Summary

• The Mission: Impossible franchise is defined by exceptional stunts, mostly performed by Tom Cruise himself.
• Each movie in the franchise showcases groundbreaking stuntwork that raises the bar for action movies.
• Cruise's dedication to performing dangerous stunts has led to real injuries, highlighting his commitment.

the first Mission: Impossible movie in 1996, Cruise and his stunt team have continued to push the boundaries of stuntwork across seven movies, with an eighth set for release in 2025.

From climbing the world's tallest building, hanging from an airplane that is taking off, and engaging in a brutally skilled knife fight, the franchise has an exceptional reputation for top-notch stuntwork. This is all the more impressive when considering that Cruise, who is aged 62 at the time of writing, has done, and continues to do the vast majority of his own stunts, often injuring himself in the process.

7 Mission: Impossible - Langley CIA Break-In

Stunt Coordinator: Greg Powell

The first Mission: Impossible movie certainly hit the ground running with the inclusion of what would eventually become one of the most iconic scenes in action movie history. When Ethan is tasked with breaking into a secure CIA facility in Langley to retrieve a list of covert agents currently undercover in Eastern Europe, he finds himself suspended in mid-air deep within the facility so as not to trip the motion sensor alarms. His weight is being held by Franz Krieger (Jean Reno), who, when spooked by a rat in the vents, almost drops Ethan, who ends up dangling just inches from the floor.

The tension in this eleven-minute scene is superbly executed: from the constant zooms on Ethan's face, the focus on every bead of sweat, the lack of any musical accompaniment, and the threat of somebody about to walk in and discover the heist, it is a stunt that leaves viewers on the edge of their seats. While not the largest-scale stunt of the Mission: Impossible franchise, it's nevertheless a strong start and kicks off what would become a constant expectation of groundbreaking stuntwork for the rest of the series.

6 Mission: Impossible 2 - Knife Fight

Stunt Coordinator: Brian Smrz

Despite the second installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise typically being seen as the weakest of the lot, this doesn't hold the movie back from continuing to raise the stunt game. Certainly the most impressive moment of stuntwork in Mission: Impossible 2 comes when Ethan is fighting the movie's antagonist, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). Ambrose pulls out a knife midway through the fight and, after a brief tussle, ends up holding the blade a quarter of an inch away from Ethan's eyeball.

During the filming of this hair-raising stunt, Cruise not only insisted that a real knife be used, but that Scott use as much force as possible when doing so (via Slash Film). The result is an exceptionally intimate, yet violent stunt that looks as good now as it did when Mission: Impossible 2 was released in 2000.

It's a good reminder that even seemingly "small" stunts can pack a big punch. Despite Cruise being one hand slip away from losing his eye (likely the closest the actor has come to a severe, life-changing stunt-induced injury), he continued to push both himself and the Mission: Impossible franchise to bigger and bolder stunting heights.

5 Mission: Impossible III - Bridge Attack

Stunt Coordinators: Roy Alon and Vic Armstrong

Following an underwhelming second movie, the franchise found its footing once again with the release of Mission: Impossible III, a project full of incredible stunts. In particular, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge scene, which sees Ethan's convoy ruthlessly attacked by mercenaries who extract Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an arms dealer being transported by the IMF, stands out as the host of an incredible stunt sequence. From intense near-misses with rockets, high stakes, and, of course, Cruise doing what he does best with stunts, the stuntwork on display here is nothing short of legendary.

Cruise's body did not get out unscathed, however, with the actor cracking two ribs during a part of the scene that saw him launched against a car (via The Standard). Despite this injury, the stuntwork in the scene is a major testament to both Cruise and the Mission: Impossible series' dedication to providing audiences with exciting, heart-pounding action. The incredible stunts performed by Cruise and so many others on the bridge helped relaunch the series to critical and commercial acclaim, with Mission: Impossible becoming an icon of action movie franchises following Mission: Impossible III's release.

