Planning to watch Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning? Here’s a quick recap of the franchise’s movies so far

Pom Klementieff, from left, Greg Tarzan Davis, Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, and Hayley Atwell in a still from the film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
| Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures and Skydance

My week began with a message that self destructed in five seconds: Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to watch all Mission: Impossible movie series this weekend. That amounts to 15 hours of preparation before I get to the latest instalment. Here’s your recap.

Mission: Impossible (1996), based on a 1966 TV show created by Bruce Gellar, kick-started this franchise about 30 years ago. American film director and screenwriter Brian De Palma made the first movie edition as a brooding, dark, cerebral thriller that was high on stunts but not the spectacle it has become. Luther (Ving Rhames) became the first regular member of Impossible Mission Force (IMF) along with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).

The template was set. Hunt accepts a mission to recover a McGuffin to save the world. To do this, he needs his team to break into a highly secure facility that can only be accessed by impossible means. The fallout ultimately leads him to a choice — to save someone he loves or let millions die. He always does both as the best of men in the worst of times. 

Tom Cruise in a still from the film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. AP/PTI(AP05_19_2025_000410A)
| Photo Credit:
Paramount Pictures and Skydance

John Woo, who directed Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), gave it the action-movie flourish it is associated with today. Slow-motion shots, high on emotion, so much so that every Hindi heist film made ever since has paid homage to it. Hunt saved the world from a deadly virus 20 years before we knew the damage it could do. The Limp Bizkit version of the theme still find its way to your ears before you finish this sentence.

It was with Mission: Impossible III (2006) that the franchise got much needed reinvention. JJ Abrams, the creator of television series Lost, gave the franchise that grounded, gritty, high stakes action movie by creating a villain (Philip Seymour Hoffman) smarter and stronger than Hunt. Benji (Simon Pegg) joined the IMF as a regular from this point. 

Tom Cruise, from left, Hayley Atwell, and Simon Pegg in a still from the film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
| Photo Credit:
Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Abrams brought in Brad Bird for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) to lend humour to the franchise. But the pivot to humour got in the way of storytelling as Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie was brought in to doctor the script. McQuarrie took all the best elements of the first four movies and helped define the DNA of the franchise — intrigue, action, strong villains, drama and comedy. With this formula, McQuarrie made two near-perfect movies — Rogue Nation (2015) and Fallout (2018). As the scale became bigger, the franchise reeled in Jeremy Renner to join the IMF. Fun fact: Upon learning that they planned to kill him, Jeremy declined to return.

The last two editions of the Mission: Impossible series, also helmed by McQuarrie, were originally titled Dead Reckoning Part 1 and 2, since the movies share a common AI villain called Entity that wants to take over the world. 

Though not quite as smart as the fourth and fifth instalment, Dead Reckoning (2023) made up with scale and spectacle — with the daredevil stunt where Tom rides a dirt bike off a cliff and sky dives, parachuting himself onto a speeding train. 

Tom Cruise in a scene from Mission: Impossible – Fallout. (Chiabella James/Paramount Pictures and Skydance via AP)
| Photo Credit:
CHIABELLA JAMES

This brings us to The Final Reckoning (2025), a film that tries hard to tie up loose ends and threads from the franchise to mixed results. Some are fun, some are contrived and some completely unnecessary. To ensure you needn’t have watched the other seven films, this one uses recaps, inserts and spoon feeds information to the point that would make Brian De Palma squirm. The franchise has come a full circle from assuming the audience is smart to assuming they are dumb but the joys of movie magic remain.

This image shows Tom Cruise in a still from the film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
| Photo Credit:
Paramount Pictures and Skydance

From the hottest shows to hidden gems, overlooked classics to guilty pleasures, FOMO Fix is a fortnightly compass through the chaos of content. Expect timely recommendations, spoiler-free insights, and an honest heads-up on what to not miss.