how that goes. Dougray Scott’s villian is pretty forgettable, save for a silly motorcycle chase and kung fu fight with Ethan during the film’s climax. Anthony Hopkins is…..also present for some reason. So is there anything redeeming here? Sure. It’s definitely the most unintentionally funny film of the series which always earns points for me. It’s trying so hard to be cool that it wraps around to almost being endearing. It’s like a time capsule of early 2000s wannabe badass that you can’t help but shake your head and smile at. It’s your kid cousin trying to do back flips on the trampoline to impress you. The free solo climbing bit at the beginning followed by him tossing the sunglasses at the camera while they explode is trying way too hard and that’s what’s adorable about it. Also director John Woo manages to fit his signature fucking doves in here just because. Something has to be the at the bottom of this list and Mission: Impossible 2 earns its place with “cool guys don’t look at explosions” aplomb.

7. Mission: Impossible 3

Let’s check the poster again. Now it’s M:i:III? So the i is still not capitalized but now we have a second set of colons instead of the hyphen and we’ve shifted to roman numerals for the 3. We’re either getting dumber or going sideways, I can’t tell. Make up your mind Mission: Impossible posters. Anyway, onto the movie. A lot of people are higher on this one than I am, especially after this most recent re-watch. The main reason I see this one praised so much is that it has Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davion, considered the best villain in the series. I have no issues with that. We all love and miss Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He was a great actor whether he was in starring or supporting roles and he’s just as good here, playing a cold and vindictive arms dealer who will kidnap or kill anyone in his way to get what he wants. The movie opens strong with an intense interrogation between Hunt and Davion where he demands the answers he wants or else he’ll kill Ethan’s fiancé. It’s the best scene in the movie. That’s part of the problem. The opening credits haven’t even rolled and we’ve already had our best scene. That’s not to say the rest of the movie isn’t good. Adding Simon Pegg to this cast was a smart choice that paid huge dividends for the rest of the series. The action is all pretty good, particularly Davion’s re-abduction by his own special forces on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge near the midpoint of the film. Giving Ethan Hunt, an invincible man who you already know is going to survive any danger, a romantic foil he needs to protect and that villains can go after is also a smart choice that would come up again in later entries. But the rest is just kind of whatever. This is JJ Abram’s first directed film and while he does a good job, most of the action is dwarfed by later entries. The film also has a weird, distinctive, filtered look to everything that while I don’t hate, I definitely don’t like. Outside of Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, the rest of Hunt’s supporting team are completely forgettable. It’s a who’s who of who gives a fuck. And while everyone jizzes over Phillip Seymour Hoffman in this, he’s in it less than you remember at around 15 minutes or so. It’s not a bad movie but when I stack it up to everything else on this list, I can’t believe how many other people have it rated so highly.

6. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

I remember seeing this one in theaters. It’s the follow up to one of the best in the series and I was excited to see how they were going to top it. I remember checking my watch because I couldn’t believe how long it felt and my roommate actually fell asleep at one point. So yeah, not a great first impression. But again, I just re-watched the entire series and actually enjoyed this one a bit more the second time around. Let’s start with the bad. It’s still too long, the second longest in the series at 163 minutes. The decision to make Artificial Intelligence the big bad of the final two movies definitely isn’t the most compelling choice and Esai Morales isn’t the most compelling villain as its human counterpart. I loathe AI but making the main villain of your series’ final entries a non-physical, faceless entity didn’t do much for me. And while I know Rebecca Ferguson was written out of the series at her request, her character Ilsa Faust’s death still left me very cold with how it played out on screen. Either let her walk into the sunset or kill her off in a better way. I think this one also does a poor job of balancing tones. There will be a big death or speech about the end of the world in one scene and then a silly car chase through Rome which feels straight out of Looney Toons in the next. I do think blending the silly and serious is one of the essential parts of this series but the mixture felt off on this one. On to the good stuff. If Rebecca Ferguson has to be written out of your series, you can certainly do a lot worse than replacing her with Hayley Atwell who’s having a lot of fun here as a completely different type of character. Same for Pom Klementieff’s psycho assassin who has more depth than I expected going in. Vanessa Kirby also gets to have a ton of fun in the finale which features plenty of the masks and double crosses that fans have come to expect. I’m glad none of these characters got reduced to damsels in distress and all are capable of ass kicking all on their own. The train finale isn’t my favorite of the series but I’m a sucker for a good train sequence and this has everything you could want in that department and more. I also really love the Sevastapool submarine opening of the film and how it sets up what’s to come after and how it’s followed up in the sequel. Basically I think this one is super uneven but the good outweighs the bad. It just had the misfortune of being sandwiched between two superior films. Also, it’s very funny in hindsight that this one is called Dead Reckoning – Part One and there will never be a Dead Reckoning – Part Two. They can try to call it just Dead Reckoning without the Part One but that’s still on the posters, the streaming versions and physical editions. These guys really need to do a better job of planning out their series better, looking directly at you Star Wars sequels.

