Luther Stickell: Mission: Impossible Character, Actor and Fate

Luther Stickell is a disavowed IMF operative who becomes Ethan Hunt's most dependable ally, played by Ving Rhames, who is billed as him in seven of the eight Mission: Impossible films. He first appears in Mission: Impossible (1996), directed by Brian De Palma, and makes his last appearance in Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025), directed by Christopher McQuarrie. That is 29 years from first film to last.

The credits are not consistent about his name. He is credited as Luther in some films and as Luther Stickell in others. Rhames is billed sixth in the 1996 film, fourth in Mission: Impossible II, third in Mission: Impossible III, fifth in Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, and third in Mission: Impossible: Fallout, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and The Final Reckoning. The billed cast of Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol does not name him, although the character appears in its closing scene.

If you are new to the series, think of Luther as the pit crew chief of the IMF. The lead driver, Ethan Hunt, takes the glory and the stunts, while Luther has the tools ready and the car running when it counts. For the full cast list, see the Mission: Impossible cast page, and for the people around him, see Mission: Impossible characters.

Luther's arc runs from disavowed outsider in 1996 to the trusted voice behind the last plan in 2025, and he is present in all eight films. His first scene of importance comes after the Prague mission in Mission: Impossible (1996) collapses. Ethan, suspected by his chief Kittridge of being the mole, recruits two disavowed operatives, Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger, to break into CIA headquarters in Langley and steal the real list of agents. The break-in works, with Ethan lowered by wires into the secure vault, and at the end of the film Ethan and Luther are cleared.

In Mission: Impossible II (2000), directed by John Woo, Luther is part of the Sydney team Ethan assembles alongside the pilot Billy to back up the thief Nyah while she gets close to the rogue agent Sean Ambrose. At the finish, while Ethan fights Ambrose on a beach, Luther and Billy find Nyah on a cliff, ready to end her life to stop the virus spreading. Luther arrives with the Bellerophon samples and injects her with the cure in time. Mission: Impossible III (2006), directed by J.J. Abrams, bills him third, behind Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Ethan is pulled out of his quiet life to rescue his former student Lindsey.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird, shows him in the closing scene. The IMF has been disavowed, and after Hunt learns that his wife Julia is alive and sees her from a distance, Luther Stickell hands him a new mission briefing in Seattle. It keeps the thread unbroken. In Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) and Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018), both directed by McQuarrie, he is billed fifth and third respectively, part of the returning team around Benji and Ilsa.

In Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), after Gabriel kills Ilsa Faust in Venice, Luther urges Ethan to spare Gabriel so that he can be questioned, and the team boards the Orient Express. In The Final Reckoning, Luther gives the team the malware known as the Poison Pill, which becomes the key to stopping the Entity. For the order of these films, see Mission: Impossible movies in order.

Luther's closest relationship is with Ethan Hunt, and every other bond in his story runs through that friendship. Ethan recruits him in 1996, along with Krieger, as one of two disavowed operatives, and in 2023 Luther is still the person who argues his case. In Dead Reckoning Part One, Luther pushes for questioning Gabriel rather than killing him, which is a quiet kind of loyalty to Ethan's better instincts.

With the rest of the team, Luther is the steady older hand. Benji Dunn is credited alongside him from Mission: Impossible III onward, and Ilsa Faust works with the team from Rogue Nation. In the last two films, Luther sits beside newer recruits such as Grace, who steals a key half from Ethan in Abu Dhabi and later joins the crew, and Paris, whom the team frees from prison in The Final Reckoning. Ilsa Faust is the colleague killed in Venice in Dead Reckoning Part One.

In the 1996 film, the other disavowed operative Luther works with is Krieger, who turns out to be working with the traitor Jim Phelps. That is the one case where a teammate of Luther's is the enemy. His antagonists across the series are the men Ethan fights: Sean Ambrose in the second film, Owen Davian in the third, Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation and Gabriel across the last two films, where Gabriel is the one who finally traps Luther.

For how the whole group fits together, see the IMF team page.

Yes, Luther Stickell dies in Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025). After Gabriel traps him with a bomb and steals the Poison Pill, Luther sacrifices himself to limit a nuclear blast.

The film does not leave him behind afterward. When Hunt fits the Poison Pill into the Podkova mid-air and Grace traps the Entity before it can launch its weapons, Luther's farewell message plays. The Podkova is destroyed, Briggs makes amends, and the team goes its separate ways. In other words, the final victory rests on something Luther handed over and then protected with his life.

As for what comes next, no ninth film has been officially announced as of November 2026, so Luther's death closes the character's story in the series as it stands. The film was marketed as the final Mission: Impossible entry. For the latest on any follow-up, see Mission: Impossible 9.

In my opinion, Luther's best moments are the ones where he does the plain, practical job that lets a set piece work. It could be argued that his value to the series is exactly that: the stunts are Ethan's, but the plan holds because Luther is on the other end of the line.

My first pick is the Langley break-in in Mission: Impossible (1996). The vault sequence, with Ethan lowered on wires, is in my opinion the series' defining heist, and it only exists because Ethan recruits two disavowed operatives, Luther and Krieger, to pull it off. It also gives Luther his first real job, and he does it without fuss.

Second is the cliff scene in Mission: Impossible II. While Ethan fights Ambrose on the beach, Luther and Billy find Nyah ready to end her own life, and Luther injects her with the cure. Set against a long beach fight, it is a small, human rescue, and Luther is the one who makes it.

Third is the closing beat of Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Ethan has just seen Julia, who smiles at him from a distance, and Luther is the person who hands him the next briefing. It is a brief scene, but it tells you the team is still together after a film in which the IMF was disavowed.

Fourth is the Orient Express argument in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. Ilsa has just been killed, and Luther urges Ethan to spare Gabriel so he can be questioned. Perhaps it is the most Luther moment in the series, calm and practical at the worst possible time.

At the top for me is his sacrifice in Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, followed by the farewell message that plays as the Entity is stopped. After 29 years and eight films, it is the payoff Rhames and Cruise had earned. To see where that film sits among the others, see Mission: Impossible movies ranked.