Starting in 1996, the films (taking place starting six years after the events of the previous TV sequel series) follow the missions of the IMF's main field team, under Hunt's leadership, to stop an enemy force and prevent an impending global disaster. The series focuses on Hunt's character, and like the television series' structure, is complemented by an ensemble cast, such as Luther Stickell (played by Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg), who have recurring roles.
Ethan Hunt is framed for the murder of his IMF team during a botched mission in Prague and accused of selling government secrets to an arms dealer known only as "Max". On the run, Ethan seeks to uncover the real traitor and clear his name.
Ethan Hunt comes under threat from the Syndicate. Faced with the IMF's disbandment, Hunt assembles his team for their mission to prove the Syndicate's existence and bring the organization down by any means necessary.
When an IMF mission to recover plutonium goes wrong, the world is faced with the threat of the Apostles, a terrorist group formed by former members of the Syndicate. As Ethan Hunt takes it upon himself to fulfill the original mission, the CIA begins to question his loyalty and his motives.
Because "Mission: Impossible" was directed by Brian De Palma, a master of genre thrillers and sly Hitchcockian wit ("Blow Out," "Body Double"), it's a nearly impossible mission to take the plot seriously.
There are so many double-reverses in the first half hour that we learn to accept nothing at face value (not even faces, since they may be elaborate latex masks). And the momentum of the visuals prevents us from asking logical questions, such as, is physically copying a computer file onto another disc the only way to steal it? (My colleague Rich Elias has written that the obvious solution for the CIA would have been to hire Robert Redford's team from "Sneakers" to commit an online theft.) "Mission: Impossible" is all slick surface and technical skill. The characters are not very interesting (except for Vanessa Redgrave, as an information broker, and Jon Voight, who expresses a touching world-weariness in a film too impatient for weariness of any kind). The plot is impossible to follow. The various strategies of Cruise and his allies and foes don't stand up under scrutiny. And none of that matters.
No matter. The train goes fast, and the helicopter follows it right under the Channel, and De Palma's special effects (by Industrial Light and Magic) are clever for obscuring the scale involved, since a helicopter's blades would obviously not fit into the tunnel -- but then why am I quibbling, since the whole stunt is obviously impossible?
#1 Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023) 96% #1 Adjusted Score: 122240% Critics Consensus: With world-threatening stakes and epic set pieces to match that massive title, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One proves this is still a franchise you should choose to accept. Synopsis: In Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg Directed By: Christopher McQuarrie
#2 Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) 97% #2 Adjusted Score: 121767% Critics Consensus: Fast, sleek, and fun, Mission: Impossible - Fallout lives up to the "impossible" part of its name by setting yet another high mark for insane set pieces in a franchise full of them. Synopsis: Ethan Hunt and the IMF team join forces with CIA assassin August Walker to prevent a disaster of epic proportions.... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg Directed By: Christopher McQuarrie
#3 Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) 94% #3 Adjusted Score: 110046% Critics Consensus: Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation continues the franchise's thrilling resurgence -- and proves that Tom Cruise remains an action star without equal. Synopsis: With the IMF now disbanded and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) out in the cold, a new threat -- called the... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson Directed By: Christopher McQuarrie
#4 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) 93% #4 Adjusted Score: 103133% Critics Consensus: Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works. Synopsis: Blamed for a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the entire IMF agency are disavowed by... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton Directed By: Brad Bird
#5 Mission: Impossible III (2006) 71% #5 Adjusted Score: 80156% Critics Consensus: Fast-paced, with eye-popping stunts and special effects, the latest Mission: Impossible installment delivers everything an action fan could ask for. A thrilling summer popcorn flick. Synopsis: Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) faces the toughest... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup Directed By: J.J. Abrams
#6 Mission: Impossible (1996) 66% #6 Adjusted Score: 70143% Critics Consensus: Full of special effects, Brian DePalma's update of Mission: Impossible has a lot of sweeping spectacle, but the plot is sometimes convoluted. Synopsis: When U.S. government operative Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his mentor, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), go on a covert assignment... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Ving Rhames Directed By: Brian De Palma
#7 Mission: Impossible II (2000) 56% #7 Adjusted Score: 62000% Critics Consensus: Your cranium may crave more substance, but your eyes will feast on the amazing action sequences. Synopsis: Tom Cruise returns to his role as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of "Mission: Impossible." This time Ethan Hunt... [More] Starring: Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandiwe Newton, Ving Rhames Directed By: John Woo
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Compared with the visual effects-heavy bombast of most Hollywood blockbusters, Dead Reckoning Part One feels like a marvel of old-school craftsmanship, just with niftier gadgets. Even Hunt wears his devil-may-care recklessness with surprising lightness and grace, spending much of the movie's third act on the sidelines and even playing some of his most daring escapades for laughs. Not that the actor doesn't take his mission seriously. I don't know if Tom Cruise can save the movies, but somehow, I never get tired of watching him try.