5. Mission: Impossible

The 1996 film that started it all. It’s pretty wild that such an audacious franchise started off this way. Based off a TV show that premiered a full 30 years prior, almost all of the main cast of that series were offered parts but scoffed at the story direction and treatment of their characters. That didn’t stop Tom Cruise and Brian De Palma from forging ahead with their new take on the franchise. This is a much more cat and mouse, hard-edged spy thriller than the action and stunt-centric sequels that would come to define the franchise. It starts with Ethan Hunt witnessing his entire team getting wiped out in their initial mission, setting a dark tone of betrayal and paranoia that would permeate through the rest of the film. This opening act culminates in a terrific dutch angle duel between Ethan and Henry Czerny’s IMF Director Eugene Kittridge. Czerny is one of the best dialogue chewers in the business and really makes a meal out of every growling line read he gets in the film. The ensuing gum bomb taking out the restaurant aquarium as Cruise outruns his pursuers and the rushing tide behind him is one of my favorite sequences in the entire series. And of course the crown jewel of the film, the NOC List heist in the CIA headquarters, still completely holds up and is completely impressive from a visual, sound and stunt perspective. Ethan hanging from the rope, mere inches above the weight-sensitive floor remains the enduring shot of this series for a reason. It’s fantastic. Does the rest of the film match it? Not as much. The overall plot can be a bit confusing at times, even if it is cleared upon subsequent re-watches. The film devolving into a standard action movie climax in the third act is also a bit disappointing, especially when it has to stand up to the awe inspiring finales of the other films on this list. Jon Voight’s Phelps also makes for a less than inspiring villian, even if Czerny picks up a lot of the slack as the primary antagonist for most of the runtime. Have you ever watched a movie with Jon Voight and not seen him as a villain? He just has classic villain face so the final twist reveal isn’t that surprising. Still, as the first entry in the series, this one gets a lot of points for starting strong, allowing it to grow and shift into the mega franchise it would eventually become.

4. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

I saw this one most recently and have done a full blown deep dive on it afterwards so this will probably be lengthy and spoiler-heavy. As always and with the other films on this list, I recommend not reading anything until you’ve seen the film yourself. So either come back later or just read on if you don’t care about spoilers, you’re an adult and can make your own decisions. Anyway, onto THE FINAL RECKONING. I’d started seeing early reviews and reactions to this one online as early as a couple weeks ago and the majority of the feedback was that this one was did not exactly stick the landing in a satisfying way. The criticisms I’d heard was it tried too hard to call back to the other films in the franchise, the movie took too long to get going in what was already a very long film and that this was clearly meant to just be one film with the last one that got stretched into two, either due to studio meddling or just plain over indulgence. Let’s address those criticisms one by one. When I first heard that they tried too hard to call back to the other films in the franchise, I was immediately worried. Too many films these days try to do the legacy sequel thing where everything is overwrought ‘member berries where they try to bring up old characters or storylines just for the sake of cheap nostalgia bait. And sometimes it’s just terrible. So going in, I was expecting Rise of Skywalker “here’s your 30 years overdue medal Chewbacca”, “hey geriatric Billie Dee Williams is back”, “we brought Palpatine back cause we are 1000% creatively bankrupt” levels of cheap nostalgia ass cancer. Thankfully that’s not the case here. There is a clip show of the other films which is very reminiscent of sitcom series finales I could’ve done without. The Jim Phelps reveal is also completely unnecessary and just does not work. But there is stuff that does. Bringing back William Donloe as an actual character who matters in the film is something I really enjoyed and thought had a positive impact on the story. Is it very convenient? Sure. But that didn’t make it bad. Making the rabbit’s foot from Mission: Impossible 3 actually matter instead of being another JJ Abrams mystery box mcguffin is perfectly fine with me and probably makes that movie a little better retroactively. So I didn’t think it leaned on the nostalgia aspect too much the way other films released these days do to an insufferable degree. Next, I will concur that the film takes too long to get going. There’s a lot of catching up, scene setting and exposition in the first hour that could’ve been truncated a bit. I think it’s okay to cater to fans of the series if it’s your EIGHTH FUCKING MOVIE IN THE SERIES instead of wasting valuable real estate catching up newbies who decided now would be the right time to get into the franchise. I do understand the need for scene setting though and establishing the world-ending stakes here. The movie really wants you to know the end of the world is nigh and I thought it did a pretty good job of setting those stakes up in a serious way. But the constant talk of Ethan Hunt as a messianic, Jesus-like figure and the only one capable of saving the world does get a bit grating over time. So yes, the first Act is pretty weak but from the moment Ethan jumps out of a helicopter and into the frigid waters of the North Pacific, the movie starts firing on all cylinders. Lastly, to the people who say these last two films could’ve just been combined, I don’t think I see that. They both work fine on their own, even if I think this one is superior to the previous one. You’d have to cut out A LOT of content to shrink six hours worth of movies down into a single picture and I imagine you’d be moving at a breakneck pace the entire time to do so which would probably hurt the quality of the story. Some other things to note. This movie really packs in a lot of characters into an already stacked cast which has very mixed results. Hannah Waddingham should not be in this movie. You don’t buy for one second that she’s an American and her accent definitely needed some more time in the oven. Holt McCallany and Nick Offerman are kind of redundant as the stereotypical gung-ho defense department and could’ve been combined into one character. Shea Whigham and Henry Czerny really don’t have much to do here as occasional foils for Ethan Hunt that you know aren’t actually going to do anything. As for the good additions, Tramell Tillman gets A+ marks here as the Captain of the USS Ohio and his entrance marks a turning point for the film. The guy is just playing Milchick from Severance all over again and completely devouring every line read he gets. If he and his crew were introduced a little sooner and got more screentime, the movie would be better for it. Same for Katy O’Brien who plays the lead diver on the sub and makes a great impression with limited screentime. Lastly, Pom Klementieff picks up where she left off in the last film, being wonderfully crazy and kill hungry and spouting French fortune cookies every chance she got. A strong addition to the team indeed. Let’s get to the stunts. There are two main sequences that give the film much needed juice in the second half and they’re all over the marketing material. The biplane setpiece and the submarine descent. The biplane stuff is your standard Mission Impossible finale at this point, shot incredibly and well staged to the point where you do really think Tom Cruise is going to die. It’s completely insane but at the same time it felt like retreading some of the finale we’d already seen in Fallout. The Submarine sequence however absolutely took my breath away. I thought it was amazing. The lack of dialogue, the gregorian chants mixed with the dread-inducing music, the atmosphere was completely unmatched. It’s an absolute standout and one of the full stop, can’t miss sequences in a series filled with them. It’s worth the price of admission alone. So after that too-long overview, how does the film stack up on its own and as a finale? As a finale I think it did a good job of wrapping things up. I did not walk out of the theater unsatisfied and if this is the end, I’m happy it ended the way it did. As a standalone film, it’s pretty uneven. Given the choice, I’d rather a film start weak and end strong rather than the opposite and this film definitely does that. I’ll need to watch it a couple more times to have see how it holds up but I really disagree when people are putting this one far down their lists. There’s too much cool shit here for me to have those gripes. You should also definitely see it in theaters, the action sequences on display really demand it.

