Ethan Hunt: The Mission: Impossible Agent Played by Tom Cruise

Ethan Hunt is a fictional field agent of the Impossible Missions Force. Tom Cruise plays him in every film and is billed first each time, and the credits use the single name Ethan Hunt with no alias.

We first meet him in Prague in Mission: Impossible (1996), directed by Brian De Palma, as one member of a team led by Jim Phelps. The mission turns out to be a trap, and Ethan is the only one to get out alive. That opening sets the pattern for the whole saga: Ethan is the agent who survives the collapse of the plan and then has to finish the job anyway, usually while his own side doubts him.

Why is he in the IMF? Because the agency turns to him whenever a mission looks hopeless, whether that means recovering a virus and its cure in Mission: Impossible II (2000), directed by John Woo, or hunting the Syndicate in Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015). The IMF itself is covered on our IMF team page, and every film in the saga is listed in the Mission: Impossible movies in order guide.

Is Ethan Hunt based on a real person? No source for the eight films names one, and the films present him as a fictional agent. How old is he supposed to be? The credits and studio material give no official age, so any number you see online is a fan estimate. What the films do show is a career that stretches from the Prague mission in the 1996 film to the final confrontation with the Entity in 2025.

Ethan Hunt's arc runs from a trapped agent in Prague to the man holding the key to a rogue artificial intelligence, and each film moves him one step further from the IMF's protection. Here is the path in release order.

In Mission: Impossible (1996), his team is killed one by one, his chief Kittridge suspects him of being the mole, and he escapes custody. He recruits Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger to steal the list from CIA headquarters in Langley, is lowered into the vault on wires, and exposes Jim Phelps as the real traitor on a high speed train to Paris. Ethan hooks Jim's helicopter to the train and it is destroyed in the Channel Tunnel.

Mission: Impossible II sends him to Seville and Sydney to recover the Chimera virus and the Bellerophon cure from the rogue agent Sean Ambrose. He recruits the thief Nyah, and the film ends with a long beach fight with Ambrose and a vacation in Sydney with her.

In Mission: Impossible III, Ethan has left field work and is engaged to Julia, a nurse who thinks he has a desk job. The IMF asks him to rescue his former student Lindsey, who was seized while tracking the arms dealer Owen Davian, and that pulls him back in. Ethan marries Julia in a hurry, and he survives an explosive planted in his head with an improvised shock.

In Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird, he is broken out of a Moscow prison, the IMF is disavowed after the Kremlin bombing, and he works with Jane, Benji and William Brandt to stop Kurt Hendricks from starting a nuclear war. Julia is revealed to be alive at the end.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation makes him a fugitive after the CIA's Alan Hunley persuades the Senate to dissolve the IMF. He chases the Syndicate and its leader Solomon Lane with Ilsa Faust's help, and the IMF is restored.

In Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018), he loses three plutonium cores in Berlin, is shadowed by the CIA's August Walker, and finally disarms the last bomb near Kashmir. He makes peace with Julia, who has moved on with a new life.

The last two films, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025), both directed by Christopher McQuarrie, put him against the Entity and Gabriel. Ethan takes the key from Gabriel and escapes by speed wing in the first, and in the second he recovers the Podkova module from the wreck of the Sevastopol and helps trap the Entity. For the full chronology, see the Mission: Impossible timeline.

Ethan Hunt's closest relationships are a small circle of teammates, one marriage and a long list of betrayals. The people around him change from film to film, but a few names keep returning.

Luther Stickell is the constant. He joins Ethan in the Langley break-in in 1996, helps in Sydney, and in The Final Reckoning sacrifices himself to limit a nuclear blast; his page is Luther Stickell. Benji Dunn arrives in the third film and becomes a fixed member of the team, covered on the Benji Mission: Impossible page. Ilsa Faust helps Ethan escape the Syndicate in Rogue Nation and is cleared of suspicion in Fallout, and William Brandt and Grace round out the later teams (Ilsa Faust, Brandt Mission: Impossible, Grace Mission: Impossible).

Who are Ethan Hunt's love interests? The films show two. Nyah, played by Thandiwe Newton, is the thief he sends back into Ambrose's life in the second film. Julia, played by Michelle Monaghan, becomes his wife in the third film, and the two of them part ways before Fallout; see Julia Mission: Impossible.

His enemies are often people he once trusted. Jim Phelps is the traitor in 1996, Musgrave betrays him inside the IMF in the third film, and August Walker is the hidden John Lark in Fallout. Solomon Lane, Gabriel and Hendricks are the outside threats (Solomon Lane, Gabriel Mission: Impossible, August Walker). In The Final Reckoning, Jasper Briggs turns out to be the son of Jim Phelps. The wider cast is on the Mission: Impossible cast page.

Ethan Hunt does not die in any of the eight films, and the last one leaves him alive and holding the drive that contains the Entity.

In The Final Reckoning, Hunt gets the Poison Pill back after the biplane chase, and Gabriel dies in the crash. He fits the Poison Pill into the Podkova in the air, and Grace traps the Entity before it can launch. The Podkova is destroyed, Luther's farewell message plays, and the team goes its separate ways. Grace then hands Hunt the drive that holds the Entity.

Is there a ninth film? No next Mission: Impossible film has been announced, and no studio or trade source has given a date; the latest entry was marketed as the final one. Newsweek has reported that The Final Reckoning may be Cruise's swansong, and McQuarrie has said he hopes it is a satisfying conclusion. Anything more is rumor, and the current status sits on the Mission: Impossible 9 page.

The best Ethan Hunt moments are the ones where the character and the practical stunt are the same thing, and in my opinion that happens most often in the later films. These are my picks, and they are opinion, so others will order them differently.

First, the Burj Khalifa climb in Ghost Protocol. Cruise did the climb himself, according to ET, and the sequence works because Hunt scales the outside of the building as part of the plan and the deal then falls apart around him. Second, the Langley vault in the 1996 film, where Ethan is lowered by wires into the secure vault; in my opinion it is the cleanest example in the saga of a heist set piece that depends on rigging rather than a chase. Third, the motorcycle cliff jump in Dead Reckoning, filmed in Hellesylt, Norway. Cruise reportedly did more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcycle jumps to prepare, according to the Today show, and it could be argued that this is the franchise's most extreme single stunt.

Fourth, the helicopter chase in Fallout. Cruise trained for the HALO jump and learned to fly the helicopter himself, and the chase pays off the Walker storyline. Fifth, the biplane sequence in The Final Reckoning, shot in South Africa, which turns Ethan's old habit of hanging from moving machines into a closing image.

If you want the stunts in more detail, our Mission: Impossible stunts page covers how they were done. If you are deciding which film to watch first, start with the Mission: Impossible movies ranked list.