Mission Impossible Characters: Every Main Role in the Film Saga

The main Mission Impossible characters fall into three groups: the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team around Ethan Hunt, the allies and love interests who orbit it, and the villains, who change in every film. The film saga runs from Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible (1996) to Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025), and the 1966 television series sits outside it. Spoilers follow: several characters die, and some betray the team. The eight films are listed in the Mission Impossible movies hub, and the how many Mission Impossible movies entry gives the count.

The core of the team is Ethan Hunt, Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn, with Ilsa Faust, William Brandt and Grace carrying whole films. Ethan Hunt is played by Tom Cruise, who is billed first in all eight films. He is framed as the mole in Mission: Impossible (1996), disavowed under Ghost Protocol in 2011 and hunted after the IMF is shut down in Rogue Nation, and each time the plot comes down to proving the people above him wrong. The wider IMF team in Mission Impossible changes from film to film, but he never does.

Luther Stickell, played by Ving Rhames, is the only other character who appears in all eight films. He enters Mission: Impossible (1996) as a disavowed operative recruited for the break into CIA headquarters in Langley, is gathered into the team for Sydney in Mission: Impossible II, and hands Ethan a new briefing at the end of Ghost Protocol. In The Final Reckoning he supplies the Poison Pill malware and then sacrifices himself to limit a nuclear blast.

Benji Dunn, played by Simon Pegg, first appears in Mission: Impossible III (2006), directed by J.J. Abrams, and is billed in every film after it. In Ghost Protocol he is the tech specialist who helps break Ethan out of a Moscow prison. In Rogue Nation he secretly copies the ledger data that drives the plot, which gets him kidnapped and wired to a bomb.

Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson, appears in Rogue Nation, Fallout and Dead Reckoning. She helps Ethan escape the Syndicate, names Solomon Lane as its leader and kills the assassin Vinter in London. She is cleared of suspicion in Fallout, which is why Kittridge's bounty on her in Dead Reckoning matters so much to the story.

William Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner, is the analyst who joins Ethan in Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird, and returns in Rogue Nation. He tells Ethan at the end of Ghost Protocol that his wife is alive, and by the end of Rogue Nation he makes Alan Hunley the new IMF Secretary. Jane Carter, played by Paula Patton, is the other agent on that Ghost Protocol team: she breaks Ethan out of the Moscow prison and later gets the override code from the media tycoon Brij Nath.

Grace, played by Hayley Atwell, is the newest lead. She is a thief who steals the first half of the key from Ethan in Abu Dhabi in Dead Reckoning, and in The Final Reckoning she traps the Entity and hands Ethan the drive that holds it.

The characters in Mission: Impossible (1996) are Ethan Hunt, his team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), Phelps's wife Claire (Emmanuelle Béart), the IMF chief Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the operatives Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger (Jean Reno), and the arms dealer Max (Vanessa Redgrave). Phelps leads the team to Prague, where the mission is a trap and the team is killed one by one. Kittridge suspects Ethan, Max wants the real list of covert agents, and the break in at Langley is built around Luther and Krieger. The twist is that Phelps is alive and is the real traitor, helped by Claire and Krieger. The full story of the 1996 film is told on Mission Impossible 1996.

The female lead of Mission: Impossible II is Nyah Hall, played by Thandiwe Newton, a thief who used to be the lover of the villain Sean Ambrose. Ethan sends her back into Ambrose's life as a spy in Sydney, and she injects herself with the last virus sample to stop it spreading. The IMF clears her criminal record once she is cured. See Mission Impossible 2 for how that plays out.

The other women of the series run across the saga. Claire and Max sit on opposite sides of the 1996 plot. Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) and Zhen (Maggie Q) appear in Mission Impossible 3. Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux) is the assassin in Ghost Protocol. Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) is the CIA director in Fallout, the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) appears in Fallout and Dead Reckoning, and Paris (Pom Klementieff) appears in Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning.

Ethan Hunt's true love is Julia, played by Michelle Monaghan, and she is the partner the films show him marrying. In Mission: Impossible III she is a nurse who believes he works a desk job, Ethan marries her in a hurry, and she later shoots the traitor Musgrave. Ghost Protocol ends with Ethan seeing her from a distance, and in Fallout she is his former wife, settled into a new life, with whom he makes peace.

The Mission Impossible characters in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, the 2023 film directed by Christopher McQuarrie, are Ethan Hunt, Grace, Luther, Benji, Ilsa, the White Widow, Gabriel (Esai Morales), Paris, Kittridge, Briggs (Shea Whigham), Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) and the intelligence director Denlinger (Cary Elwes). The arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis holds the second half of the key in Venice, and the Entity is the unseen threat behind all of it. The full story of the film is told on Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, and its follow up, Mission Impossible Final Reckoning, reveals that Briggs is Jasper Briggs, the son of Jim Phelps.

The saga has ten villains who define their films, arranged in release order rather than ranked. Gabriel returns in the last two films, and Solomon Lane returns for a second.

• Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), 1996: the team leader who is the real mole, killed when the helicopter is destroyed in the Channel Tunnel.
• Max (Vanessa Redgrave), 1996: the arms dealer who wants the list, arrested by Kittridge.
• Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), Mission: Impossible II: the rogue agent who steals the cure, killed by Ethan in a beach fight.
• Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Mission: Impossible III: the arms dealer hunting the Rabbit's Foot, killed when Ethan throws him in front of a truck.
• Musgrave (Billy Crudup), Mission: Impossible III: the senior IMF figure who works with Davian, shot by Julia.
• Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), Ghost Protocol: the nuclear strategist known as Cobalt, killed in a fall.
• Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Rogue Nation and Fallout: the Syndicate leader, captured twice.
• August Walker (Henry Cavill), Fallout: the CIA agent who is secretly John Lark, killed in a helicopter crash. See August Walker and Solomon Lane.
• Gabriel (Esai Morales), Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning: the man who acted for the Entity, killed in a biplane crash. See Gabriel.
• The Entity: the artificial intelligence that sinks the Sevastopol and spreads through nuclear systems.

Characters die in every film of the saga, and these are the major deaths by film.

• Mission: Impossible (1996): Jim Phelps, Franz Krieger and Claire.
• Mission: Impossible II: Sean Ambrose, and the Biocyte scientist, whose plane Ambrose crashes.
• Mission: Impossible III: Lindsey Farris, Owen Davian and Musgrave.
• Ghost Protocol: the IMF Secretary, Sabine Moreau and Kurt Hendricks.
• Rogue Nation: the Austrian Chancellor and Vinter.
• Fallout: August Walker.
• Dead Reckoning: Ilsa Faust, Denlinger and Paris.
• The Final Reckoning: Luther Stickell and Gabriel.

Each main character below is played by one credited actor, and the role appears in the films named beside it.

For full credits, head to the Mission Impossible cast page, and to follow how these characters move through the story, use the Mission Impossible timeline. If you want to meet them in the right sequence, start with Mission Impossible movies in order, and check Mission Impossible 9 for any new character announcement.