All 8 Mission: Impossible Movies, Ranked

Who could've ever guessed that "Mission: Impossible," a TV series that began in the 1960s, would go on to spawn one of the most epic action movie franchises of the 21st century? But that's simply the power of Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt willing to put his well-being on the line for the masses.

Not only have the "Mission: Impossible" films been going strong since the first one came out in 1996, but they've also, somewhat amazingly, been surprisingly consistent. It's hard to say there's a single "bad" film in the series. Some are definitely better than others, allowing us to rank them here, but each one has something to gain for those willing to take the leap of faith. 

While some of these films are a decent time, others are pure cinema. Here's every "Mission: Impossible" movie ranked by someone who regularly watches the entire series when he just needs to feel something. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to argue with our ranking ad nauseam online. 

Even for a franchise as rad as "Mission: Impossible," something has to come at the bottom of the pack, and that's 2002's "Mission: Impossible 2." Even IMDb users agree it's the worst of the bunch, but that doesn't mean it's lacking its charms. If anything, the film (directed by gonzo-action filmmaker John Woo) is responsible for steering the franchise in a more action-oriented direction. Woo brings his signature highly choreographed fight scenes to the proceedings, as well as a pretty cool motorcycle chase. 

Outside of some out-of-date stylistic flourishes, the second installment doesn't have much to offer in a standard spy movie about a bioweapon falling into the wrong hands, meaning Ethan Hunt and his crew need to retrieve it. Ethan's crew is sadly lacking in much chemistry. Luther (Ving Rhames) is always a welcome mainstay, but Billy Baird, with all due respect to John Polson, doesn't really bring much. Another total letdown is the major setpiece where Ethan is hung from a harness and lowered into a secure area to retrieve something. It's beat-for-beat a retread of the famous data heist sequence from the first "Mission: Impossible," and something this franchise should never do is feel stale. 

"Mission: Impossible " really falls apart with the central romance between Ethan and Nyah (Thandiwe Newton), as the plot hinges on you buying that Ethan truly loves this woman while sending her on a dangerous part of the mission. And you just ... don't. No doubt there are folks out there who love the campier aspects of this movie, but in hindsight, it feels like the series undergoing growing pains and trying to figure out what it wants to be. 

There could very well be more "Mission: Impossible" movies in the future, but "Final Reckoning" feels like it's functioning as a swan song in case this is the end of the line for Ethan Hunt. It tries to do this by tying together elements from past films, like William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) getting a proper ending and answering the question of what the Rabbit's Foot in "Mission: Impossible III" is (it's the prototype source code for the AI, the Entity). There was a lot of ground for "Final Reckoning" to cover, and sadly, it commits the gravest sin a "Mission: Impossible" movie can commit: It's really boring for a good chunk of its runtime. 

The first hour is a huge slog to get through. It pretty much consists of characters delivering exposition about the state of the world, with humanity in the midst of a crisis thanks to the Entity altering information and forming its own doomsday cult. That opening act is surprisingly lacking in action, but there's a beautiful moment when the film finally locks in, about an hour into its runtime. Now that we know in excessively great detail what all is going on, Ethan gets to work retrieving the AI's source code from a sunken submarine. It's a great sequence and leads to a thrilling conclusion that sees Ethan Hunt and Gabriel (Esai Morales) fighting on biplanes. This is maybe the greatest stunt ever in a "Mission: Impossible" movie, and it's almost enough to get the bad taste of the first hour out of your mouth. Almost.

"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" definitely had the most unfortunate title within the franchise, and it was later officially changed to drop the "Part One." While the film itself is better than "Final Reckoning," it has several of the same problems. It sadly feels like half of a movie, which is naturally be design, and Gabriel is one of the weaker villains. It's a natural byproduct of making the primary antagonist an all-knowing, all-powerful artificial intelligence that threatens to change how the world perceives reality. 

Bringing the Entity into the mix is very fun and was surprisingly timely when "Dead Reckoning" debuted in the summer of 2023 amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Knowing that writers and actors were fighting to keep their livelihoods safe from AI replacements gave the film a metatextual edge. It almost feels like Tom Cruise and company were showing just how far filmmakers could reach with real actors, stunt performers, and sets. There are simply some things AI can't do because no facsimile could ever be as thrilling as watching Cruise drive a motorcycle off a cliff. 

Hayley Atwell is a great addition to Ethan Hunt's crew, although it was sad to see Ilsa Fault (Rebecca Ferguson) bite the dust. It's hard to imagine how she could have fit into the already-stuffed "Final Reckoning," but it's always good to have more Ferguson in your life. 

If "Dead Reckoning" and "Final Reckoning" are held back by their human villain, "Mission: Impossible III" is elevated by a phenomenal performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Owen Davian, an arms dealer who wants Ethan to secure a deadly weapon called the Rabbit's Foot for him. Hoffman didn't have to go over-the-top to let audiences know Davian wasn't to be messed with, and he delivers arguably the best villain performance in the entire franchise. 

Honestly, director J.J. Abrams deserves a lot of credit for getting so much right when it came to the casting. Simon Pegg is a welcome new face as Benji, who would appear in every other "Mission: Impossible" film from here on out. But it's Michelle Monaghan's Julia that really ties everything together. You can make a spy-centric action movie with some cool stunts and call it a day. But to take things to the next level, we need to care about why Ethan's doing these things. You didn't really get that with the romance in "Mission: Impossible 2," but it feels so much more effortless here between Ethan and Julia. 

