How to Watch the 'Mission: Impossible' Movies in Order Now That 'Dead Reckoning' Is Out
Unlike some other franchises, the release order is the chronological order.
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"This is far and away the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted," Tom Cruise says as he stands atop a sheer Scandinavian cliff face. "We've been working on this for years. We're going to shoot it in Norway, and it'll be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a BASE jump. I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid."
That death-defying, daredevil sequence he's describing is a in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and you can see how it does it in a 10-minute behind-the-scenes video. In it, Ethan Hunt rides his motorcycle at top speed off the edge and sails to the depths below. Only a couple questions remain: Who is Ethan Hunt again? And why would he want to drive off a cliff?
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in theaters now, and if you need to refresh yourself on the franchise before you go see it, now is the time to re-watch the Mission: Impossible movies in order. If you can't keep your Rogue Nations straight from your Ghost Protocols (and can't guess at the order based on the changing lengths of Tom Cruise's hair), bookmark this page, so you'll always have the Mission: Impossible order at the ready.
The good news is that the order of release is also the order of the events within the movie, so you don't have to untangle a thorny timeline: The release order is the chronological order. The better news is that they're easy to find on streaming services. All the previous Mission: Impossible movies are available on Paramount+, as well as rental service like Prime Video and iTunes.
Once you finish those, you can start your rewatch of all the Indiana Jones, Transformers, Spider-Man and Marvel MCU movies in order, since those franchises all have new movies coming out this year, too.They should hold you until Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two comes out in June 2024.
Mission: Impossible (1996)
There's a mole at the Impossible Mission Force, and Ethan Hunt has to team up with other disavowed IMF agents to keep more of his co-workers from getting killed. This movie is known for its depiction of a break-in scene at the CIA headquarters in Langely — that's the one where Hunt has to dangle from the ceiling without touching the floor — which spawned a thousand homages.
Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
Superstar action director John Woo takes up where director Brian De Palma let off. This movie plays like a slick, action-filled gloss on the Alfred Hitchock film Notorious; Hunt has to recruit a professional thief, played by Thandie Newton, to help extract information from her ex-boyfriend, who has control of a biological weapon.
Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
After the events of the second film, Hunt gets to settle down with a wife and just live out the rest of his years having a normal life. Well ... until an arms dealer, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, starts going after Hunt's protégés and family, and Hunt has to stop at nothing to bring him down. This one is directed by J.J. Abrams before he jumped to the Star Trek/Star Wars franchises.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles, makes his live-action debut with this one — and basically treats Tom Cruise like an invulnerable Mr. Incredible, making him do everything from climbing the exterior of the Burj Kalifa to fist-fighting in an automated parking garage while cars are being flung at him. At least he has the help of Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), two returning characters who will become the core of his team from this movie on out.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
Jack Reacher director Christopher McQuarrie comes in for the fifth film in the franchise, and he's the one who will see it through from here to the end of Dead Reckoning Part Two. McQuarrie, like the rest of the series, is known for intricate, high-suspense sequences, like the one in this film that has Hunt and his team squaring off with former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust — quietly — behind-the-scenes at the Vienna opera.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
The previous Mission: Impossible film sets the series up for a one-two punch of an ending. The bad guys that the IMF has been outfoxing for the past two films have become a terrorist organization known as the Apostles, and Hunt's team needs to recover the plutonium they've acquired.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One finds Ethan Hunt doing what he does best — jumping off of cliffs, fighting on top of trains, doing some high-performance driving on tiny European streets — all in the name of fighting an enemy called The Entity. The regular cast is joined by new members like Hayley Atwell (of Agent Carter fame) and Pom Klementieff (aka Mantis in The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) and Shea Whigham (of the Fast and Furious movies).
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two (2024)
And then, after Dead Reckoning Part Two, we'll say goodbye to Ethan Hunt forever. This one is set for June 28, 2024 (assuming it won't be delayed due to the Hollywood strikes). Will Hunt finally get to settle down with a family? Will a bad guy actually get the better of him? Will he drive his motorcycle off into the sunset, or off a cliff without a soft place to land? Only time will tell.
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