Nobody does stunts like Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible series – and Cineworld is giving you the opportunity to watch them all, from start to finish, on the big screen all over again this November.
While it doesn't feel absolutely certain there won't be another Mission: Impossible movie in the future (though Cruise did say this was it at the New York premiere of The Final Reckoning – "It's not called 'final' for nothing!"), you can watch the complete franchise as all eight movies return from 1st November until the 10th November. Each film will only be screening for one day – and these are the best Tom Cruise stunts from the Mission: Impossible franchise we can't wait to see blown up on the big screen again.
The vault dive (Mission: Impossible, 1996)
The first Mission movie is directed by horror veteran Brian DePalma and it assimilates the director's characteristically cracked, paranoid atmosphere. Clad in canted angles and unusual shots while being propelled by Danny Elfman's jittery score, it's much more of a covert espionage outing than the later movies.
That said, the movie's most famous sequence is a doozy of a stunt: Hunt suspended on a wire above a vault floor that is both pressure and heat-sensitive in a bid to claim the all-important NOC list. Cruise reportedly had trouble balancing on the cable until he hit on the idea of placing coins in his shoes to act as a counterweight.
Mission: Impossible will screen at Cineworld on 1st November.
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Utah rock climb (Mission: Impossible II, 2000)
Come the second movie, directed by action master John Woo, and Cruise's hair could be registered as a deadly weapon. His locks are flowing during Mission: Impossible II's testosterone-laden and utterly gratuitous opening sequence as he scales Deadhorse Point in Utah.
It does nothing to advance the plot and is evidently a calculated ploy on the part of Cruise to play up his superhuman image. But it's giddily vertiginous and good fun, even when you consider that he's propped up by cables and the famous overhang stunt was undertaken by Cruise's stunt double Keith Campbell.
Mission: Impossible II will screen at Cineworld on 2nd November.
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Shanghai base jump (Mission: Impossible III, 2006)
The third Mission: Impossible movie was seen as something of a course correction after the operatic excesses of the second instalment. In this movie, Hunt is tormented by sadistic arms dealer Owen Davian (a terrific and terrifying Philip Seymour Hoffman) in pursuit of a mysterious weapon code-named the 'rabbit's foot'.
Hunt's quest takes him to Shanghai and a mission to get the rabbit's foot for Davian, in exchange for the life of Ethan's kidnapped wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan). Naturally, he must do a fulcrum swing between two high buildings, but only after an introductory and nerve-wracking base jump that, of course, was undertaken on the set by the fearless Cruise himself.
Mission: Impossible III will screen at Cineworld on 3rd November.
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Scaling the Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, 2011)
The Mission: Impossible series contains untold numbers of hair-raising stunts, but this was the scariest and most jaw-dropping to date. Ghost Protocol recalibrated the series again as more of an ensemble team effort, allowing Cruise to engage in enjoyable spars with the likes of Simon Pegg's Benji.
Ethan and his team rock up in Dubai, more specifically, the famous Burj Khalifa tower that stands as the world's tallest building. In order to access the server mainframe, Ethan must scale the building from the outside and Cruise did it for real (admittedly using cables that were later removed in post-production).
Pixar veteran Brad Bird's hand is very much evident in the sequence's blend of physical humour and nervy suspense, utilising Michal Giacchino's pensive score and some gorgeous establishing shots from DP Robert Elswit to cement Cruise as either the bravest man in the world, or the absolute maddest.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protcol will screen at Cineworld on 6th November.
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Taking a deep breath (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, 2015)
The slow-burn terror of Rogue Nation's underwater scene is made potent by Cruise's typical commitment. The actor is said to have free-dived for up to six minutes for the sequence where Ethan infiltrates an underwater database to retrieve the film's macguffin.
The scene also stands out as one of the few where Ethan dies and comes back to life. (The only other is the climax of Mission: Impossible III where he's resuscitated by his wife, Julia.) With Cruise dedicated to the practical nature of his own stuntwork and the limits of human endurance, we are more than simply passive observers of the scene. Instead, we're physically invested and genuinely wrung out come the climax.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will screen at Cineworld on 7th November.
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HALO jump into Paris (Mission: Impossible – Fallout, 2018)
The sixth movie in the series, Mission: Impossible - Fallout was acclaimed for one-upping the level of technical ambition witnessed in the previous movies. Once again written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the movie is an expert exercise in near-constant action escalation, and Cruise is once again the ideal helmsman.
We know we're in for a wild ride early on when Cruise and new character August Walker (Henry Cavill) HALO jump through an electrical storm onto the roof of a Parisian nightclub. As ever, Cruise was there in the thick of it, having trained extensively prior to filming. Much was made of the sequence's technical challenges and one has to admire the amount of preparation and technical acumen needed for a single five-minute set piece.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout will screen at Cineworld on 8th November.
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The motorcyle cliff jump (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, 2023)
Six movies deep into the Mission: Impossible franchise, no one can say Tom Cruise does things by halves. Dreaming up the stunt since he was a little kid, Tom Cruise is seen riding along a rocky mountain on a motorcycle, hurtling towards the cliff's edge as its formation conveniently forms into the perfect ramp. While CGI was involved to create the rocky terrain, everything else was all Tom.
Constructed across months in Hellesylt, Norway, Cruise rode the motorcycle off the ramp into a base jump, free-falling before finally, finally letting off his parachute. Deemed the most dangerous stunt in cinema history, Cruise went through years of preparation, including numerous motocross jumps and skydives. And its execution onto the big screen was impeccable, with Ethan Hunt perfectly aligning his jump with the trajection of a train, crashing through the window in order to save Grace and culminating in a fight on the roof of the carraige with Gabriel.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning will screen at Cineworld on 9th November.
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On a wing and a prayer (Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning)
When travelling on a plane, why sit in a nice, comfy cockpit when you can cling to the wing for dear life? That seems to be Ethan Hunt's thinking during one miraculous scene in The Final Reckoning. We don't want to give anything away of why our hero is aboard the 1940s-era biplane as it soars upside down over South Africa's Drakensberg mountains, but suffice to say it's truly staggering stuff.
To prepare himself for the stunt, Cruise reportedly scoffed a hearty breakfast that included a dozen eggs. However, it didn't stop him passing out while filming the scene. "When you stick your face out [of an airplane], going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen," he told Empire.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning will screen at Cineworld on 10th November.
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Witness some of the best Mission: Impossible stunts when they return to the big screen for Cineworld's Mission: Impossible Film Season, coming this November.
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