Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to choose your Mission: Impossible movie. The latest instalment in the action-packed franchise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, is exploding into cinemas, as Tom Cruise once again puts himself in harm’s way with more spectacular stunts.
But if you could only watch one of the series before seeing the new movie, which would you pick: the action-packed extravaganzas of recent years, or the stylishly paranoid spy thriller that kicked it all off nearly three decades ago?
The most recent film in the blockbuster franchise was Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, back in 2023. As the name suggests, it sets up the storyline that leads into the new movie, so if you’re only going to watch one past film then this could be the one.
It’s just been added to Netflix, so it’s pretty easy to track down. The action scenes certainly look and sound amazing on your home cinema setup – including a slam bang finale involving a motorbike, a mountain and a moving train that was just made for the big screen.
Still, the convoluted plot might not hold up so well to repeat viewings. So you could revisit the earlier films in the series. The easy way to watch the whole series is via Paramount Plus: every film in the series is available with a Paramount Plus subscription as part of Amazon Prime Video.
If you aren’t signed up for Paramount Plus, the individual films are also streaming on various other platforms. The first three are on Now TV, and at the time of writing some of them are also available on catch-up or on-demand from TV channels like ITV X and 4 Plus.
Choose your mission – as I have
There’s something to enjoy in all of them. Action maestro John Woo, the man behind Face/Off, revs the engine on the frankly ludicrous second film. JJ Abrams takes charge for the third entry, which sees Philip Seymour Hoffman as possibly the best bad guy of the franchise.
And after that comes Ghost Protocol, AKA the one where Tom Cruise actually climbs up a skyscraper in Dubai. At the time, there was talk of co-star Jeremy Renner taking over the lead role from Cruise, but Ghost Protocol firmly reaffirmed Cruise as the star of the show, continually topping himself with a new show-stopping stunt in each film.
Then in 2015, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie took charge, striking the perfect balance of globetrotting conspiracy thriller and jaw-dropping stunts in Rogue Nation and Fallout. Those are very much worth a watch with your AV setup and plenty of popcorn.
But as much fun as these flicks are, I suggest going back to the start. The very first Mission: Impossible came out in 1996, rebooting a popular TV series. In his first outing as Ethan Hunt, Cruise plays a cocky spy who grows increasingly paranoid when his team is wiped out in a tangled conspiracy. Directed by Brian De Palma, it’s a stylish exercise in old-school espionage, full of tilted camera angles and suspenseful scenes.
There’s lots of sneaking about and shadowy backstabbing, but it isn’t entirely low-key: the ’96 film also includes a bunch of memorable action scenes, including that iconic moment in which Cruise dangles silently above an impregnable CIA computer, setting the pattern for the rest of the series.
Ironically, Dead Reckoning tries very hard to go back to the first film’s comparatively low-tech spy craft. Not only does it bring back Henry Czerny as the team’s boss from the very first film, it also pits the team against an all-seeing computer that forces them to give up most of their gizmos and gadgets. All the more reason to remind yourself how Cruise’s super spy was introduced to the world – before the series self-destructs.
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