Mission Impossible Stunts: Every Big Set Piece, Explained

The biggest Mission Impossible stunts are the Langley vault drop in Mission: Impossible (1996), the Burj Khalifa climb in 2011, the helicopter chase in Fallout, the cliff jump in Dead Reckoning and the biplane chase in The Final Reckoning. Each of the eight films in the Mission Impossible movies is built around one or two set pieces like these.

That habit is what separates the saga from most franchises. A typical sequel adds a bigger explosion, while these films tend to hand Ethan Hunt a new physical problem to solve: a vault, a tower, a plane, a train, a submarine wreck. If you are new to the series, the Mission Impossible movies in order page shows where each film sits.

Three real world claims are well documented in news coverage. Tom Cruise climbed the Burj Khalifa himself for Ghost Protocol, the production of Fallout reported that he flew a helicopter, and the preparation for the Dead Reckoning cliff stunt involved more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcycle jumps, according to Today. Other sequences mixed practical work with visual effects, and the sections that follow say which is which wherever the reporting is clear.

The Langley vault drop is the stunt that defined the series: Ethan Hunt is lowered on wires into a secure vault at CIA headquarters to steal a list of agents. Mission Impossible 1996, directed by Brian De Palma, builds the whole sequence around the idea that the thief cannot touch the floor.

Here is how the job works in the story. Ethan recruits two disavowed operatives, Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger, and the three break into Langley together. Ethan is the one suspended into the vault, so the stunt is really a rigging puzzle, with the team above controlling every inch of his movement.

The sequence set a template: a patient, mechanical set piece that later films would scale up. You can follow Ethan across the saga on the Ethan Hunt page.

The 1996 finale puts a helicopter and a high speed train on a collision course, and it ends with the helicopter destroyed inside the Channel Tunnel. It is the saga's first big action finish.

Broken into steps, the plan runs like this. Ethan sets a trap on a train to Paris while Kittridge watches a live feed of the confrontation. Ethan lures Jim Phelps onto the train and exposes him as the real mole. Jim and Krieger try to escape by helicopter, Ethan hooks the helicopter to the train, and it is destroyed in the tunnel, killing both men.

What stands out is how little the scene relies on fighting. Ethan wins by physics and timing, a pattern that returns when he crashes one helicopter into another in Fallout.

The biggest action in Mission Impossible 2 is the run from Bare Island to the Sydney mainland, which ends in a long beach fight between Ethan Hunt and Sean Ambrose. The film, released in 2000 and directed by John Woo, is built on Woo's storyboards and action sequences, which Salon covered at the time.

The sequence has three stages. First, Ethan infiltrates Ambrose's base on Bare Island, tricks Ambrose using a disguised Hugh Stamp and escapes with the Bellerophon samples. Next, Ambrose's men chase him to the mainland while Luther and Billy search for Nyah, who is waiting on a cliff. Finally, Ethan kills Ambrose in the beach fight and Luther treats Nyah with the cure in time.

The Shanghai sequence in Mission Impossible 3 combined visual effects with stage work, which makes it the saga's clearest case of effects extending a shoot. Directed by J.J. Abrams in 2006, the film used Industrial Light and Magic effects to build a virtual Shanghai and staged a bungee jump on a Universal Studios set, according to Computer Graphics World.

In the story, Ethan steals the Rabbit's Foot in Shanghai, and Davian then puts an explosive in Ethan's head. Two other physical moments close the film: Ethan throws Davian in front of a truck, then uses a makeshift defibrillator to stop the device in his head from killing him.

Not every set piece in the saga was a real location, and this film is the proof.

The Burj Khalifa climb is the most famous Mission Impossible stunt, and Tom Cruise did it himself, as ET reported. In Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011), directed by Brad Bird, Ethan climbs the outside of the Burj Khalifa as part of a plan to stop launch codes being sold in Dubai.

It was Bird's first live action film, and the production used large format work credited to Robert Elswit, according to The Reel Bits. The film premiered in Dubai on December 7, 2011, with a photocall at the Burj Khalifa, according to The National, and it opened the 8th Dubai International Film Festival, according to The Film Stage.