3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Now we’re getting into the really good ones. I’ve long held that the 4-5-6 triumvirate comprise the incredibly strong backbone of the series and this most recent retread through them all only cemented that opinion. Where to start? For one, this film is Christopher McQuarrie’s first time directing an entry and doesn’t leave the director’s chair for the rest of the series. He makes a great first impression and ends up making a terrific film. Speaking of first impressions, this is also Rebecca Ferguson’s entrance into Mission: Impossible and she immediately captures the screen from the moment her gold-draped Ilsa Faust first walks onto it. Ilsa is a different type of character from the other female leads that have been in the series thus far and the movie is all the better for it. Let’s talk scenes cause there’s a lot. The plane scene at the beginning where Ethan Hunt literally hangs off of the body as it takes flight. What a psychopath, Tom Cruise truly has a death wish. The opera scene in Vienna which I know some people personally hold as the finest in the entire series. It’s easy to see why. The introduction of Ilsa, the staging, the set design, the integration of the opera music into the action, it’s all done phenomenally and shows a cast and crew working at the top of their game. The underwater sequence near the film’s midpoint, where you’re literally holding your breath watching it, is as nail-biting as it is inventive. The ensuing motorcycle chase. I’m not the biggest chase scene guy but if you’re gonna pick one, this is a damn fine choice. The film’s finale and mouse trap sequence isn’t my favorite finale of a Mission: Impossible film, but with so much other strong setpieces leading up to it, I didn’t mind it. There’s just so much going on here that ranks near the top of the franchise for me. This is probably Pegg’s best work in the series and probably Ferguson’s best too, making the most of every second she’s on screen and keeping you guessing as to who’s side she’s really on. Sean Harris’s Solomon Lane is one of the best villains we’ve had yet and it’s easy to see why they bring him back in the following film. He’s not physically imposing but you really buy him as a slithering, intelligent agent of chaos. Alec Baldwin is a fun addition to the team, though I wish Jeremy Renner’s Brandt didn’t get sidelined the way he did here. I would say that almost everything on display is really strong but it doesn’t ever reach a transcendent level which is what keeps it at number 3 for me. It doesn’t have any weak points but I just happen to like the next two even better.

2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

These last two on this list are really the pinnacle of the franchise in my opinion. You can have them in either order and I wouldn’t argue with it. While the next film on the list doesn’t get the universal praise I believe it deserves, this one absolutely does. Try and find one person who’s a fan of Mission: Impossible who doesn’t have Fallout in their top 3. Go on, I’ll wait. Let us count the ways it rocks. For one, it’s one of the most direct sequels of the bunch. For the first five films any indeterminate amount of years have passed between them and Ethan and his team are at a different place in their lives and if you’re at all familiar with the series, you can probably jump in and be caught up rather easily. Fallout functions as a very direct sequel to Rogue Nation, which is great since that one also happens to be one of the best in the series. By this point you’re familiar with Ethan Hunt, Luther Stickell, Benji Dunn, Ilsa Faust, Solomon Lane and even Secretary Alan Huntley. This lets the movie bypass a lot of the exposition and stage setting which can otherwise drag down the fun, as evidenced by other entries on this list. But we get fun new additions to the cast too. A lot of hype for this film was made about Henry Cavill’s casting in this film and he does not disappoint. I like Henry Cavill a lot and think he’s been misused and gotten a raw deal more than a few times in his career. That includes coming in as runner up to Daniel Craig as the next James Bond, being cast a Superman with no personality and terrible screenwriters and being a great Geralt in a Witcher show that went off the rails faster than the train in Dead Reckoning. I feel bad for the guy. But he’s used very smartly here as a Agent Walker, a CIA counterpoint to Ethan. And whereas Ethan prefers subterfuge and masks, Walker prefer smashing objects, faces and anything standing between him and his target. His 2nd Act villain reveal isn’t any sort of groundbreaking twist but he still ends up being arguably the best antagonist Ethan ever faces off with. He also is a big part of the best fights in the series, the standout being the bathroom sequence in the Paris nightclub, which has yet to be topped in terms of hand to hand combat. His ‘arm reloading’ became an instant signature moment and his ultimate demise is my favorite out of any of the villains. Vanessa Kirby also joins the fray as an arms dealing intermediary who is having a lot of fun and adding much needed levity to the proceedings. The best Mission: Impossible movies have a good balance of fun and humor amidst the doom and gloom and she knows exactly what kind of movie she’s in and how to have a good time doing it. In addition to the aforementioned bathroom fight, the other action set pieces include a HALO jump over the skies of Paris, a heist and motorcycle chase through the Paris streets and a helicopter battle/bomb defusal in Kashmir. While the Halo jump is stupendously insane and the Paris chase is among the best in the series, it’s the Kashmir climax that stands out for me. This is the best finale in the series, bar none. While the bomb defusal in the village is standard M:I fare, the helicopter skirmish amidst the snowy mountains is nothing short of action movie nirvana. I don’t have much else to stay. The movie uses its characters well, its settings great and has the best finale. It even gave Henry Cavill a good role in a good movie, something that seemed impossible until now. Watch it, love it, Fallout completely rules.

