Ranking The Mission: Impossible Movies - From Worst To Best

This 90s blockbuster was made by a top of his game director and an eager producer/star. It’s still an impeccable thriller that holds up strong over twenty years later - weirdly though, it has become one of the most forgotten entries.

The movie was very much director Brian De Palma’s last hurrah before he tumbled into mediocrity. The controversial auteur (with a Hitchcock obsession) finally got the keys to a Hollywood blockbuster and it resulted in his North By Northwest; a non-stop thrill ride from beginning to end, with every shot composition a lush signifier of his professional aesthetic.

The film is all post-Cold War paranoia and closest the series has felt like a legit spy-movie; constant red herrings, gobsmacking twists and mental check-mates are peppered throughout. It ends up tossing its air-tight logic in an overblown train finale, that while impressively executed (even to this day), really feels like it swooped in from a whole other movie.

Until then though, it’s a white-knuckle ride of nuanced tension with the Langley heist set-piece, a masterwork of suspense engineering the franchise has yet to peak (regardless of how many planes Cruise jumps out of).