The Mission: Impossible franchise is arguably the best action blockbusters being made today. Tom Cruise, being the architect of the franchise, hiring some of the best directors of all time, seems to have finally found his groove with the great Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie is the first director to have directed more than one entry and directed the highly anticipated Dead Reckoning Part One. This franchise has also spanned most of Cruise’s career, starting back in 1996 and still going strong today.

These movies are exciting populist action thrillers that have some of the best stunts and action sequences ever put to film, each one improving upon the previous film. Mission: Impossible is everything an action fan could ever want in a summer blockbuster, which is why they have been so successful, as well as the clever marketing strategy they have acquired for the last three entries. This is the series ranked by Rotten Tomatoes scores.

6 Mission: Impossible II (2000) – 56%

The only movie in the franchise that is regarded negatively not only by franchise standards but as an action movie as well. John Woo is up to bat in and this time Ethan Hunt is in a race to get the deadly Chimera virus and its antidote with Sean Ambrose, played by the menacing Dougray Scott, who is a former IMF agent that has gone rogue. The IMF is under the assumption that Ambrose already has the virus and has assigned Hunt to team up with professional thief Nyah Hall, played by Thandiwe Newton, due to her past relationship with Ambrose in order to infiltrate his operation. Things become complicated for Hunt once he falls in love with Hall after staring deeply into each other’s eyes while doing a series of car pirouettes and nearly crashing off a cliff, thus binding them together for life, or until the next movie.
This action-packed movie is very obviously a Woo movie with its excessive action having Cruise dual-wielding Berettas and dodging bullets in slow motion, making this entry very different from the rest. Though the movie can be very tense at times, it drops the thriller element for a more action-focused movie. With a solid performance from Newton and a plethora of fun and inventive action sequences, this movie is unfairly ridiculed. Though the action can be a bit extravagant and over-edited, this movie is what sets Cruise on the path to becoming the Cruise that we know today: the maniac who does death-defying stunts and wants to kill himself on camera.
Opening with Cruise actually free-climbing a mountain in the Utah desert, acting as a precursor to when he eventually climbs the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol. Definitely not the best in the franchise, it does, however, achieve its goal of doing something completely different from its predecessor Mission: Impossible II is worthy of a revisit from fans of the franchise.

5 Mission: Impossible (1996) – 67%

Paramount Pictures

The first installment in the franchise with Brian De Palma as the captain of this ship setting sail on an almost 30-year journey with Tom Cruise as the immaculate spy Ethan Hunt. Mission: Impossible stars Jim Phelps, played by the conservative Jon Voight, is assigned to assemble a team to stop the theft of the CIA NOC list in Prague, and the team, of course, includes Hunt as Phelp’s pointman. In one of the most iconic openings of all time, Phelps and his team are brutally murdered in cold blood, except for Ethan. Ethan, being the only survivor, is then accused of being the one behind the killings as well as a double agent by the IMF. Now he must go rogue and create his own team in order to clear his name and find out who framed him.
This is the Mission: Impossible movie that feels most like a classic spy thriller due to its sometimes very convoluted plot as well as Brian De Palma’s direction. Cruise, who has worked with every great auteur in Hollywood, this time teaming up with De Palma who is a student of Alfred Hitchcock and was never secretive about it while still adding his own classic style with his POV and split diopter shots.
Hunt also teams up with his best friend Luther Stickell, played by the endlessly charming Ving Rhames, for the first time, becoming fast friends and getting a beer together at the end of the movie. Tom Cruise is impossibly charming and is perfectly cast, performing his own stunts, thus solidifying him as an action star. A massive hit at the box office, this sleek action thriller is a masterpiece in tension and kicked off the franchise with a bang.
Related: Mission Impossible: 6 Actors Almost Cast in the Franchise

4 Mission: Impossible III (2006) – 71%

Paramount Pictures

J.J. Abrams takes the lead with the third entry in the franchise in an effort to revive the franchise a full six years after the despised Mission: Impossible II. This time around, we find that Ethan Hunt has retired from field work with IMF to train the next generation of field agents and settle down with his fiancé Julia Meade, played by the lovely Michelle Monaghan. Hunt is brought back into the field when his favorite student Lindsey Ferris, played by the remarkable Keri Russell, is kidnapped. Ferris was kidnapped while investigating arms dealer Owen Davian, played by the incomparable Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Once again, Ethan has to go rogue in order to save his fiancé from Davian’s grasp and take down this devious mastermind from bringing the world to its knees. Probably the slickest in the entry, Abrams breathes new life into the franchise with exciting action set pieces and allows Hoffman to chew up the scenery as the villain.
Mission: Impossible III is the first entry that understands the reason why Cruise is so good at playing Hunt: they are both maniacs. Cruise is determined to do the most insane stunts on camera in order to make the best movie possible, and Hunt is determined to do whatever it takes in order to complete the mission and rescue Julia. It has a much simpler plot than the other entries as well in that it is never explained what the “Rabbit’s Foot” is exactly other than it would be very bad if Davian got his hands on it because it doesn’t matter what it is.
Abrams knows exactly what you want, and it’s non-stop, fast-paced action with very little plot, which this movie delivers on. This also showcases Tom’s beautiful run for the first time, establishing him as one of the great on-screen runners. Arguably the most important entry, Mission: Impossible III brought the franchise back into the public’s good graces and is the first one to lean into Tom Cruise’s personality.