1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Yup, this is my favorite. Whether it’s the best is up for debate but let me make my case. There were five years between this and Mission: Impossible 3. In the intervening years we’d had Jason Bourne wrap up his trilogy with critical acclaim and had Daniel Craig come in and reclaim the spy franchise championship belt with James Bond. While the last Mission: Impossible movie was a solid hit, it was not exactly a game changer and no one was sure if they’d leave the trilogy and IP alone going forward. Then in 2011 we got Ghost Protocol. And I’m so glad we did. Directed by Brad Bird, a great director currently in live action movie jail after Tomorrowland didn’t meet expectations, Ghost Protocol signaled a major jump up in quality. The action sequences are immaculately planned out. The cinematography is tight. The gadgets are wacky and silly and wholly inventive. The cast has leveled up from pretty nobodies to pretty somebodies. Let’s start there. Tom Cruise is back as (long hair) Ethan Hunt, given much more personality and someone who seems to have undergone a bit of character development and tribulations off screen. That’s always a welcome change, I hate when years have passed for a character but the next time we see them they haven’t changed at all. Benji Dunn is also back, graduating from guy on the phone to neophyte field agent who’s having the time of his life rubbing shoulders with trained agents and assassins and knowing he’s out over his skis a bit. Paula Patton makes a big impression here as a team member who has revenge on her mind and straight up smolders when she’s on screen. Why she didn’t return in this series or have a bigger career in general is beyond me. Lastly, Jeremy Renner is introduced as the presumed heir-apparent to Tom Cruise as the lead action star in this series. And while we know Cruise never ended up passing the torch, Renner is great as an analyst with a dark secret who’s more than capable of holding his own. This caught him at a great time in his career, just a year before he starred as an Avenger and temporarily took over the Bourne franchise. While his character gets downgraded to glorified desk jockey in Rouge Nation and never seen again after that, I really liked what he brought to the table. This is my favorite IMF team out of any in the franchise, rivaled only by the collection in The Final Reckoning which was approaching a baseball team sized roster by the end. So the directing is good and the cast is good. That’s great but what else is there. Well the set pieces, duh. That’s why we’re here. Let’s go through them. The prison escape at the beginning is fine, nothing extraordinary compared to the rest but does a good job of setting the tone. I really do think the best version of Mission: Impossible is a movie that’s having fun and has humor without losing the tension of what’s at stake. No other movie on this list does that better than this one. Characters act like real people, constantly acknowledging the ridiculousness of every situation they find themselves in while still reluctantly participating in them since there aren’t any better options available. The Kremlin infiltration also does this well. Yes there’s a bomb that blows up the area at the end of it but we get some clever gadget work in a fun hallway set that uses the best of Pegg’s comedic talents. Then, the crown jewel of the film. The Burj Khalifa sequence. I can’t imagine how much work it took to write, storyboard, film and edit this sequence together. It’s a masterclass. It’s got a lot of layers going on simultaneously, from the copying of the nuclear codes in a meeting with one party to the selling of those same codes to another at the same time. But that’s not why it’s most remembered. It’s remembered because Tom Cruise climbs the fucking tallest building in the world. And it’s just as breathtaking to watch the tenth time as it is the first. Every time they take the initial walk to the edge of the window and peer out at the incredible drop to the ground below, my stomach churns. I’ve seen the behind the scenes footage and I still can’t believe how they did it all. The sequence ends in typical Mission: Impossible fashion, with Tom Cruise running (always running) through a sandstorm to chase down the codes they’ve given up. Because of course he does. The eventual finale in Mumbai is really good, albeit not on the level of the Burj Khalifa sequence but nothing is. I do like the car park sequence more than most though, this is a movie that really gets the most of out of each of its locations. The eventual epilogue where we get to see Luther and Julia again in Seattle is just the cherry on top. Ghost Protocol is the best of the series in my opinion and I know it will be just as good when I inventively come back to it. A total knockout in a series of show stoppers.

