Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked: Best to Worst

I ranked the eight Mission: Impossible movies on five things: the quality of the set pieces, how much of the stunt work was practical, the strength of the story, the villain, and how well the film plays on a second viewing. That is closer to a mechanic's checklist than a critic's one, and, as such, it favors films where you can see how the job gets done. The order is my opinion, and the only numbers below are budgets and grosses from Box Office Mojo.

Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018), directed by Christopher McQuarrie, is the best of the eight, and in my opinion the gap between it and the rest is wider than the gap between second place and fifth. It was McQuarrie's second film in the series, and you can feel him applying what he learned on Rogue Nation. Tom Cruise trained for the HALO jump, flew a helicopter himself and worked through an ankle injury that disrupted the shoot, according to Screen Global Production. It also grossed $824 million worldwide, the most in the series, according to Box Office Mojo. If you are new to the saga, watch it after Rogue Nation, because Ilsa Faust and Solomon Lane arrive with history, and the Mission: Impossible movies in order guide shows the full route.

These are the three films I would hand to a friend before any other, and the order between them is a close call that I could be talked out of. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird in his first live action film, sits second because Cruise climbed the Burj Khalifa himself, and because Ethan, Benji, Jane and Brandt make the most fun ensemble in the series. Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) takes third on the strength of the A400M stunt, an underwater tank sequence and an opera scene scored with Nessun dorma. Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson, is the best new recruit the series has made.

Mission: Impossible (1996), directed by Brian De Palma, is fourth. It is the only entry built as a paranoid spy puzzle, with Danny Elfman's score working alongside Lalo Schifrin's theme, and it returned $458 million on an $80 million budget. But, its mood belongs to a different genre from the stunt show it launched, and I find it easier to admire than to rewatch.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025), both directed by McQuarrie, are fifth and sixth because they are the most expensive films in the series and the least self contained. Dead Reckoning has the best single stunt of the later run, the motorcycle jump off a cliff in Hellesylt, Norway, which followed more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcycle jumps in training, according to Today. It is also Part One of a story, so Grace, Gabriel and the Entity are all setting up a payoff that arrives in the next film.

The Final Reckoning has a biplane sequence shot in South Africa and tank work at Longcross Studios, according to the American Society of Cinematographers, and I admire both. Its 170 minute runtime and its reliance on callbacks, from Kittridge to Erika Sloane, cost it points with me. Fans who want to see who returns can check the Mission: Impossible cast.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), directed by John Woo, is last in my ranking, and Mission: Impossible III (2006), directed by J.J. Abrams, is seventh. Why do people not like Mission: Impossible 2? The usual complaint is that style outruns story: Woo planned his action around storyboards, according to Salon, and the set pieces read as a director's signature, but the plot about Chimera and Bellerophon leans on a romance triangle that the action cannot lift. It did earn $546 million worldwide, more than the 1996 original, so audiences showed up. Dougray Scott, who played Sean Ambrose, has also said the delays on this film cost him the role of Wolverine, according to Yahoo Entertainment.

Mission: Impossible III is the film I would defend. Philip Seymour Hoffman makes Owen Davian a villain who is calm and credible, and Abrams, in his directing debut, staged the bungee jump on a set at Universal Studios and used ILM to build a virtual Shanghai, according to Computer Graphics World. It is the lowest grossing film at $398 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, which is why box office alone gives the wrong order.

By worldwide gross, Fallout is the most popular film at $824 million, followed by Ghost Protocol at $695 million and Rogue Nation at $689 million, according to Box Office Mojo (grosses are not adjusted for inflation). The Final Reckoning, the eighth film, grossed $599 million on a $350 million budget. In my opinion that makes it a hit by gross and a disappointment by cost, because it returned about 1.7 times its budget, the lowest multiple in the series, with Dead Reckoning next at roughly twice its budget. The per film numbers are in the Mission: Impossible box office breakdown.

No release date for a ninth film has been announced, so the ranking stands at eight for now (see Mission: Impossible 9). If stunts are your reason for being here, the Mission: Impossible stunts page breaks down how each one was done, and the Mission: Impossible movies hub links every film.