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Tom Cruise's 14 Mission: Impossible Stunts Ranked By Most Dangerous

Mission impossible movies ranked - from the 1996 original to dead reckoning part 1, mission: impossible 8 - release date, story & everything we know about dead reckoning part 2.

Cruise's Burj Khalifa stunt in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a defining, heart-stopping moment for the franchise.
With dangerous stunts like the HALO jump in Fallout, the Burj Khalifa climb remains Cruise's most famous feat.
From carefully fixing harnesses to rigorous training, the Burj Khalifa stunt was a logistical nightmare that paid off well.

The Burj Khalifa stunt in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a defining moment for the franchise, but audiences wonder if Tom Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa in real life. With a growing list of extremely dangerous stunts on his resume, scaling Burj Khalifa's exterior in the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise is one of Cruise's most famous feats of courage. Since then, Cruise has continued to defy death in multiple movies with stunts like Mission Impossible: Fallout 's HALO jump. Still, the Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt has become a cinema landmark.

Ghost Protocol takes Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt to Dubai in search of nuclear launch codes after Kurt Hendricks, a.k.a. Cobalt (Michael Nyquist), steals a devastating weapon. It's obvious by now that Hunt never takes the easy route. Ethan must reach the 130th floor of the 2,722 ft skyscraper and ditch the elevator in favor of a pair of questionable suction gloves. Starting the climb 123 floors up is the easy part as he then rappels down the building and makes a jump of faith. The Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt is one of the most intense and thrilling scenes ever.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+

Tom Cruise continues to perform his own dangerous stunts for the Mission: Impossible movies, each death-defying sequence upstaging the last.

Tom Cruise's Burj Khalifa Stunt Explained

The actor was equipped with a harness that was fixed to strategic points on the building.

For the Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt, the actor had to be equipped with a harness that was carefully fixed to strategic points in the building , which required that the studio get special permits to drill on the floors and walls, and the Mission: Impossible 4 crew broke 35 windows . Director Brad Bird ( The Incredible s) consulted with multiple professionals from different areas like engineers, pro climbers, and stuntmen to ensure the safety of the shoot. He even considered using a dedicated stuntman, but, as he's done for the majority of his career, Cruise did his own Mission: Impossible 4 stunts.

Tom Cruise didn't know that the tight harness would cut off his circulation, so the shoot had to be completed as efficiently and quickly as possible. Otherwise, his lower body would start feeling numb. The helicopters that were shooting had a flight limit of 30 minutes at a time too, so the crew had to make every take count. The sequence was also shot in IMAX, which meant that the cameras would run out of film fast. The footage had to be flown back to Los Angeles, and Bird couldn't check if everything was perfect until the film was developed.

The training for the Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt was also extremely thorough and calculated. The crew built a wall of glass to simulate the exterior of the real building and had Tom Cruise climb up and down several times to get him familiarized with the discomfort of the harness and the physical toll of the climb. They went so far as to heat up the wall with artificial lights to simulate the temperature of the windows of the Burj Khalifa. The stunt was a logistical nightmare, but the planning all paid off.

Mission: Impossible is one of the most consistent movie franchises out there, but we've accepted the nearly-impossible task of ranking them.

Why Tom Cruise On Burj Khalifa Is The Best Mission Impossible Stunt

The stunt is like a live-action incredibles scene.

Tom Cruise always does his own Mission: Impossible stunts , including hanging off a plane, holding his breath for six minutes to perform an underwater heist, and conducting 109 HALO jumps to get the perfect shot. But of all these movie stunts, the iconic Burj Khalifa sequence is the best proof of the actor's dedication to his craft. The Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol scene is the most nail-biting sequence for audiences, and it was extremely dangerous, exhausting, and probably terrifying for Cruise himself.

Nevertheless, the results are impressive, to say the least; Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol has one of the best stunt scenes caught on camera. Having scaled the side of the world's tallest building – for real – grants eternal franchise bragging rights for any self-respecting action series. The stunt plays out like a live-action Incredibles scene too, as the sequence is layered with clever action comedy, such as the suction gloves having a mind of their own. The Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt has an equal balance of edge-of-your-seat thrills and laugh-out-loud comedy, which few other Mission: Impossible stunts have.

The Mission: Impossible 8 release date is set for 2025, and there's intense speculation on what's next for Ethan Hunt after Dead Reckoning Part One.

