Ranking the Mission: Impossible Movies

With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hitting theaters everywhere, we've sorted and sifted through the previous M:I installments for a ranking of Ethan Hunt's high-octane IMF adventures.

The Final Reckoning is said to conclude, story-wise, the awesome ride this film franchise has been on for the past 30 years, though that doesn't mean this will be the last Mission: Impossible movie as the title is, basically, "final" in name only. So let's explore this 30-year journey by listing the M:I movies from worst to best. Or, to put it a better way, least-great to greatest. Because they're all thrilling and fun in their own way.

Previously, we ranked all of Ethan Hunt's IMF team members from each movie and the Mission: Impossible villains. Check those out when you're done here!

7. Mission: Impossible 2 (2002)

Mission: Impossible 2 was the most MTV-driven of all the M:I films, with tons of TV and nu-metal hype behind it. Yet it also continued the brief trend of these movies being sort of wild auteur-driven takes, shifting from the pulpy Hitchcockian Brian De Palma to Hong Kong action-poet John Woo. Thus, it stands as the most different of all the installments, and, ultimately the least satisfying.

For this one outing, Ethan Hunt and the IMF team -- who we'd never see again aside from ol' reliable Luther (Ving Rhames) -- went full slo-mo action opera, complete with Woo's trademark doves, wild motorcycle stunts, and an overblown love triangle involving a thief named Nyah (Thandiwe Newton) and her connection to an ex-IMFer (Dougray Scott) looking to unleash a deadly plague. It was a "cool at the time" M:I movie that didn't age all that well once a different look and tone locked in place with M:I 3 six years later.

Still, Anthony Hopkins playing Ethan's boss, just this once, was a nice addition and also we got our first taste of Tom Cruise doing a dangerous stunt -- the free solo rock-climbing up the side of Utah's Dead Horse Point. It wasn't as death-defying as his future escapades would be, since he had a harness and ropes (that were removed digitally in post) and a stunt double, but it sure looked cool to see him up there in the shots he himself performed, and it planted the seeds of more awesome stunts to come.

6. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023)

After the highs of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which was the culmination of the franchise steadily climbing in quality with each passing movie for a decade, Dead Reckoning (originally Dead Reckoning Part One) was a deflating step down. Yes, even with that spectacular motorcycle-off-the-cliff stunt.

Firstly, Ethan Hunt and his team clashing with a rogue AI program felt out-of-step. Or, in the very least, a step too late as TV and movies had been doing AI stories for a long, long while before Ethan went toe-to-toe with "The Entity."

Then there was the human villain (Esai Morales), who felt a bit toothless compared to past Big Bads, and whose ties to Ethan's past, which had never before been explored, felt a bit "Randy Meeks' Rules of the Horror Trilogy." Then throw in a controversial death and an ending action sequence that didn't thrill like the many M:I third-act crucibles before it, and you've got just a medium-good Impossible flick. Which is not what we need right when the entire run is wrapping things up.

5. Mission: Impossible (1996)

The first Mission: Impossible movie was a blast, only really suffering here because better ones followed it down the line. Brian De Palma's strong visual eye and stylized flare for thrillers served this franchise opener well, as most of the story involves Ethan trying to clear his name and find the traitor who killed off his entire team, including his mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight playing the role Peter Graves made famous on the TV series).

The "dangly" Langley Heist sequence was an instant hit, and was fodder for much pop culture parody at the time, and the TGY Bullet Train sequence at the end, even with mid-'90s CGI, still holds up amazingly well. The franchise would eventually find more of a traditional action movie tone, as bold set pieces, and Tom Cruise's running, would become more and more the focus, but the first M:I, which was also Cruise's first time as a producer, will always be a solid watch. Should you choose to accept it...

4. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

J.J Abrams, who was coming from the TV world, wasn't exactly an audacious auteur pick like a Brian De Palma or John Woo, but Abrams was riding high on his series Alias, and Cruise, impressed by the show's clever, layered revival of the spy genre, chose his man.