If "Mission: Impossible 2" brought more action to the franchise, the third film hones in on needing an emotional core. We need to believe that Ethan would go to the end's of the Earth to save those closest to him, and we really get that here. 

It's a good thing the internet wasn't as prevalent in 1996 when the first "Mission: Impossible" movie came out. The cast of the original TV series hated the film due to its myriad changes to the source material, which involved turning the original TV show's Jim Phelps (Jon Voight, originally by Peter Graves) into the bad guy. It took some liberties with the source material, but there was no denying it laid the groundwork for an utterly entertaining franchise. 

The first "Mission: Impossible" still holds up, even if it doesn't have the heavily action-oriented stunt work that would come to define the series. Instead, the film pursues a more intimate storyline, with Ethan Hunt being set up as a mole and having clear his name. Instead of riding a motorcycle off a cliff, the main set piece sees Ethan dangling from a harness to retrieve a list of undercover agents. The tension doesn't stem from whether Ethan will survive a jump, but whether he can get in and out without anyone noticing. There's also a far more delightful rag-tag element to the proceedings, with the mission almost going belly-up due to a rat (a literal mammalian one) being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

1996's "Mission: Impossible" doesn't really feel like what would come later. Perhaps that's the beauty of it: it offered some engaging characters and a world you wanted to explore more in. As Ethan Hunt became more confident in his skills, so did the rest of the franchise in the grandiosity of its set pieces.

The first three "Mission: Impossible" movies feel like attempts to put the pieces of a puzzle together. You have Tom Cruise willing to put his wellbeing in jeopardy constantly, and an engaging ensemble of spy-like characters. "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" feels like the first time everything came together spectacularly. You have what remains one of the best Cruise stunts ever where Ethan Hunt climbs the Burj Khalifa. Plus, even though Ethan Hunt remains front and center, he has what remains one of the best crews in the franchise. Simon Pegg's Benji returns from "Mission: Impossible III," but he's joined by Paula Patton's Jane Carter and Jeremy Renner's William Brandt. 

Renner even seem poised to take over the franchise as leading man, but fortunately, director Brad Bird never intended that to be the case. He told /Film back in the day, "I view it as another Mission: Impossible movie with the addition of some really spectacular actors ... I say this is the next Mission: Impossible movie and that's it." And it's for the best that the focus remains on Ethan Hunt's journey, even tying his relationship with Julia back into the mix. 

Bird's background in animation feels like an asset for this franchise; een though the movie isn't necessarily "cartoony," there's a certain larger-than-life quality. Add in some enhanced musicality from the excellent Michael Giacchino score, and you have all the makings of a hit. It would've been fun to see what else Bird could do with this franchise, but he set the template Christopher McQuarrie would build upon for every "Mission: Impossible" film to follow. 

Christopher McQuarrie's first outing in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise is "Rogue Nation," and it proves this is a series cooking with gas now. The whole film is filled to the brim with so many thrilling set pieces, it's hard to pin down a favorite. It opens with Ethan Hunt gripping the side of an airplane that was featured in much of the advertising, getting it out of the way so that the audience can hone in on an opera shootout, a water power plant heist, and an incredible motorcycle chase, instead of just waiting for the plane. "Rogue Nation" takes the ideas presented in "Ghost Protocol" and truly reinvents the franchise to what people would associate it with today. 

It doesn't hurt that Luther's back in the saddle, with Benji providing ample wisecracks. However, the best contribution "Rogue Nation" offers to the ensemble is Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). She's more than just a potential love interest for Ethan Hunt, as she can more than hold her own in a fight and doesn't fear death. But Ilsa isn't a purely cold and calculating assassin. She's not afraid to show emotion, and she plays off Ethan wonderfully. 

"Rogue Nation" keeps the spy aspects intact, but the franchise also partly morphs into an exercise to see what wild thing Tom Cruise will do next. Before "Rogue Nation" even came out, you had news stories of how Cruise actually learned to hold his breath for six minutes for the water plant heist. It added to the spectacle to know you were seeing a real person performing a real stunt on the big screen, making it unlike most other major blockbusters of the time period.

"Mission: Impossible — Fallout" is, quite simply, the best "Mission: impossible" movie because everything just works. At a nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime, everything in here serves its purpose. Ethan has a crackerjack team now where every dialogue scene between them sizzles. New characters, like August Walker (Henry Cavill), the surprise villain, and the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), the arms broker, add so much color to this world and make for fun foils for Ethan Hunt to play off of. Special praise should be given to cinematographer Rob Hardy, as "Fallout" is utterly beuatiful to look at. You really gain a sense of scope looking at the landscapes, especially when it comes to that final helicopter showdown. 

It's the pièce de résistance of a film filled to the brim with iconic action sequences, from Ethan doing the HALO jump while dodging lightning and running across rooftops (a scene that Tom Cruise persevered through a broken ankle to film). Honestly, when you think about things that happen in every "Mission: Impossible" movie, "Fallout" kind of has the best of each one. It has the best face mask reveal, when Benji wears the Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) mask to make August reveal his villainous intentions. It has the best use of tension, with frequent ticking clocks reminding viewers of how long until the next action needs to happen. It has some of the best music and dialogue. Everything works here to where it's the quintessential "Mission: Impossible" film and the benchmark against which all others must be judged. 

We need more blockbusters like "Mission: Impossible — Fallout," meaning epic action grounded with just enough humor and emotional beats to keep you invested. If the franchise continues, we can only hope future installments learn from "Fallout" in how to craft big-budget spectacle.