Was The Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa Stunt His Most Dangerous?

The motorcycle jump in mission: impossible - dead reckoning as arguably more dangerous.

Following the Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa stunt, the actor performed more stunts that were just as dangerous. In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Cruise hung onto the side of a plane as it took off. The actor also held his breath underwater for a record-breaking 6 minutes (that's until the record was broken by Kate Winslet in Avatar: The Way of Water ). Following that, Cruise committed to a HALO jump for Mission: Impossible - Fallout . The HALO jump was so dangerous that Henry Cavill wasn't allowed to take part because it would have put Cruise's life at risk (via AutoEvolution ).

However, the motorcycle jump in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 was the actor's most dangerous stunt yet . It would have been impossible to foresee where the bike would land when Cruise let go, and so many other things that the production couldn't properly plan for. Accurately conducting a risk assessment of the scene must have been the most frustrating part of the movie's development. The impossible-to-determine physics, along with controlling a vehicle in mid-air and being dangerously close to rocks on a cliff edge, makes Cruise's motorcycle jump the most dangerous stunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Tom Cruise has injured himself a number of times due to his commitment to performing his own stunts (via MovieWeb ).

However, it's comical to compare the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol stunt and the motorcycle-parachute stunt, as neither are things that anybody should ever attempt. Nevertheless, Cruise competes with himself, and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 2 could feature his two most dangerous stunts yet. Mission: Impossible 8 features a water stunt in which Cruise could claim back his breath-holding record from Winslet. The upcoming movie also features another airplane stunt, only this time it isn't taking off but is sky-high. Either way, Mission: Impossible's stunts are almost equally dangerous, and Cruise is happily risking his life for the audience's entertainment.

Sources: AutoEvolution , MovieWeb

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

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The fourth film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, is an action-thriller film set years after the events of Mission: Impossible 3. It sees Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) see themselves falsely accused of a crime. Following a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, the IMF is implicated in the attack, forcing the government to disavow knowledge of them. To clear their names and find the true culprit, the United States initiates the "Ghost Protocol," forcing them all to go off the grid with no support to solve the case.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

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

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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.

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Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol movie poster

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (2011)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence

133 minutes

Paula Patton as Jane

Michael Nyqvist as Hendricks

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt

Simon Pegg as Benji

Jeremy Renner as Brandt

Josh Appelbaum
Andre Nemec

Directed by

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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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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 .

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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – review

C inema's most respectable hoodie Tom Cruise is back, slouching moodily out of the poster for the latest enjoyable Mission Impossible caper, directed by Brad "Incredibles" Bird. He is Ethan Hunt, leader of the International Missions Force or IMF – wiry, taut, fiercely focused, unfeasibly buff for a man of any age, never mind 49. He must now lead his crew in disguise, in disgrace, in the shadows, because an event repeatedly forewarned in his mission briefing has come to pass. His team has been disowned by the US government who have invoked something solemnly called "ghost protocol". They have been stitched up for a bombing at the Kremlin and are now on their own, needing to restore their good name in the action-adventure community and, unaided, recapture a nuclear activation device invented by a crazy terrorist (Michael Nyqvist) intent on Armageddon.

In Hunt's team is the gorgeous Jane (Paula Patton), the beta-plus warrior male Brandt (Jeremy Renner), and the comedy one, Benji, played by Simon Pegg , who really rather often manages to steal the movie. (Realising no one likes the ideas he's proposing in a tense strategy meeting, Benji blurts out: "I'm just spitballing here; it's not all going to be gold.") The best sequence is a gobsmacking vertigo nightmare: Ethan has to climb out of a high window of a tall tower in Dubai and inch along the side of the building. That's a very woozy experience on Imax. There's some great gadgetry: particularly a portable gauze camouflage screen that permits Ethan and Benji to creep up a Kremlin corridor invisibly – a very surreal moment. The film sags a little during later scenes in India, and Ethan has a slightly baffling kissing moment with Jane, leaving us unsure exactly how much sexual chemistry we are supposed to expect between Cruise and Patton, given that this tragic widower is still supposed to have tender memories of his departed wife. But it's solid entertainment.

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

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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+.

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Ghost Protocol: The Mission: Impossible Movie That Broke the James Bond Barrier

Tom Cruise and the espionage squad go off-grid for one of the M:I franchise’s best films.

