8 More Films That Clearly Ended With World War 3

5. Mission: Impossible €“ Ghost Protocol (2011)

Tom Cruise is great at starting wars, isn't he? The fourth film in the perennially popular Mission: Impossible franchise and easily the best finds Agent Ethan Hunt and his team rushing around the globe in an attempt to avert a nuclear attack on America from a Russian terrorist. Early on in the film, Ethan infiltrates the Kremlin in order to steal files identifying this terrorist, code name Cobalt. However, this goes south very quickly, because Cobalt is also in the building. He manages to escape with Russian nuclear launch devices and bomb the Kremlin while he's at it, leaving Ethan and company to take the blame. This seems pretty bad already €“ American agents found at the scene of the destruction of the Russian president's home and a nuclear terrorist on the loose €“ but it gets worse. Ethan manages to find Cobalt at the climax of the film despite the best efforts of a Russian officer determined to bring him to justice. However, Cobalt manages to fool a Russian submarine into launching a nuke at San Francisco. Ethan overpowers Cobalt and manages to render the missile a dud just as it glances off of a building on the San Francisco coast. Although it seems as if the day was saved, an awful lot of bad blood would be brewing between America and Russia. First, the Kremlin was bombed €“ ostensibly by an American group (yes, the Russian officer realises Ethan's innocence, but how quickly could that information reach the top levels of the government?), and then a nuclear missile, "fired" by a Russian submarine came extremely close to rendering San Francisco uninhabitable. Yes, it's possible that with a LOT of diplomatic overtures, World War III could be averted, but the amount of bureaucratic nonsense that occurs in both nations would likely lead to war being declared before the truth of the terrorist plot was brought to light.