4 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol - Climbing The Burj Khalifa

Stunt Coordinators: Gregg Smrz and Sham Kaushal

The release of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol brought with it perhaps the second most iconic stunt of the entire franchise. In what is now a watershed moment for action movie stunts, this scene sees Ethan having to climb from the 123rd floor to the 130th floor of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, in order to prevent the illegal transaction of nuclear codes. Once again, the Mission: Impossible series creates a major sense of tension here, with Ethan's suction gloves slowly failing, leading to him having to make a leap of faith that he only just survives.

Cruise actually did climb a portion of the Burj Khalifa for this stunt, using an elaborate harness that was securely rigged at several points along the building for the utmost safety. Nevertheless, audiences may find themselves sick to their stomachs as they imagine Cruise clinging on to the building. It was a stunt that literally took the Mission: Impossible franchise to new, dizzyingly tall heights and is often seen as one of the most impressive, and indeed, stomach-churning stunts of the entire series. It highlights the full scope of what the franchise is capable of to great effect.

3 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation - Clinging Onto A Plane

Stunt Coordinator: Wade Eastwood

Mission: Impossible is one of those rare franchises where each new movie seems even better than the last, and the same applies to its stunts. How could they possibly top scaling the world's tallest building? The answer is by having Ethan cling onto an Airbus A400M that was taking off in an attempt to prevent the shipment of deadly nerve gas. Through this wild sequence, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation raised the bar for stuntwork yet again, not just for its franchise, but for action movies as a whole.

Once again, Cruise insisted on performing this stunt himself and without the use of any green screen technology. The result saw the actor clinging onto the airplane in a secure harness no less than eight times as it took off, circled in the air for a few minutes, and landed. At times, the airplane was 5,000 ft in the air; for context, the Burj Khalifa is only 2,722 ft at its tallest point.

The stunt team had to make sure the runway was perfectly clean to protect Cruise from any flying debris.

With this scene, Cruise and Mission: Impossible provided audiences with the perfect combination of high stakes and tense action, while also experimenting with groundbreaking stuntwork. It's also another great example of Cruise's total commitment to the franchise, exposing himself to danger in a particularly nerve-wracking way.

2 Mission: Impossible – Fallout - The Building Jump

Stunt Coordinator: Wade Eastwood

The sixth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise saw both Ethan and Cruise put through intense physical challenges in order to capture the perfect stunt. While the helicopter chase in the final act is undoubtedly iconic, the greatest stunt from Mission: Impossible – Fallout comes much earlier in the film, as Ethan gives chase to August Walker (Henry Cavill) across the rooftops in London. In a moment that definitely defies the laws of gravity, Ethan jumps across a massive gap between two buildings and barely makes it across.

This stunt, despite being on a much smaller scale than climbing the Burj Khalifa or clinging onto an airplane, has nonetheless secured its place in the history books for a key reason: it resulted in a very real injury that halted production. Cruise performed the stunt using an elaborate harness setup that would help launch him between the buildings. Unfortunately, the actor's ankle was broken after it hit the wall at a cringe-inducing angle.

This take is the one used in Fallout's marketing, demonstrating the lengths that both Cruise and the franchise have gone to maintain authentic stunts. However, the final cut of the film appears to swap in a different take of Cruise hitting the building that nonetheless maintains the inherent danger of the stunt.

1 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One - Driving A Motorcycle Off A Mountain

Stunt Coordinator: Wade Eastwood

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Without a doubt, the most ridiculously unrealistic (but no less cool) stunt in the franchise comes from the most recent Mission: Impossible installment. Ethan is driving a motorcycle across a mountain in a bid to get onto a train carrying a key that unlocks the source code for the AI cyber weapon, the Entity. In a moment of pure thrill that has been labeled by Paramount as the "Biggest Stunt in Cinema History," Ethan drives his motorcycle off of the mountain before opening a parachute and landing safely on the train.

Naturally, Cruise himself literally drove a motorcycle off of a mountain in Norway for the stunt, but what's more, there were no harnesses involved at all. It was just Cruise, a motorcycle, and his parachute. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is the culmination of seven films and almost thirty years of expert stuntwork within the franchise, with this absolutely incredible sequence being the jewel in Mission: Impossible's metaphorical crown.

Sources: Slash Film, The Standard