Watching Ethan Hunt ( Tom Cruise ) spider-walk his way around the glassy outside of the towering Burj Khalifa might be the image that lingers the longest from Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol ( now streaming on Peacock ). But set against the more recent souped-up entries in the Cruise-fueled spy action franchise, Ghost Protocol remains one of the best Mission: Impossible films, in part because all of its high-wire set pieces hit with maximum impact — even more than 12 years after its late-2011 release.

In the directing hands of Disney-bred animation guru Brad Bird, Ghost Protocol crossed an invisible thematic threshold for the M:I movies. The fourth entry in the spy series also marked Bird’s first foray into directing live action, having already aced the animation game at the helm of The Iron Giant , The Incredibles , and Ratatouille .

For More on Mission: Impossible : The First 3 Mission: Impossible Movies Still Make for a Darn Good Trilogy Why The First Mission: Impossible Movie Still Holds Up All The Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked

Why Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol Still Haunts After More than a Decade

Bird’s directing eye for visual storytelling breathed new life into Ethan’s ongoing exploits as the IMF’s best asset, as Ghost Protocol gave Cruise and series newcomer Jeremy Renner (as guilt-haunted ex-Agent William Brandt) plenty of screen space to tease out the tension. In one well-plotted suspense sequence after another (Ethan’s infiltrating the Kremlin as a Russian general! Brandt’s levitating across the corridors of an industrial-scale server room!), Ghost Protocol stacked each new spectacular action idea on top of the last, while mixing in new story wrinkles (Ethan’s wife is still alive!) that continue to reverberate through the current series’ larger storyline.

Of course, there’s an element of implausible grandeur to Ghost Protocol ’s super-serious world-in-the-balance plot, but the audacity of pitching the stakes at the level of all-out nuclear war turns out to be one of the movie’s most endearing features. That’s because writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (who also partnered on 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2016 sequel) find plenty of subtly funny ways to keep the big-ness of it all from feeling overwhelming. Their welcome injection of comic relief is hard to miss, whether it’s giving franchise mainstay Benji Dunn ( Simon Pegg ) oodles of low-key silly sight gags that riff on the zaniness of all his Bond-esque tech gadgetry, or letting Jane Carter (Paula Patton) turn the tables on a smarmy would-be romantic pursuer at just the right do-or-die moment.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) saves a briefcase from falling off a ledge in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011).

More than any of its predecessors , Ghost Protocol struck that sweet balance between full-throttle action (complete with hair-raising stunt work that heavily involved Cruise and his castmates) and lighthearted ensemble humor. It’s a combo that subsequent M:I movies have been trying, with varying success, to duplicate ever since, but it was never better than here. Ghosted by their own government and left to fend for themselves, Ethan and the IMF gang seemed to truly nail the same basic blockbuster blueprint that’s long made the Jame Bond espionage-verse tick — and arguably for the first time in the franchise. In the process, Ghost Protocol at last established Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies as truly worthy American complements to their suave, sexy, and even satisfyingly silly MI6 cinematic colleagues from across the pond.

Sure, we’d have welcomed more of Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell than we got (he only appears late in the game in this installment), and the movie’s pace does tend to sag ever so slightly across its final act. But when you tally up all the Mission: Impossible films to date, it’s tough not to throw your support behind Ghost Protocol as one of the best. After all, it takes a special kind of spy team to watch the Kremlin explode and then singlehandedly halt the ensuing countdown toward nuclear armageddon… and to do it while cracking a smile or two along the way.

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol is streaming on Peacock .

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Mission: Impossible movies in order: Watch guide for the Tom Cruise franchise

B ased on the television series of the same name created by Bruce Geller, the Mission: Impossible franchise is an iconic series of action spy films that has captivated viewers ever since its inception in 1996. The films in the series have been directed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Brian De Palma, Brad Bird, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams. Christopher McQuarrie directed the last three films of the franchise.

Each film follows Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise, and his gang, trying to save the world from a catastrophe orchestrated by different enemies. Some of the most popular stars of the franchise include Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Renner, and Rebecca Ferguson, among many others.

Fans often get confused about the correct order in which to watch the Mission: Impossible films. This article will explore all the titles in the franchise and will explain the correct watch order.

Disclaimer: This article contains minor spoilers for the franchise.

Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movies in order of their release

1) mission: impossible.

Based on the TV show of the same name, Brian De Palma's film stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a secret agent working for a section of the government.

Super spy, Ethan Hunt , is framed as a mole and murderer following a failed mission in Prague. He must go on the run while trying to uncover the real mole and clear his name. The film stars Emmanuelle Béart, Ving Rhames, Jon Voight, and others in lead roles.

2) Mission: Impossible 2

Ethan Hunt joins hands with a professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall to stop a rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose. If they fail, a deadly virus could spread rapidly, possibly leading to an epidemic.

This film is considered the black sheep of the franchise, with its use of martial arts and style. Starring Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, and Dougray Scott, Mission: Impossible 2 is directed by John Woo.

3) Mission: Impossible 3

Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt and this time he's out to get Owen Davian, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a ruthless arms dealer/party planner. Things take a turn for the worse when Ethan's wife is kidnapped by him.

The film stars Philip Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan, Keri Russell, and Maggie Q in pivotal roles alongside Cruise. This title marked the directorial debut of J.J. Abrams and was written by Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2006, and was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures in May 2006.

4) Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird, the director of The Incredibles , helmed the fourth installment of the action franchise. The title features the IMF being shut down after being implicated in a bombing. Hunt and his team are then left without resources as they work to clear their names.

In the film, Cruise is joined by Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Lea Seydoux, and Anil Kapoor.

5) Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

In the fifth film, Ethan is being hunted by The Syndicate. While dealing with the disbandment of the IMF, he must fight several enemies and navigate through life-threatening situations.

The title stars Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, and Alec Baldwin in prominent roles, and was released in 2015.

6) Mission: Impossible – Fallout

The former members of The Syndicate form an organization called the Apostles, who have got hold of plutonium. Ethan and his gang must join forces to save the world from this new enemy.

This film released in July 2018, and is is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, It stars Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, and Alec Baldwin.

7) Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Set right after the events of Fallout , Dead Reckoning Part One sees Ethan Hunt and his gang of agents going above and beyond the call of duty to save the world. This time, the enemy is a rogue AI, called the Entity.

The film is directed by Christopher McQuarrie and it release in July 2023. The title features Cruise alongside Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, and Henry Czerny.

8) Mission: Impossible 8

The highly anticipated sequel to Mission: Impossible 7 , and the eighth film of the franchise, will release about 29 years after the first film. The upcoming film is expected to pick up from the cliffhanger of the previous title, and further information about the upcoming title is currently awaited.

Ratings for all Mission: Impossible movies

The mission: impossible theme morse code explained.

Morse code is a form of communication that uses a series of long and short signals, represented by dots and dashes, which represent letters and numbers.

The Morse code for M.I. is two dashes followed by two dots(- - ..) If a dot is one beat and a dash is one and a half beats, then this makes a bar of five beats, matching the theme song's rhythm. The theme's Morse code means M:I. as the two dashes mean M, and the two dots mean I, the short form for Mission: Impossible .

The theme song won an award in the Best Instrumental Theme category at the 10th Grammy Awards in 1968.

Who composed the Mission: Impossible theme song?

The iconic theme song of the series by the Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin is one of the most rousing and memorable pieces of music in the history of cinema. He created the music for the original 1966 television series, and the theme has now become synonymous with the much-loved franchise. It has also appeared in the film series and in the video games as well.

What is the latest film in the franchise?

The latest film of the franchise, Dead Reckoning Part 1 , was released in July 2023, by Paramount Pictures. The film follows Ethan and his gang trying to find a key to stop the rogue AI program called the Entity.

A direct sequel of the film will release on May 23, 2025, as per ScreenRant. There is currently no official confirmation on whether any other film will be released in the franchise after Mission: Impossible 8 .

Final thoughts

This beloved franchise has become a cornerstone of the action genre, and it is renowned for its thrilling stunts, espionage plots, and the iconic portrayal of Ethan Hunt by Tom Cruise. These films have set the benchmark for high-octane action films with their compelling storytelling and intriguing narratives.

Mission: Impossible movies in order: Watch guide for the Tom Cruise franchise

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Watching Movies Tom Cruise Is At it Again With A Tudor Heritage Chrono In 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol'

With the announcement of a new pelagos, we look to tudor for our watch-related movie of the week..

