How Many Mission Impossible Movies Are There?

There are eight Mission: Impossible movies, released between 1996 and 2025, and Tom Cruise stars in every one of them as Ethan Hunt. All eight sit in the main series, so there are no spin-offs to add to the count. The run starts with Mission: Impossible (1996), directed by Brian De Palma, and ends with Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025), directed by Christopher McQuarrie. If you want the order to watch them in, the mission impossible movies in order page lays out the choices, and the mission impossible movies hub covers the series as a whole.

Five directors made the eight films, and that rotation is a big part of why the saga never settles into one look. De Palma opened it in 1996, John Woo followed with Mission: Impossible II in 2000, J.J. Abrams made Mission: Impossible III in 2006, and Brad Bird directed Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol in 2011. McQuarrie then took over with Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation in 2015 and stayed for Mission: Impossible: Fallout, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and The Final Reckoning, the longest run by one director. The gaps between releases ranged from six years (between II and III) down to two years (between Dead Reckoning Part One and The Final Reckoning).

Mission: Impossible (1996) is the spy thriller that started it, released in the US on May 22, 1996. Ethan Hunt is the only survivor when an IMF operation in Prague goes wrong, and with his superiors suspecting him of being the mole, he sets out to clear his name. Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames and Vanessa Redgrave round out the cast, and the film grossed roughly $458 million worldwide on an $80 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.

Mission: Impossible II, directed by John Woo and released in 2000, moves the action to Sydney and trades the paranoia for gunplay. Ethan has to recover an engineered virus called Chimera and its cure, Bellerophon, from the rogue former agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), and he recruits the thief Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton) to get close to him. Hans Zimmer scored it, and it grossed about $546 million worldwide.

Mission: Impossible III (2006) was J.J. Abrams' feature directing debut. Ethan has stepped back from field work and is engaged to a nurse named Julia (Michelle Monaghan) when the IMF pulls him back in to face the arms dealer Owen Davian, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. It also introduced Simon Pegg as Benji. With about $398 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, it is the lowest grossing of the eight.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird in his first live action film, restarted the series after five years away. Ethan is broken out of a Moscow prison, the team is blamed for a Kremlin bombing, and the US President disavows the IMF. The Burj Khalifa sequence is the set piece people remember, and Cruise climbed the building himself. Jeremy Renner joined as William Brandt, and the film earned about $695 million worldwide.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) was Christopher McQuarrie's first turn in the director's chair, and it brought in Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris as the Syndicate's Solomon Lane. The CIA, led by Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin), shuts the IMF down, which leaves Ethan hunting a secret network of rogue spies on his own. The A400M aircraft stunt and an opera house sequence set during Puccini's Nessun dorma are its calling cards, and the film took about $689 million worldwide.

Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018) is the biggest earner of the eight, with $824 million worldwide on a $178 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. Henry Cavill plays the CIA's August Walker, assigned to shadow Ethan while the team chases stolen plutonium cores from Berlin to Paris. Cruise trained for the HALO jump and flew a helicopter himself, and the shoot continued after he injured his ankle.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) is the seventh film, and it pits Ethan against a rogue artificial intelligence called the Entity. A cruciform key in two halves is the prize, and Hayley Atwell's thief Grace gets pulled into the chase from Abu Dhabi across Europe. The motorcycle jump off a cliff in Hellesylt, Norway, is the headline practical stunt, and Esai Morales plays Gabriel, the man tied to the Entity. Henry Czerny returned as Kittridge.

Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025) picks up with Ethan holding the Entity's source code key while the AI begins to take control of nuclear systems. His team springs Paris (Pom Klementieff) from prison and brings in Theo Degas, then Gabriel sends Ethan after a module in the wreck of the Russian submarine Sevastopol. It premiered at Cannes on May 14, 2025, opened in the US on May 23, and grossed about $599 million worldwide on a reported $350 million budget.

Tom Cruise did all eight, and he is billed first in each of them as Ethan Hunt, so no film in the series exists without him. Ving Rhames returns as Luther Stickell across most of the run, and Simon Pegg has been Benji from the third film onward. Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust runs through Rogue Nation, Fallout and Dead Reckoning Part One, and Henry Czerny's Kittridge bookends the series, from the 1996 original to the last two films. For profiles, see ethan hunt, luther stickell, benji mission impossible and ilsa faust, or browse the full mission impossible cast and mission impossible characters.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One grossed $571 million worldwide on a $291 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo, which makes it neither a clear hit nor a clear flop. It ranks fifth of the eight by worldwide gross, ahead of the first three films, but its $173 million domestic gross trailed every film except Mission: Impossible III. The budget is the real story, since a gross below twice the cost is a hard result for a tentpole, yet the film still passed half a billion dollars, so underperformed fits better than flop. The numbers behind every film sit on the mission impossible box office page.

Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning is the eighth and most recent film, and as of November 2026 no ninth film or release date has been announced. Newsweek reports it may be Cruise's swansong in the role, with McQuarrie hoping it works as a satisfying conclusion. Any talk of a follow up is rumor until Paramount says otherwise, and the current status is tracked at mission impossible 9. If you are new to the series, start with the mission impossible movies in order page, and when you have seen a few, the mission impossible movies ranked page takes a side on which is best.