The most correct ranking of all Mission: Impossible movies

Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, the eighth film of the franchise, is finally out. Final Reckoning ties the whole franchise together and concludes the story of Ethan Hunt.

As a passionate Mission: Impossible fan, I decided to rank the films from best to worst.

#1 Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the crown jewel, filled with expert filmmaking, dynamic action and an enthralling story.

Ethan Hunt’s failed mission to obtain plutonium cores from a deal gone wrong takes a turn for the worse when the cores end up in the wrong hands of returning villain John Lark.

The chase scenes are the most intense of all the movies. Ethan Hunt chases the antagonists through the mountains of Norway by helicopter with a failing engine, chases them through the streets of Paris by car, and even has Hunt in London jumping from building to building, where Tom Cruise broke his ankle filming the scene. Each sequence took my breath away with its masterful use of blocking and cinematography.

Everything in this film, from its action to its choice of locations, is top-tier and is the peak of the franchise, as everything seemed to go right for this movie. Well, except maybe Cruise’s ankle.

#2 Mission: Impossible

The start of it all, Mission: Impossible, is still one of the best in the series. With a reputation as America’s “James Bond,” it’s no wonder this film spawned seven sequels.

After a mission gone awry leads to the death of his whole team, Ethan Hunt has to fight to prove his innocence that he is not a “mole” and must find the person who framed him.

Brian De Palma, who previously directed The Untouchables and Scarface, brings an edge to the movie that is never quite replicated. Protagonists and antagonists are brutally killed one by one while Hunt displays an unmatched ruthlessness.

On top of the brutality, this film expertly displays cinematic espionage. Its legendary gadgetry is solidified in cinema history forever. Who could forget the printed masks of other people’s faces and the explosive strips of gum?

While the film doesn’t have the most mind-bending action, the film holds great suspense with unexpected twists and turns and classic spy scenes. Ethan catching his bead of sweat while breaking into the CIA black vault to avoid triggering the alarm sensors will always be iconic.

#3 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Christopher McQuarrie was handed the keys to Mission: Impossible after helping write Ghost Protocol, and with that he went petal-to-the-metal.

“The Syndicate,” a terrorist group of rogue former agents, get their hands on a dangerous weapon that they plan to use against top officials around the world. It’s up to Hunt and his team to stop them before it’s too late.

This film has the best team out of all the movies, hands down. Rebecca Ferguson is easily the best actress to grace this franchise as femme fatale agent Ilsa Faust. Jeremy Renner returns from Ghost Protocol as William Brandt and brings his signature dry wit with him. Alec Baldwin turns out a great performance as the hard-headed but well-intentioned CIA director Alan Hunley.

The film combines death-defying stunts of Ghost Protocol with sophisticated and intricately filmed hand-to-hand combat scenes. The opera scene with Hunt fighting on beat with the orchestra is a true standout sequence of the series.

What bogs this film down is the director’s stylistic touch differentiating the movies from the rest of the franchise. And as great as the action and actors are, the plot is inferior to Fallout and the first film.

#4 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

The film that dialed the action to a ten, Ghost Protocol, was a big turning point in the franchise. Ethan Hunt and his team are taken through the Middle East and Eurasia to track down a man linked to stolen nuclear launch codes.

Previously, before this, many action sequences from past films had stunt doubles for Cruise and relied heavily on CGI. Here, Bird made the impossible truly come alive by having Cruise do all of his own stunts.

Hunt climbing up the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world at 2,722 feet high, is the absolute best action sequence in the entire series. The fact that Cruise scaled the building himself elevates the whole sequence to legendary status.

Despite that, this film is far from perfect.

Suffering from budget cuts due to “shortcomings” of the previous film’s box office earnings, this is the only film not featuring Ving Rhames as iconic gadget head Luther Stickwell.

Michael Nyqvist tries his best to breathe life into his villainous role despite being written as a cliché Russian spy whose sole motivation is to cause a war between Russia and America. The result is a standard take on American vs. Russian espionage and a forgettable plot for the franchise.

#5 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

A film that had a troubled production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dead Reckoning does a lot right but also a lot wrong.

Ethan Hunt and his team fight against a new enemy known as “The Entity,” who is teamed up with an “old” enemy from Hunt’s past named Gabriel, played by Esai Morales.

The Entity is revealed early on to be a rogue AI hellbent on taking over the world under threat of nuclear annihilation – again. What doesn’t make The Entity work is that it looks like a talking screensaver that acts like HAL 9000’s less scary little brother.

Despite retreading some familiar ground and having dull villains, the film has some incredible set pieces and stunt work that helps carry this story. Seeing Tom Cruise drive off a 7,000 feet high cliff and battling on top of a train before it gets derailed left me awe-struck.

And more importantly, it reminded me why I am a fan of the franchise, even despite its writing flaws.

#6 Mission: Impossible III

J.J. Abrams, who directed the Star Trek remakes and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, earned his big directing break after being tasked with correcting the course of the franchise after the disaster that was Mission: Impossible 2.

Hunt is called out of retirement to stop an arms dealer played by legendary Phillip Seymour Hoffman from retrieving an unknown device known as the “Rabbit’s Foot.”

Hoffman steals the show as the most enjoyable aspect of this movie, period. He provides the best villain of all the films with his extremely terrifying acting.

Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot to this movie that makes it stand out. The story, stakes and even overall action sequences feel lackluster and have no edge to them whatsoever, leading to a mediocre film that doesn’t even entertain by being so bad it’s good. It’s just boring.

At least they introduce Simon Pegg as fan-favorite Benji Dunn in this movie.

#7 Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning

This film tried to market itself so hard as a cinematic finale. After watching the movie, I can’t tell you if Tom Cruise has set this film up to be his last film or not because it doesn’t wrap anything up.

It’s just the simple continuation of the Reckoning saga. That would be fine, but this “part two” is just a pure slog to get through. The Entity and Gabriel make their return as the most unthreatening duo ever, to finish the job of starting a global nuclear apocalypse.

More than halfway through the movie, I asked, “When is anything going to start happening?”

When the action finally hit, I realized I had already seen this movie before. The film’s climax is a plane chase that felt too reminiscent of the helicopter chase in Fallout.

The movie left a sour taste in my mouth as I left my theater in sadness.

#8 Mission: Impossible 2

We’ve now officially arrived at the last circle of hell.

Ethan Hunt has to stop a rogue agent played by Dougray Scott from using a stolen virus as a biological weapon to blackmail the government.

John Woo was hired to direct the first sequel of this franchise, and the film certainly has his fingerprints all over it. The over-the-top action the franchise is known for is not done tastefully here, like in the other films. The action is so impossibly stupid and gimmicky that it turns the movie into a comedy. It doesn’t help that the story lacks any twists and surprises to keep it interesting, either.

The cast also gave lackluster performances. Dougray Scott, in particular, leaves his mark, but not for any good reason. He tries too hard to come across as villainous while putting up a comical performance as the big bad guy.

At least it gave us the infamous motorcycle scene where they spin through the air after crashing into each other.

Yeah, go ahead and just skip this one.