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In 1996, Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible arrived in theaters as a modern re-imagination of the classic 1960s television show. Much like Martin Scorsese did when creating a sequel to The Hustler (1961) with The Color of Money (1986), De Palma cast Tom Cruise as the fresh blood in a known universe. Cruise portrayed a new MI character named Ethan Hunt. The film was a hit, and the rest is history. So much so that today we're looking at the fourth installment of the movie series, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird of Pixar fame (for what it's worth, we are now staring down the barrel of eight MI films).

This one follows Hunt on the … hunt for Russian nuclear codes following the assassination of an IMF (Impossible Mission Force) colleague and shutdown of the organization itself. He's joined by a revamped team of field agents on a mission that takes him from Budapest to the Kremlin, to the exterior of the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world for fans of HBO's The Rehearsal ). All the while, he wears a chronograph from the same family as a certain crown-bearing brand.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) going full James Bond with a Tudor under the sleeve of his tuxedo in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Image: Paramount

Unless you were totally unplugged from the watch world this week and only plugged back in at the sight of Tom Cruise (in which case, welcome!), then you know Tudor recently announced a bombshell release by way of the new 39mm Pelagos . The watch, with its satin brushed bezel and dial, reduced case size (and thickness), and removal of the HEV, sent enthusiasts into an absolute frenzy – our Introducing post already has 500+ comments.

The new 39mm Tudor Pelagos on the wrist of our own Logan Baker.

So I did the only thing worth doing, and I watched a film that features a Tudor watch on the lead character. And let me tell you, Tudor on the silver screen is a rare sight to behold. In Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , Tom Cruise – as Ethan Hunt – wears a Tudor Heritage Chrono ref 70330N with a black dial. This one is a watch that, in many ways, spearheaded the brand's return to global relevance. It, along with the Black Bay line, represented Tudor leaning into its archives to deliver thoughtful recreations of older models.

The watch was released in 2010 at Baselworld and pays homage to the groovy Tudor watches of the 1970s. Design standouts on this one are the pronounced Tudor shield emblem, sparse dial text, angular sub-register framing, orange coloration, and screw-down crown/pushers (for water resistance). It's always struck me as the Tudor design variation on the Paul Newman Daytona.

Similar Tudor Heritage Chrono ref 70330N to the one worn by Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

And somehow, a year after its release, it ends up on the wrist of Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible film. Actually the film began principal photography in October of 2010, so the watch made it to set a mere seven months after appearing in Basel. Cruise is now something of a horological icon when it comes to watches on-screen, from his TAG Heuer in Jerry Maguire (1996) to that classic Porsche Design chrono in Top Gun (1986) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022). But this Tudor hits differently.

Hunt confronts William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) with his Tudor on his wrist in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Image: Paramount

Mission Impossible has always been a modern-leaning film franchise with an eye to the past (cue the music and intro title sequence), which aligns perfectly with Tudor's ethos in a modern context. The Heritage Chrono is functionally a modern watch. It's beefy with a substantial bracelet. At 42mm, it's built for the modern consumer who appreciates horological history. I doubt this level of thought went into its placement in this film, but it's interesting to muse on it, nonetheless.

Cruise's Hunt wears it throughout almost the entire movie and we see just how capable it is (and the level of beating it can take). I'd like to think the ask from the prop master to Tudor began, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it … "

Hunt with Persol sunglasses on his face and the Tudor Heritage Chrono on his wrist. Image: Paramount

First, we have the part that showcases everyone's favorite Tom Cruise skill: Running. The man has legitimately become the master of the film sprint. Here we see him barreling into a sandstorm in hot pursuit of the enemy before pulling off the miraculous maneuver of hopping into a convertible, driving it blind through that storm, bailing from it, having it crash into another car and avoiding being leveled by said car. As he tumbles to the ground and the car flies over him, we see the Tudor on his wrist [01:21:06] as he manages to pick himself up off the ground and flee the scene.

Image, Paramount

Shortly (very shortly) after, in a scene where Hunt and his team find themselves in the throes of inner turmoil, we get a glimpse into Ethan's watch-wearing habits. As intelligence analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) argues with another member of the squad, Jane Carter (Paula Patton), Hunt is in the bathroom listening through the door, having just finished a shower. The camera pans to the left as his phone rings and we see the Tudor watch resting atop his dry clothes [01:22:54]. This confirms one thing: Ethan Hunt doesn't shower with his watch on. Which just goes to show that even ass-kicking survival experts don't always trust water resistance.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (starring Tom Cruise) is directed by Brad Bird with props by Kurt Bruun. It is available to rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon.