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission, not even the lives of those he cares about most.
Mission: Impossible is an American television series that chronicles the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). In the first season, the IMF leader is Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill, then in the second season, the team gets a new leader: Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves. He remains the IMF leader until the end of the series.
The series aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to March 1973, with seven seasons and 171 episodes. After another 15 years, though, the series would return with two additional seasons and then later would inspire a popular trio of movies in the 1990s and 2000s. Each episode deals with the IMF performing a mission, usually with world leaders, rogue figures, and--most often in later episodes--the mob underworld or, as the IMF tended to call it, "the syndicate," specifically the organized-crime syndicate. (This could be presumed to be partially due to J. (for "John") Edgar Hoover's iron-fisted hold on the FBI, a hostilely competing government agency, slipping as the 1970s began; Hoover died in 1972.) In most cases, the object of the mission was to eliminate the target by means of deception or elaborate means to convince the target that he is at another location or time has passed (either forward or backward), or to recover a valuable item which if fallen to the wrong hands of the target, would alter the government of a country. Sometimes the target would be a subordinate of a leader and the IMF must convince the leader that his subordinate is not on his/her side. The ultimate result of the missions are usually the target's disgrace among his associates, a secretly taped confession of the target, the target being shot by his own people, the target arrested by the police, or the recovery of the valuable item while trapping the target in a locked chamber. As this end result would happen, the IMF team members would stealthily leave the area, usually in a vehicle--though on at least one occasion, two IMF agents left in a boat, and one agent left in a helicopter. Some episodes might show the team members leaving the building or meeting together for one final summary of their successfully-accomplished missions.
Considered to be among the most iconic moments of television, the tape scene is the first sequence of Mission: Impossible. Briggs/Phelps is shown accessing a tape recorder with a manila envelope which contains pictures of the target(s) and other individuals who are affected by the target's actions. Usually the tape and envelope are in a store, where Briggs/Phelps exchange codes by casual conversation with the store owner--thus the owner leaves so Briggs/Phelps can access the tape. Other times the tape is located in a parked car, telephone booth (where certain coins must be deposited in sequence to unlock the phone), a photo booth, fire alarm box, boat, darkroom, place of worship, toll booth, movie theater (indoor theaters and outdoor drive-ins alike), skating rink, zoo, beach, warehouse, or cigarette machine. Sometimes a phonograph, film reel, drive-in speaker, or telescope was used instead of the tape; in one instance, the Season 1 episode "Memory," Briggs received the instructions of his mission on a business card which a street photographer handed him, which card he read and promptly destroyed. Some tape sequences from Season 2 onward were reused more than once as stock footage for different episodes. From Season 5 onward, the tape scene in the prologue was usually shown after a brief introduction to the evening's episode though a situation encountered by the target or his staff which initiates the mission. When the mission instructions are to infiltrate the "syndicate" and put the target out of business (who usually extorts legitimate businesses or controls a specific operation), it is because "conventional law-enforcement methods" are currently unable to obtain any incriminating evidence to arrest and prosecute the target. The tape instructions make no mention of any law enforcement agency (e.g. FBI) by name.
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