Brandt in Mission: Impossible: William Brandt, the IMF Analyst

William Brandt is an IMF analyst who joins Ethan Hunt's team in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird, and returns in Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015), directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Jeremy Renner plays him in both films. The credits list him as "Brandt" in Ghost Protocol and as "William Brandt" in Rogue Nation, so searches for agent Brandt and William Brandt point to the same person.

He arrives after the Kremlin bombing, when the IMF has been disavowed under Ghost Protocol and Hunt is left with a small, unsanctioned team. Brandt is the analyst who goes to Dubai with Hunt, Jane Carter and Benji Dunn to stop a sale of Russian nuclear launch codes. Renner is billed fourth in Ghost Protocol and second in Rogue Nation, which shows how far the character moved up the call sheet between the two films.

For the wider ensemble, the Mission: Impossible characters page lists every main player, and the Mission: Impossible cast page covers the actors.

Brandt's arc runs through two films: he starts as the analyst pulled into a disavowed mission in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol and ends Rogue Nation by making Alan Hunley the new IMF Secretary.

In Ghost Protocol, the IMF Secretary tells Hunt that the Kremlin attacker, Cobalt, is the nuclear strategist Kurt Hendricks, and is then killed in an ambush. That leaves Hunt, Jane, Benji and Brandt to act alone. In Dubai the four try to stop the launch codes being sold, and Hunt climbs the outside of the Burj Khalifa as part of the plan. The deal collapses and Hendricks escapes in a sandstorm, so the trail moves to Mumbai. There the team races to a broadcast station while a Russian submarine is ordered to fire a missile at San Francisco. Hunt stops it, and the IMF is reinstated.

In Rogue Nation the CIA chief Alan Hunley persuades the Senate to dissolve the IMF, and Hunt becomes a wanted man. By the end the Syndicate is exposed, the IMF is restored, and Brandt is the one who names Hunley the new Secretary.

Brandt's closest working relationship is with Ethan Hunt, and his ties to Benji Dunn, Jane Carter, Luther Stickell and Alan Hunley shape the rest of his screen time.

With Ethan Hunt, Brandt is a teammate in Ghost Protocol and the man who delivers a personal secret at the end of the film: he tells Hunt that his wife Julia is alive. Hunt sees her from a distance, she smiles at him, and Luther Stickell hands him the next mission briefing. Julia returns as a character in Fallout.

Benji Dunn is the other Ghost Protocol team member who carries on into Rogue Nation, where Hunt draws Benji into the plan to stop the Syndicate. Alan Hunley, played by Alec Baldwin, persuades the Senate to dissolve the IMF in Rogue Nation, and in the final scene Brandt makes him the new IMF Secretary. For the full group, see the IMF team page.

Brandt does not die in either of his films, and his last top billed appearance is Rogue Nation, where he is alive and has just appointed Hunley as IMF Secretary.

Rogue Nation does not show Brandt betraying Hunt. The betrayals in the series belong to others: Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible (1996), Musgrave in Mission: Impossible III, and August Walker in Fallout. The Syndicate's leader is Solomon Lane, not Brandt.

What about the later films? Brandt is not among the top billed cast of Fallout, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One or Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, and the plots of those films do not involve him. They follow Hunt, Ilsa Faust, Grace and Gabriel instead. For the latest on a sequel, see the next Mission: Impossible film page.

In my opinion, Brandt's best moments are the ones where an analyst is dropped into field work and the film lets him earn his place, and the two I would pick are the Dubai operation and the final scene of Rogue Nation.

Start with Dubai. It is a team job, and the headline stunt is Hunt on the outside of the Burj Khalifa, which Tom Cruise climbed himself according to Entertainment Tonight. Brandt is one of the four people trying to stop the launch code sale, so the climb sits inside a plan he is part of rather than being a stunt on its own.

The second pick is the Julia reveal at the end of Ghost Protocol. It could be argued that Brandt delivers the most important news in the film's coda, because it gives Hunt a reason to keep going. I would also rank the Rogue Nation ending highly: after a film about the IMF being shut down, Brandt is the one who makes Hunley the new Secretary, a quiet payoff for a character who first appeared as an analyst on a disavowed team.

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