In the story the plan falls apart after the climb. The assassin Moreau is killed and Kurt Hendricks escapes in a sandstorm, so the stunt sets up the chase to Mumbai rather than solving the mission. Brandt, Benji and Jane all take part in the Dubai operation, and you can read about them on the Mission Impossible characters page.

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (2015), directed by Christopher McQuarrie, has three set pieces that stand out: the Vienna opera, an A400M aircraft sequence and the underwater vault in Casablanca. FXGuide covered the A400M stunt, the underwater tank and the film's visual effects together.

At the opera, Ethan foils the planned shooting of the Austrian Chancellor, yet a car bomb kills him anyway, and the scene plays out with Puccini's Nessun dorma. The film also premiered at the Vienna State Opera on July 23, 2015, according to CBS News.

In Casablanca, the team steals a digital ledger from a heavily guarded underwater vault, a sequence shot in an underwater tank. The plot then turns on Ilsa Faust passing the ledger to her MI6 boss Atlee, who destroys it. You can read more about her on the Ilsa Faust page.

The main stunt in Mission Impossible Fallout (2018) is the helicopter chase near Kashmir, which ends with Ethan Hunt crashing his helicopter into August Walker's. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the film also includes HALO training for its skydiving work, and the production reported that Tom Cruise flew a helicopter, according to Screen Global Production.

The same report covers an ankle injury that Cruise suffered and the effect it had on the shoot. The film also moves between Berlin, Paris and Kashmir, so the stunts are spread across locations rather than concentrated in one finale.

In the story, Walker dies in the crash and Ethan then fights his way to the bombs and disarms the last one with seconds left. If you want the villain's background, see August Walker.

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning (2023), directed by Christopher McQuarrie, gives Ethan Hunt a motorcycle ride off a Norwegian cliff in Hellesylt and then a runaway Orient Express that ends in a gorge. Today reported that Cruise's preparation for the cliff jump took more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcycle jumps, which is a lot of repetition for a few seconds of screen time.

The train is where the film turns into a puzzle on rails. Gabriel wrecks the controls, Ethan drops in by parachute, and the key changes hands again before the track ahead disappears and the carriages tumble into the ravine. Ethan and Grace walk away from the wreckage, while Paris does not, though she first explains how the key ties back to the Sevastopol. Ethan then takes off by speed wing to rejoin Benji.

The production cost $291 million, according to Box Office Mojo, which made it the most expensive of the saga up to that point. The Mission Impossible box office page sets that against what the film earned.

Mission Impossible Final Reckoning (2025), directed by Christopher McQuarrie, closes the saga with a dive to the wreck of the Sevastopol and a biplane chase against Gabriel. The American Society of Cinematographers covered the biplane location in South Africa, the tanks at Longcross Studios and the cameras used.

In the story, Ethan dives and recovers the Podkova from the wreck off St. Matthew Island. At the end, after a biplane chase, he gets the Poison Pill back and Gabriel dies in a crash. Ethan fits the Poison Pill into the Podkova mid air, and Grace traps the Entity before it can launch.

Box Office Mojo lists the budget at $350 million. The film was marketed as the final entry, and for what comes next, see Mission Impossible 9.

In my opinion, the Burj Khalifa climb is the best Mission Impossible stunt, because it is the one where the real world risk is the point of the scene. Tom Cruise did the climb himself, the setting is a real building, and the story gives it a clear job: stop the sale of the launch codes.

My second pick is the Fallout helicopter chase. Cruise flying a helicopter, as the production reported, gives the crash into Walker's craft a physical credibility that effects alone struggle to match. My third is the Dead Reckoning cliff jump, mostly because of the preparation Today described: 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcycle jumps is the kind of grind that explains why the result feels earned.

The Final Reckoning biplane chase has the best scale, and the Channel Tunnel finale from 1996 is still the cleverest as pure mechanics. It could be argued that Mission: Impossible III is the weakest on this list, because its Shanghai work leaned on virtual effects, but it is also the film that shows how the saga blends stage work and effects.

If you want to see the stunts in sequence, start with Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, then check Mission Impossible movies ranked for how the full films stack up. The people who carry out these missions are covered on the IMF team Mission Impossible page.