Mission: Impossible Movies, Ranked
Where does Dead Reckoning Part One stack up on our list?
One of the elite modern franchises is back this week, and we are fired up. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in the series, opened in theaters this week. We were right there on opening night reveling in the spectacle of Tom Cruise and his Impossible Mission Force. In today’s newsletter, we’re doing a combined ranking of all seven Mission: Impossible movies. Where does the new one stack up? Find out below.
Stay tuned for our podcast breakdown of Dead Reckoning Part One early next week. In the meantime, you can listen to our Tom Cruise Movie Draft episode from this week! We were joined by special guests Kenny and Kevin of The CineBoiz Podcast on a mission to draft the perfect Cruise movie lineup. Listen, subscribe, and share!
Mission: Impossible Movies, Ranked
7. Mission: Impossible II
Billy: This is like saying there is a worst flavor of M&Ms. You’re really just picking your least favorite color and that sweet chocolatey goodness still shines through. John Woo is the director. Woo is famous for Hard Boiled and Face/Off. The latter being a wonderful comparison to M:I 2 and a litmus test to find out if your friend is a hypocrite. There is a 75% chance they will say they like Face/Off and don’t like M:I 2. Woo, like DePalma with the first, brings some of the most interesting action filmmaking into the franchise. It doesn’t work a lot of the time, but it is incredible when it goes right.
6. Mission: Impossible III
Drew: Due to Tom Cruise’s ageless persona, it’s funny now to think of Ethan Hunt as retired at the beginning of the third film in the franchise back in 2006. Mission: Impossible III introduces us to Hunt’s new life, settled down with his nurse fiancée (Michelle Monaghan). Of course, it’s not long before he’s back in action with the IMF, trailing ruthless and powerful arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Before he revived the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, J.J. Abrams was breathing life into M:I after the prior film in the series had been mostly panned. His M:I III sits awkwardly in the middle of the franchise, neither as masterfully stylish as Brian De Palma’s original or as thrilling as the later death-defying entries. But Abrams and Cruise know how to entertain, and while the story isn’t much to write home about – the Rabbit’s Foot is the most MacGuffin-y MacGuffin in the entire franchise – the action is exciting and the emotional stakes are cranked up for Hunt. In fact, M:I III boasts some of Cruise’s best acting in the series, because he has to go toe-to-toe with Hoffman, one of the greats of his era. As the terrifying Davian, Hoffman tries his hand at a blockbuster villain and leaves a lasting impression that no other M:I villain could hope to match.
5. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Billy: An effort to attempt a true continuation in the franchise. Besides Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise there had not been characters carried over into the next movie. Rogue Nation kept Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames as the core team. And introduced the best female counterpart of the whole franchise, Illsa, played brilliantly by Rebecca Ferguson. Ferguson brings an equal dynamic to Hunt’s convincing tenacity. Very few people can match Cruise with that effort.
4. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Drew: The latest entry splendidly combines the talky, suspenseful espionage of the original with the stunt-centric spectacle of the recent Christopher McQuarrie-directed movies. It plays the M:I hits (Kittridge returns!) while adding fresh elements (a faceless AI villain, Hayley Atwell’s pickpocket thief). Sure, it’s long and some of the character development is left on the table for Part Two. However, there are a few absolute knockout top-tier M:I sequences, including a sublime hand-to-hand fight showcase in Venice and a final hair-raising set piece that only Cruise and McQuarrie could pull off.
3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Billy: While other entries have more emotional stakes and captivating stories, this is where the stunts became the major draw. While the movie was filming and during the entire press tour we heard about Tom Cruise climbing on and hanging out of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, a publicity stunt where the daring attempt had to be met with a high quality movie and they delivered. Thrilling from beginning to end and we expected much more from here on out.
(tie) Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Billy: The only time in Tom Cruise’s career where someone one-upped him in an action scene. Henry Cavill pumped his biceps and his beard grew rapidly before he beat the shit out of someone. Fallout is the first Mission: Impossible movie where everyone rose to his level of commitment. It set a new standard for this franchise and other action franchises.
(tie) Mission: Impossible
Drew: While the franchise has become a reliably great spy-and-stunt machine, 1996’s Mission: Impossible started as something a little different, merging a major movie star, Tom Cruise, with a gifted and subversive filmmaker, Brian De Palma. The result is an action espionage thriller that upends your expectations from the jump. The brilliant opening sequence wrongfoots the audience before they can even get their bearings, and the centerpiece stunt is a near-silent work of bravura acrobatics and pacing. Throw in smart performers like Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Redgrave, and more and you have a 90s popcorn classic. In favor of stability and continuity, M:I went away from letting singular directors have their shot at each film after the first couple movies. This may have been better for the franchise’s long-term health, but I’m not sure they have ever topped De Palma’s first crack.
Drew’s ranking
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Mission: Impossible II
Billy’s ranking
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible II
Links
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Hollywood is essentially shut down as SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, called for a strike this week, just a couple months after the Writers Guild did the same. It’s the first double strike since 1960.