10 Movies Much Better Than The One Thing You Remember Them For

9. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Les Grossman Tropic Thunder Tom Cruise
Paramount Pictures

What You Remember It For: Tom Cruise scaling the Burj Khalifa

You could probably put any of the recent Mission: Impossible movies on this list, and all for the exact same reason.

But 2011's Ghost Protocol stands out above Rogue Nation and Fallout because it marked a turning point for the franchise, one where the centerpiece of each movie became one thing, and one thing only: Tom Cruise's latest crazy stunt.

The actor scaling the dizzying heights of the Burj Khalifa is still his most impressive work in that regard, but this entire sequence completely overshadows everything else the rest of the movie does brilliantly, and for many people, this is all they'll remember from it. But even when you move this scene to one side, MI4 is just plain awesome.

The other Mission movies are quite dark in tone (especially lately), but this fourth entry is light-hearted, snappy, and the most easily-enjoyable of the lot. Its action is amazing throughout, from the hilarious prison break to the bone-crunching car park sequence. It’s also got the best team dynamic in the series, with everyone from Simon Pegg to Jeremy Renner to Paula Patton feeling like a truly indispensable part of the mission.

Simply put, it’s one of the finest action movies of the 2010s - the Burj is just the icing on the cake.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.