The HODINKEE shop carries a variety of pre-owned Tudor watches . For more information visit Tudor .

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Whatever Happened to Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon’s Rodeo Romance?

We were this close to a Western love story with Witherspoon and Cruise.

The Big Picture

Tom Cruise's career took a different turn in 2011, as his attempts at branching out into non-action roles were largely unsuccessful.
Cruise's interest in a romantic Western comedy called Paper Wings suggests a different path his stardom could have taken.
Cruise's past successes in romantic and comedic roles, such as in Risky Business and Jerry Maguire , highlight his versatility and talent beyond the action genre.

Any discussions about Tom Cruise being “past his prime” are completely ridiculous, as Cruise has proven time and time again why he’s the biggest movie star on the planet. The combined critical and box office success of Top Gun: Maverick and the last few installments within the Mission: Impossible franchise have proven that Cruise is still an immediate box office draw for audiences across the globe. However, Cruise’s career was in a far different place a decade earlier , as his efforts to branch out into non-action roles had been largely unsuccessful. During this brief period of uncertainty, Cruise nearly signed up for a Western romance film that he would have co-starred in with Reese Witherspoon . Although the project never took off, it suggests a very different path that Cruise’s stardom could have taken under different circumstances.

Tom Cruise's Career in 2011 Was Very Different

In early 2011, Game of Thrones director Brian Kirk was reportedly circling a romantic Western comedy that was tentatively titled Paper Wings . The premise felt like a strange cross between Urban Cowboy and Rhinestone , as it followed a rough and tough rodeo star that fell in love with a country singer. The script had been developed by Twilight writer Marty Bohen , and was first sent to New Line Cinema in 2006. Witherspoon first got involved with the project when The Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino was attached to helm it. Cruise was reportedly seriously interested in taking on the project. While it now seems unbelievable that Cruise would ever pop up in a Western romance , his career was in a much different state back in 2011.

It had been a rough few years for Cruise. In the aftermath of Mission: Impossible III , Cruise attempted to reestablish himself as a dramatic actor with Robert Redford ’s political drama Lions and Lambs and Bryan Singer ’s World War II thriller Valkyrie . Both films fell flat, indicating that Cruise didn’t quite have the capability to break into any serious award season conversations at this time. Although he scored a surprising Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Tropic Thunder alongside his co-star, Robert Downey Jr. , Downey’s performance was the only one that received any recognition from the Oscars. Cruise tried to trek back into familiar territory in 2010 with James Mangold ’s action comedy Knight and Day , but it became one of the rare critical and financial disasters of his career.

Unfortunately, Paper Wings remained in development hell as Cruise, Witherspoon, and Kirk all began working on other projects. Witherspoon would end up earning a well-deserved Academy award nomination for her performance in Jean-Marc Vallee ’s Wild . She soon became just as popular on television as she was in film thanks to the success of The Morning Show , Big Little Lies , and Little Fires Everywhere . Kirk continued to work in television, directing episodes of Lucifer , Boardwalk Empire , and Dexter . He later made the leap to the big screen when he directed the late, great, Chadwick Boseman in one of his last movies, the 2019 crime thriller 21 Bridges .

'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol' Was a Box Office Hit

Given that Cruise had failed in just about every genre, signing up for an exciting script alongside a star like Witherspoon would have been a great way for him to show off his versatility. However, no one could anticipate just how successful Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol would be when it hit theaters in December. Cruise proved why Ethan Hunt was still the definitive action hero of a generation, and managed to remain at the center of the franchise, even when it was suggested that Jeremy Renner could take over as its new lead. Within the next few years, it became more clear than ever that Ethan Hunt was the only character that Cruise could rely on.

While it appeared like Cruise might have been able to kickstart another franchise in 2012 with Jack Reacher , the film’s disastrous 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back killed any potential for the franchise. (The character would later be rebooted in the television series Reacher on Amazon Prime Video with Alan Ritchson .) Cruise’s other critical failures included his first musical ( Rock of Ages ), a middling science fiction adventure ( Oblivion ), and his attempt to take part in a cinematic universe (2017’s The Mummy ). Their collective failures indicated that Cruise was best when he was working with familiar material. Perhaps this inspired him to take a nostalgia-heavy look back at one of his most iconic roles with legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick .

Tom Cruise Needs To Do More Movies Like 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Risky Business'

The failure of Paper Wings to move forward is disappointing , as Cruise is rarely given enough credit for how romantic and funny he could be. Even though he’s now almost exclusively associated with the action genre, it's easy to forget that Cruise’s breakout role was in 1983 with the coming-of-age romantic dramedy Risky Business . The sensitivity and earnestness that Cruise showed at such a young age is largely responsible for the success that he received thereafter. He would also give one of his best performances ever in 1996 with the romantic comedy Jerry Maguire . It was one of the biggest hits of Cruise’s career and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, even though the role was originally written for Tom Hanks .

Tom Cruise Proved the Doubters Wrong with His 'Born on the Fourth of July’ Performance

Cruise also took chances on many different types of romantic films. Vanilla Sky took the rom-com formula into science fiction territory, and Cruise showed a more sensitive version of masculinity with his performances in the arthouse dramas Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia . Unfortunately, these sorts of projects now seem few and far between for Cruise. 2017’s American Made was the last time that he appeared in a non-action film, and its dismal reviews may have inspired Cruise to narrow his focus on blockbusters even further. The Mission: Impossible franchise is one of the best franchises that is currently running (no pun intended). However, Cruise can only push his physical limits for so long before he is forced to retire from the action genre. Perhaps when Ethan Hunt’s story finally comes to an end, Cruise will circle back to work on something like Paper Wings again. Who doesn’t want to see Cruise play a cowboy?

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Tom Cruise Creates His Own ‘Trafalgar Square’ Tube Station Filming Mission: Impossible in London

The actor was pictured filming scenes for the eighth 'Mission: Impossible' movie in the British capital on April 28

Raw Image / Goff / Splash / SplashNews

Tom Cruise has taken over the streets of London!

On Sunday, April 28, the actor, 61, was photographed filming scenes for the next Mission: Impossible movie in the British capital outside an invented Tube station called 'Trafalgar Square.'

Cruise shut down the real Trafalgar Square for the shoot as he was seen coming in and out of the London Underground station while surrounded by crowds of extras.

Off camera, the action star appeared in happier spirits as he chatted to members of the crew in between takes.

The eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise is set for a May 23, 2025 release. According to Deadline , the release was delayed by a year due to the SAG-AFTRA strike , which ended in November 2023.

Cruise returns to the franchise as protagonist Ethan Hunt, along with director and longtime collaborative partner Christopher McQuarrie.

The actor was spotted filming more adrenaline-fueled scenes for the action movie in London last month.

On March 24, the American Made star was photographed sprinting down a street in the capital wearing a black suit with an unbuttoned white shirt covered in fake blood.

Last summer, Cruise returned to the big screen in the seventh film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning .

The film made $172 million at the domestic box office and earned the franchise its first Oscars nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the 96th Academy Awards earlier this year.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Meanwhile, Cruise is reportedly set to appear in another sequel of his movies for the third Top Gun film , following the huge success of the second installment, Top Gun: Maverick , released in 2022.

In January, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Paramount is developing the sequel with co-writer Ehren Kruger, with Joe Kosinski set to direct. According to the outlet, the film will see Cruise return in his role as Pete Mitchell, alongside his Maverick costars Glen Powell and Miles Teller .

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Mission impossible ghost protocol 2011 movie review
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL Behind The Scenes
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COMMENTS