3 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) – 93%

Paramount Pictures

Brad Bird’s turn to take a swing at the franchise, this time with a new team. The IMF is disavowed entirely after being blamed for the bombing of the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt must assemble a rag tag group of spies in order to clear not only their names but the IMF’s as well. This team consists of Benji, Simon Pegg reprising his role, Paula Patton as Jane, and Jeremy Renner as Brandt the analyst who is thrust into this world of espionage and violence, or so he seems. They are on a mission to not only clear their names but stop the war hungry Kurt Hendricks, the real person who bombed the Kremlin and played by the late great Michael Nyqvist. Bird makes the brilliant decision of putting the team’s back against the wall by having their gadgets not work properly due to the IMF being completely shut down, forcing them to go old school.
Benji not being able to connect to the IMF, makes him unable to hack into the servers of the Burj Khalifa, leading to the incredible practical stunt of Cruise scaling the side of the tallest building in the world in order to get into the server room. Similar to M:I III, Ghost Protocol not only leans into the fact that Tom Cruise is a maniac, but made the entire marketing of the film about this fact, having every trailer tease the Burj Khalifa stunt.
They’d tell anyone that would listen that Tom did it himself and that it was a practical stunt. This switch in the marketing strategy came after Cruise had a few bombs at the box office and Tom jumping on Oprah’s couch screaming about how much he loves Katie Holmes, as well as his involvement in Scientology, was still fresh in our minds. Brad Bird’s entry into the franchise is a stylish and intelligent movie that revived Tom Cruise’s career, but fully solidified Mission: Impossible as the great action blockbuster franchise that we all know and love.
Related: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Debuts With Near-Perfect Score at Rotten Tomatoes

2 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) – 94%

Paramount

For the fifth installment, Cruise officially brought on Christopher McQuarrie to take the lead after his uncredited rewrites on Ghost Protocol and the success the two of them had found together after McQuarrie wrote both Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow. After the IMF is reinstated, it is once again disbanded when the head of the CIA Alan Hunley, played by Alec Baldwin, calls for it after a nuclear bomb almost blew up San Francisco at the end of the last movie. Ethan Hunt has to once again go rogue to stop the evil organization known as The Syndicate, which is composed of rogue agents from around the world who were previously thought to have been dead.
This is the first time we are introduced to Ilsa Faust, the MI6 agent who is undercover within The Syndicate and is Ethan Hunt’s match, played by the stunning and skillful Rebecca Ferguson. McQuarrie affirms his skills as a writer and director with some of the most impressive action in the series until Fallout, moving at a breakneck pace, this movie builds upon everything that the last film does. Doubling down on stunts and action sequences, Rogue Nation has a much simpler plot, making this entry the perfect summer blockbuster. Opening with maybe the most insane stunt in the series to date, Cruise hangs on the side of an airplane while taking off and trying to reach altitude.
Once again, the marketing was all about this stunt and firmly supplanted Mission: Impossible as the franchise of Tom Cruise doing psychotic stunts for real, unlike the other CGI laden modern blockbusters. Rogue Nation was a hit with both critics and general audiences alike, showing once more that Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise make a perfect combination.

1 Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) – 97%

Skydance

Christopher McQuarrie stuck around this time after the success of Rogue Nation, making him the first to direct two in the franchise, of course, his third being the upcoming Dead Reckoning Part One. It has been two years since The Syndicate disbanded, they have regrouped into a new organization called The Apostles, a terrorist group that is hell-bent on starting nuclear war. Ethan must go on a race against time to prevent the worst from happening, while battling double agents and his own past. Fallout has the most technically impressive stunts in the series, in a series that is filled to the brim with technically impressive stunts.
From the “single take” HALO jump scene to Hunt hanging off of the bottom of a helicopter, this movie has everyone in top form. Again, this movie doubles down on marketing the impressive stunts, this being the movie where Cruise broke his leg jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
Not only did McQuarrie and company keep this shot in the final film, they also kept in the shot of him getting up and limping off camera. Both of these shots were put in all the trailers. Henry Cavill also joins the cast as the iconically mustached CIA agent Walker who Hunt is tasked with bringing along for this mission and gives an incredible performance. Fallout is chock-full of non-stop set-pieces, each one more jaw-dropping than the last, and almost all involving Cruise, who was well into his 50s by the time of its release. Leaning even more into Cruise’s lunacy and Hunt’s determination to accomplish the mission no matter what, this movie has the surrounding characters pointing out just how insane he really is more than any of the other entries. Offering the best stunts in the series and it being the highest-grossing, easily makes Fallout one of the best action movies ever made.