Even Ethan Hunt might baulk at the task ahead of us. After all, ranking every Mission: Impossible movie from best to worst feels like we’re on a hiding to nothing. The bar for the franchise is so high that there’s a strong case for four or five of these Missions to steal the top spot.
Across 27 (!) years and seven installments, Tom Cruise has set the gold standard for action movies. But which Mission: Impossible movie is the best of the best? With Dead Reckoning Part One now in cinemas, it’s time to rank every movie through a 2023 lens – factoring in the ingenuity of the series’ iconic action set-pieces, Cruise’s death-defying stunts, and how each movie has stood the test of time.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join us as we rank all Mission: Impossible movies. First up, a widely panned 2000s sequel…
7. Mission: Impossible 2
Mission: Impossible 2 is an odd duck. All dodgy haircuts and scene-killing slow-mo, the John Woo-directed follow-up to the 1996 original throws out the tense, calculating tone of the first movie for a sun-kissed dose of melodrama and overblown action.
Ethan Hunt is dragged back from some long-overdue vacation time to chase down Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), a rogue IMF agent who has got his hands on a potentially world-ending Chimera virus. To do so, he enlists the help of Ambrose’s former partner Nyah (Thandiwe Newton, in fine form throughout) to snare the snarling Scot.
While you have to admire how silly Mission: Impossible 2 is, the series undoubtedly works better as a sincere slice of spycraft. Motorcycle jousting and Woo’s trademark white doves can only get you so far. Easily the most skippable Mission: Impossible movie – even though we still think you should watch it.
6. Mission: Impossible 3
Early Mission: Impossibles were often reflective of their director. De Palma dined out on paranoia while Woo favored style over substance. J.J. Abrams’ entry, as is sometimes his wont, is guilty of playing it a little too safe and sterile in places – complete with a heel turn from Billy Crudup that you’ll see coming from space.
Chances are, if you think of Mission: Impossible 3 then your mind immediately wanders not to that direction, but to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's incredible performance.
While M:I 3 still thrills elsewhere – the Shanghai sequence was probably the series’ best up until that point – Ethan being dragged out of retirement by a wickedly dangerous villain in Hoffman’s arms dealer Davian is the sort of clash of the titans that Cruise rarely embarks on anymore. It’s not often that Ethan gets overshadowed in any of these Missions, but Hoffman comes close to running off with the movie – particularly in the threequel’s memorable Hoffman vs. Hoffman set-piece in a men’s bathroom.
5. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation
Christopher McQuarrie’s debut as Mission: Impossible director gives us a taste of further brilliance down the line – and is a solid, competent affair in its own right.
This time around, Ethan and his IMF squad have been scattered to the winds but must reunite when threatened by the impending threat of The Syndicate, a shadowy organization consisting of rogue government agents.
Rogue Nation is bolstered by two moments of movie magic: the opera sequence, involving Hunt tracking down Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and Cruise continuing his scarcely believable stunt hot streak by hanging on to the edge of an Airbus for real as it takes off. But in the wider context of Mission: Impossible’s dazzling oeuvre, this is a case of revolution, not evolution.
4. Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One
There’s no stronger argument for Mission: Impossible’s place on action cinema’s Mount Rushmore than Dead Reckoning – Part One not even cracking the series’ top three.
The most recent entry on this list, Dead Reckoning sees Ethan Hunt wrestling with his past – whilst also trying to outrace a faceless enemy and an uncertain future. The AI ‘villain’ The Entity may not set the pulses racing, but it’s offset by a scarily good performance from Esai Morales’ emissary Gabriel. Fellow newcomer Hayley Atwell also delivers an assured turn, fitting in seamlessly as thief Grace. Hunt and his IMF crew's race against time across multiple continents to shut down The Entity is a similarly confident piece of moviemaking magic.
Dead Reckoning is only let down by its structure. It's lacking a killer set piece – the much-lauded motorcycle leap can only wow so much with how much it’s been overexposed – and its status as the first of a two-parter means it inevitably runs out of juice right when other, better Missions are hitting their stride. All the pieces are in place for Part Two to be an all-time classic, however.
3. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Outside of Tom Cruise’s wire drop in the original Mission: Impossible, the series’ most defining image is probably that of the Ethan Hunt actor scaling the 2500-foot Burj Khalifa. It’s Ghost Protocol in miniature: a daring, spectacular event – and one that kickstarted Cruise’s latter-day reinvention as Hollywood’s greatest daredevil.
Ghost Protocol sees the team aiming to avert all-out war between the United States and Russia after being disavowed. Thanks to the cut-all-ties narrative twist, the nerve-jangling trip to the Kremlin and a super-slick handover in Dubai are injected with enough peril to boost what could have been a series flagging by its fourth entry.
Brad Bird’s storied history with animated classics like The Simpsons and The Iron Giant also gifts Ghost Protocol with the sort of precise, clockwork-like machination that helps ramp up the tension and wring every last dramatic drop outside of an ensemble cast – which includes Jeremy Renner and Lea Seydoux. While it rarely has time to breathe, the lightning-fast rhythm of relentless set-pieces means this is a high-octane adventure that has rarely been bettered before or since.
2. Mission: Impossible
There aren’t many instances of a long-running franchise nailing all aspects right out of the gate, but Mission: Impossible is as close as it gets to a perfect first attempt.
Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, an IMF agent who is framed for the murders of his entire team in Prague. What follows is a pressure-cooker of a spy thriller as Hunt rages against the machine to infiltrate the CIA in one of cinema’s greatest escapades.
Watching it today, it’s abundantly clear that the 1996 original is more of a slow-burn than future entries – and is all the better for it. Cruise revels in the suffocating atmosphere, while the twists, turns, and double crosses turns a simple plot into a simply great one.
It may lack the explosive verve of its successors, but more than makes up for it by stealthily laying the groundwork for future Missions – and cementing Cruise as the Swiss Army Knife of visionary, pitch-perfect producer, and Hollywood’s next big action star all in one fell swoop.
1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Here it is, the best Mission: Impossible. Fallout continues where Rogue Nation left off featuring Hunt taking down the Apostles and the mysterious John Lark after the capture of Syndicate leader Solomon Lane.
What follows is a modern classic: director Chris McQuarrie achieves his finest work, luxuriating in the bumper 150-minute runtime to deliver a carefully crafted series of epic sequences. They range from the intimate – Henry Cavill’s reloading arms in a bathroom fight has broken the internet a dozen times over – to the jaw-droppingly spectacular. Tom Cruise broke his ankle for real while jumping across London rooftops and it’s not even the second or third most ridiculous act in Fallout.
All told, Fallout is Mission: Impossible operating at its absolute peak and firing on all cylinders. Hunt’s mission is more personal, coaxing out a rarely-seen edge from the M:I lead. There are breathless acts of derring-do throughout, with something as simple as a meeting with an arms dealer bringing out the Houdini in Cruise and McQuarrie as they cinematically wriggle their way out of another narrative corner.
To top it off, it also includes the series’ all-time best ticking clock countdown, a fine epilogue for Ethan’s ex-wife, paradigm-shifting plot twists, and a finale that delivers on every front. It’s not just the best Mission: Impossible, it’s right up there with one of the best movies of the 21st century.
Want more? Get your blood pumping with the best action movies on Netflix. Then take a look towards the future with our guide to upcoming movies.