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 is a 2011 American action spy film directed by Brad Bird (in his live-action directorial debut) from a screenplay by the writing team of Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, who also serve as co-producers.Produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, it is the sequel to Mission: Impossible III (2006) and is the fourth installment in the Mission ...
Mission Impossible 4: How Tom Cruise Did The Burj Khalifa Stunt
Tom Cruise always does his own Mission: Impossible stunts, including hanging off a plane, holding his breath for six minutes to perform an underwater heist, and conducting 109 HALO jumps to get the perfect shot. But of all these movie stunts, the iconic Burj Khalifa sequence is the best proof of the actor's dedication to his craft.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #1
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Official Trailer #1 - Tom Cruise Movie (2011) HDSubscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6hThe IMF is shut down when it's ...
Mission: Impossible
Rated: 4.5/5 • Dec 31, 2021. 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 ...
Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol movie review (2011)
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. Advertisement.
Mission: Impossible
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 ...
'Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. Directed by Brad Bird. Action, Adventure, Thriller. PG-13. 2h 12m. By Manohla Dargis. Dec. 15, 2011. What makes Tom Cruise run — run harder and run faster ...
Mission: Impossible
Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: 'the best in the franchise since it was launched in 1996'. The Observer Action and adventure films This article is more than 12 years old
Mission: Impossible
Technically, the film is immaculate, with incredible photographic clarity, at least as presented in IMAX (full top-to-bottom images account for a reported 27 minutes of the running time). Michael ...
10 Years Ago, 'Mission: Impossible
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 ...
Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - review. The fourth in Tom Cruise's international-spy series is an efficient and effective thriller - and is given an extra comic dimension by a scene ...
Mission: Impossible
digital compositor: Ghost VFX Meghan Thornton ... digital artist Daniel C.J. Todd ... matchmove artist ZiJing Toh ... lighting technical director Kar Hung Tom ... system administrator: Rodeo FX Ruggero Tomasino ... digital compositor: Ghost VFX Benoit Touchette ... senior staff: Rodeo FX
How Tom Cruise pulled off that 'Mission: Impossible 4 ...
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 ...
Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a 2011 spy film, and the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series series. It stars Tom Cruise, who reprises his role of IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, and is director Brad Bird's first live-action film. Ghost Protocol was written by André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, and produced by Cruise, J.J. Abrams (director of third film) and Bryan Burk. In ...
Watch Mission: Impossible IV
Mission: Impossible IV - 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. ... Tom Cruise, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg Studio Hit Movies. ... Find Movie Box Office Data: Goodreads ...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Get Down Here: Ethan (Tom Cruise) finds the quickest way to get back down to the the hotel room.BUY THE MOVIE: https:/...
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
No plan. No backup. No choice. Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his elite team (Jeremy Renner, THE AVENGERS and Simon Pegg, STAR TREK) go underground after a bombing of the Kremlin implicates the IMF as international terrorists. While trying to clear the agency's name, the team uncovers a plot to start a nuclear war. Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The ...
Ghost Protocol: The Mission: Impossible Movie That Broke the James Bond
Watching Ethan Hunt spider-walk his way around the glassy outside of the towering Burj Khalifa might be the image that lingers the longest from Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (now streaming on Peacock).But set against the more recent souped-up entries in the Cruise-fueled spy action franchise, Ghost Protocol remains one of the best Mission: Impossible films, in part because all of its ...
Mission: Impossible movies in order: Watch guide for the Tom Cruise
This film is considered the black sheep of the franchise, with its use of martial arts and style. Starring Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, and Dougray Scott, Mission: Impossible 2 is ...
Mission: Impossible Movies in Order
Tom Cruise helped revive a franchise in 1996 when he ... 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 ...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - The Kremlin Explodes: Ethan (Tom Cruise) tries to escape the Kremlin before he can be captured.BUY THE MOVIE: https://...
Mission: Impossible movies in order: Watch guide for the Tom Cruise
Each film follows Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise, and his gang, trying to save the world from a catastrophe orchestrated by different enemies. ... Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: 2011: Tom ...
Tom Cruise Wears A Tudor In 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol'
Watching Movies Tom Cruise Is At it Again With A Tudor Heritage Chrono In 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol' With the announcement of a new Pelagos, we look to Tudor for our watch-related movie of the week. Danny Milton September 02, 2022 ...
What Happened to Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon's Rodeo ...
'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' Was a Box Office Hit ... The 1989 Oliver Stone movie showed that Tom Cruise was more than just a movie star, he had legitimate acting chops.
Tom Cruise Creates His Own 'Trafalgar Square' Tube Station Filming
Tom Cruise was photographed filming the eighth 'Mission: Impossible' movie in London on April 28, even creating a 'Trafalgar Square' Tube station for the production.

Screen Rant

Tom Cruise's 14 Mission: Impossible Stunts Ranked By Most Dangerous

Tom Cruise's Burj Khalifa Stunt Explained

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Was The Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa Stunt His Most Dangerous?

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