Best Setpieces

Let’s rank the top 10 best setpieces in the series. I’m tired of writing so I’m not going to go into much detail but here we go:

10. The Fish Tank Shatters (Mission: Impossible):

I doubt this makes a lot of people’s lists but I love it for the cinematography alone. It’s also one of the first time we see Cruise running in these movies which will soon become a staple.

9. Biocyte Fight and Base Jump (Mission: Impossible 2):

Let’s give MI:2 some love. While most people would choose the motorcycle chase or free solo climb, the most memorable sequence for me is the shootout at the top of Biocyte headquarters which ends with Ethan base jumping off the top floor to escape.

8. The Bridge Assault (Mission: Impossible 3):

I’m not a big MI:3 guy but this sequence is really good. You’ve got drone strikes, an evil special ops team rescuing the villain and Tom Cruise being blown up and thrown against a car so hard he broke a few ribs. Pretty cool stuff.

7. Orient Express (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One):

I love a good train sequence and this one ups the stakes again and again. Masks and double crosses, motorcycle jumping off a cliff, knife fighting on top of a train, escaping falling train cars, it’s got pretty much everything you’d want in a Mission: Impossible sequence.

6. Underwater Card Switch and Motorcycle Chase (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation):

Am I cheating by including both of these sequences? Absolutely, but they happen back to back so I’m doing it anyway. Between the two of them you can make the legitimate claim that this is the best 20 minutes in the entire franchise which is nothing to scoff at.

5. Paris Bathroom Fight (Mission: Impossible – Fallout):

Is it silly to have a regular fist fight on a list like this? Maybe, but it’s no ordinary fist fight. The fight choreography and impact of the hits is on a completely different level than anything else and it gave us the Henry Cavill arm reloading meme. I’ll always love you Paris Bathroom Fight.

4. The Langley Heist (Mission: Impossible):

The one that started it all. This sequence still works so, so well. Every time I forget about the rat and it surprises me every time. Ethan hanging from the rope is still the enduring image of the franchise and for good reason, we couldn’t have the rest without this one.

3. Helicopter Chase in the Clouds (Mission: Impossible – Fallout):

I know some people are going to have the biplane sequence from The Final Reckoning higher and that’s fine but for me this is the superior sky fight. The back and forth between Cruise and Cavill, the facial expressions, the setting, the fisticuffs finale, it’s all on another level.

2. The Submarine Sequence (Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning):

I was in complete awe watching this sequence in theaters. The music, the atmosphere, the sense of dread, the visuals, it was all a total knockout. Nothing else like it in the series.

1. The Burj Khalifa Climb (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol):

I mean c’mon, it’s the obvious choice. It’s never been topped, it never will, and good luck if you think you can watch it without wincing or your stomach churning. Tom Cruise, you mad lad.

Well that’s Mission: Impossible for you. I hope you all enjoy this series as much as I do. It’s pretty remarkable to have a series that maintains such a high quality across its entire run. Is this really the end? Doubtful, studio executives don’t tend to walk away from the table when they’re on a hot streak. But if this is the end then I had a great time. Happy movie watching!