Since 1996, Mission: Impossible has been a staple of the cinematic landscape. Every few years, Tom Cruise leads a new chapter in the life of globetrotter Ethan Hunt and his team of agents, who aren’t afraid of missions deemed too difficult for traditional means of espionage. Indeed, one might even call the missions… impossible.

With Cruise returning to the big screen for The Final Reckoning, a direct follow-up to 2023’s Dead Reckoning, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to revisit the entire franchise. Fortunately, every entry is available to stream. Here’s how to watch the Mission: Impossible movies in order.

(With that said, this list will self-destruct in five seconds...)

01 of 07

The first Mission: Impossible movie took Peter Graves’ role in the original TV series — Jim Phelps, director of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) — enlisted Jon Voight to play the part, and took him out of the spotlight. The new spin on the character infuriated much of the original cast, but cemented Phelps’ IMF point man, Ethan Hunt, as the most important member of the team.

Brian De Palma’s blockbuster finds Ethan, his whole team having been wiped out in an op gone wrong, suspected of being the mole for a spy known only as “Job.” He goes undercover, drafting a pair of disavowed agents — Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) — to help him find Job’s true identity and clear his own name.

This opening installment is a fascinating outlier in retrospect, more concerned with spycraft and mystery than the action-driven entries to come. In De Palma’s hands, Ethan’s big-screen debut is a labyrinthine whodunnit in which truth itself is nebulous at best.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible: Paramount+

02 of 07

Handing an instantly successful action franchise to one of the most acclaimed action directors in the world seems like a can’t-lose formula. But despite John Woo’s formidable resume (Hard Boiled, The Killer, Face/Off), this is, by popular consensus, the weakest Mission: Impossible movie, albeit one with some phenomenal sequences.

Ethan is on the hunt for a biological weapon called the Chimera virus as well as its cure, both of which were stolen by rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). With Luther at his side once again, Hunt joins forces with master thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton). There’s an enjoyable turn by Brendan Gleeson as CEO of the pharmaceutical firm that developed the drugs (and keep an eye out for an unbilled cameo by Anthony Hopkins). 

Where to watch Mission: Impossible II: Paramount+

03 of 07

Given his small-screen success with Felicity, Lost, and Alias, J.J. Abrams’ promotion to feature-film director on Mission: Impossible III makes perfect sense. It just took a while to get there. David Fincher had the job before his vision fell out of sync with Cruise and the studio. Joe Carnahan took over… but then he, too, left due to “creative differences.”

Thus, Abrams came aboard and delivered a solid action flick filled with more familiar faces than any other M:I film. In addition to The Americans' Keri Russell playing a spy for the first time, look out for Bellamy Young, Greg Grunberg, and Aaron Paul.

Ethan, dragged out of retirement, is on the hunt for a MacGuffin called the Rabbit’s Foot, which runs him afoul of the film’s ruthless villain, arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). At Ethan’s side is a reinforced team that includes Maggie Q, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and soon-to-be-stalwart Simon Pegg as tech specialist Benji Dunn.

We also get Billy Crudup as Ethan’s direct supervisor, Laurence Fishburne as the new IMF director, and perhaps most importantly, Michelle Monaghan as Ethan’s fiancée. Long story short: Come for the cast, stay for the action.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible III: Paramount+

04 of 07

It seemed like a left-field choice to select Pixar director Brad Bird, who’d never helmed a live-action film, to direct the fourth M:I installment. In retrospect, however, one could easily argue this is the point where things began to shift from “dependable action franchise” to “must-see.”

After a Kremlin infiltration ends with an explosion that appears to be the work of Ethan and his team (belated spoiler alert: it isn’t), the U.S. President shuts down the IMF by initiating the so-called “Ghost Protocol.” This move leaves Ethan and Co. — including Benji, Jane (Paula Patton), and Brandt (Jeremy Renner) — out in the cold. To clear their names, they must obtain a Russian launch control device that was stolen during the explosion, plus codes that set it off.

Bird crafts some of the franchise’s most amazing stunts to date, including Ethan’s now-iconic scaling of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. Bringing the precision of animation to live-action, Bird set a new standard of action setpieces and stuntwork for Christopher McQuarrie to maintain.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: Paramount+

05 of 07

This film finds McQuarrie sitting in the M:I director’s chair for the first time. He’d already done uncredited rewrites on Ghost Protocol, so he was familiar with the franchise by the time work began on Rogue Nation.

In this fifth entry, Ethan spars with the Syndicate, a collective of former operatives from various intelligence agencies around the world who — you guessed it — have gone rogue. Remember how the U.S. government disavowed Ethan’s team last time?

CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) shuts down the entire IMF, leaving Ethan and his crew to work outside the system as they attempt to bring down the Syndicate and its villainous leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Then there’s Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson); is she on Ethan’s side, or is she working for the other team?

From the moment Rogue Nation starts, it’s clear McQuarrie understood the assignment. He delivers breathtaking moments in the air, underwater, on the road, and across rooftops, so it’s clear why he was brought back for the next installment… and the next and the next.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: Paramount+

06 of 07

The meaning of this film’s subtitle is twofold. First, it references the fallout from the previous film — specifically, the dissolution of the Syndicate. Second… well, given that the plot revolves around efforts to recover missing plutonium, you can guess what the other “fallout” might be if the mission goes awry.

The baddies this time around are the Apostles, former members of the Syndicate led by the mysterious John Lark, whom nobody on the IMF side of things has ever actually seen.

After the events of Rogue Nation, Hunley became the IMF’s new director. His replacement at the CIA, Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), doesn’t trust anyone within the IMF and forces them to incorporate one of her agents into the team: August Walker (Henry Cavill). The film is a banger top to bottom, but there are two sequences in particular — the restroom fight and the helicopter chase — that push the action to a level that’s absolutely out of this world.

In addition to the returns of Luther, Benji, and Ilsa, Vanessa Kirby makes her debut as arms broker Alanna Mitsopolis, a.k.a. the White Widow.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible – Fallout: Paramount+

07 of 07

There was never any doubt about the epic scale of this entry; after all, a single movie couldn’t contain it. Beyond the sheer scope of it, Dead Reckoning Part One is arguably the most relevant film in the franchise, with a premise revolving around a dangerously powerful AI system dubbed “the Entity.”

After kicking off in 2012 with the system’s origin, the film fast-forwards to the present, revealing how much the Entity has evolved over the years. Suffice it to say, it’s moving in an increasingly deadly direction.

The film features our beloved returning team members (Luther, Benji, and Ilsa) as well as new faces like the enigmatic thief Grace (Hayley Atwell); Gabriel (Esai Morales), an assassin who knew Ethan in his pre-IMF life; and Denlinger (Cary Elwes), the Director of National Intelligence. We even get Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge, now the director of the CIA, for the first time since the original film.

COVID-19 caused delays in the movie’s production and, in turn, its release, but the result was worth the wait.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One: Paramount+

How to watch the Mission: Impossible movies in order:

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Mission: Impossible II (2000)

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)