The result was Ethan Hunt getting a true love interest, and wife, in Michelle Monaghan's Julia, which in turn gave fans a chance to see Ethan become vulnerable in ways like never before. Unlike the romance in M:I 2, which came across as glossy and flimsy, this new relationship gave M:I 3 its foundation, and set the stage for Ethan's story going forward through the franchise.

Throw in Ethan coming out of retirement to help a trainee (Keri Russell), a deliciously devilish turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a traitor in the midst, a fantastic Vatican (person) heist, the introduction of Simon Pegg as Benji, and a (literal) heart-stopping finish, and you get an emotionally deeper Mission: Impossible as well as the excellent M:I movie that carved a whole new path for the saga.

3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

The final Mission: Impossible movie on the "rotating directors" train - before they'd all be directed by Tom Cruise's main collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie - was Ghost Protocol, a soaring high point for the franchise directed by Brad Bird, who was helming his first live-action movie after almost a decade at Pixar where he wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

Ghost Protocol is a triumph, building off the M:I 3 template, presenting classic spy thrills in fresh ways, making time for laughs, and officially kicking off the era of "Tom Cruise does a stunt where he might actually die." Because who can ever forget the scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. A true leveling up of the rock-climbing in M:I 2.

Yes, it's the third time Ethan's disavowed by the IMF and labeled a traitor. But Ghost Protocol ramps up the danger, raises the stakes, gives Benji actual field work, has Tom Cruise running through a sandstorm, and caps it all off with an edge-of-your-seat fight in a 20-story car tower. And just when you think it may have pulled an Alien 3, it rewards those who were invested in Ethan and Julia in the previous movie. For many ImpossiFans, this is their favorite Ethan and Co. adventure.

2. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

By the time Rogue Nation rolled around - the fifth Mission: Impossible film - the franchise has found its true groove and Ethan Hunt's world felt truly lived-in and connected in the ways the early entries didn't establish.

With Luther and Benji now fixed at his side, Ethan would meet both Rebecca Ferguson's dangerous disavowed MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris' creepy, dastardly Solomon Lane, one of the franchise's best villains. Battling The Syndicate, a global terrorist operation populated by thought-to-be-dead spies and mercenaries, Ethan faced down his toughest foe to date.

Christopher McQuarrie seamlessly stepped into the director's chair and delivered a cracking good time, with a car chase in Morocco, an underwater vault heist (featuring Cruise holding his breath for six minutes), a shoot-out at the Vienna State Opera, and an uneasy alliance between Ethan and Ilsa that felt like a shot of adrenaline for the long-running saga.

1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Fallout delivered in big, unexpected ways. Also known as the "reason why Henry Cavill's face looked so weird and dumb in the Justice League reshoots," this seventh M:I installment not only brought back the sinister Solomon Lane for an encore, making him Ethan Hunt's Blofeld, of sorts, but it also wrapped back around to former flame Julia, connecting Ethan's greatest love to his most diabolical enemy.

Because of Lane's return, Fallout felt like a more direct sequel to Rogue Nation, though the connective tissue in Fallout in general made everything done in the Mission: Impossible-verse over the previous decade feel massively satisfying. And the action sequences were just beyond phenomenal. Yes, Tom Cruise doing a HALO jump for real was amazing, but the helicopter chase at the end was something Mission: Impossible fans - hell, movie fans - will never forget.

Back in 2018, big showy blockbusters were at all-time levels of popularity, thanks in large part to the MCU, and Mission: Impossible took this opportunity to gift us with its biggest and best film. The Final Reckoning is supposed to feel like the pinnacle, and thematic resolution, of the entire series. But if it falls short, somehow then Fallout can still be that for us. Just a few years earlier.

What's your favorite Mission: Impossible filM? How would you rank them all? Vote in our poll and let us know below...