As Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise has been through the gauntlet over and over again in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise and not all the action you see on screen is CGI. With each new entry in the franchise, Cruise takes up the stunts a notch to bring “Mission: Impossible” to new heights. Check out the top death-defying stunts the daring actor has pulled off thus far.
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A quiet stunt scene sounds like an oxymoron, but when you are breaking into a vault, silence is necessary. Hanging from a wire, Cruise had to work on his balance which didn't come easily, reportedly causing him to hit his head several times while attempting the stunt on set. It remains not just an iconic stunt in the franchise, but in the spy movie genre.
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Cruise's Ethan Hunt had his first brush with water in "Mission: Impossible" by escaping from a restaurant just as an aquarium collapses. Years later while filming "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" he would reportedly hold his breath underwater for 6 minutes while filming a complicated scene in a pool 20-feet deep.
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The final fight between Cruise and Jon Voigt in “Mission: Impossible” is a masterpiece of live-action stunt work and CGI, which was revolutionary for the time. Nowadays it is easy to see right through most old CGI, but no one can fake jumping in front of a 225 kilometers per hour wind machine, which is exactly what Cruise did to make the scene feel 100 per cent real.
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Over 800 metres above a river on the side of a cliff face is a tame way to start off “Mission: Impossible II” if you're Tom Cruise. The actor began the movie by appearing to climb a large cliff without a rope, but the stunt involved a little movie magic. The star really was roped in (with the rope edited out in post-production) , and did have a stunt man companion climbing with him. The risk of misplacing body weight and slipping into the rock made this stunt extremely tricky.
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A high speed chase scene on motorcycles sounds like the perfect fit for “Mission: Impossible II”. The epic scene features Cruise undertaking several daring maneuvers including a motorcycle joust and ending with a jump off of a moving motorcycle while fighting his opponent in mid-air.
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Ouch. This fiery scene in “Mission: Impossible III” sees Cruise face a series of explosions, including one where the actor is blasted off of his feet into the side of the car.
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Filmed in Shanghai, China, this scene from “Mission: Impossible III” involves Cruise jumping and swinging between buildings. And in typical Cruise fashion, the swinging stuntwork was the actor's own idea.
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Only Tom Cruise would be daring enough to scale the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building - with suction cups. Cruise did this terrifying stunt in one of the most memorable scenes in “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol”, all by himself. The actor trained for months to perform the stunt and was able to pull it off despite the unanticipated wind speeds that gave the crew a scare.
Another stunt from the same scene shows Cruise take a leap from a platform 120 feet in the air and down the side of the building.
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For some people the moment a plane takes off is scary - leaving the ground and being at the mercy of the pilot, but at least they are inside the plane! Tom Cruise definitely isn't afraid of flying. The actor held onto the outside of a plane as it took off in "Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation". An incredibly risky stunt to pull off, Cruise had to face small rocks kicked up from the runway, one of which hit him, breaking his ribs.
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For “Mission Impossible Fallout”, Tom Cruise dedicated his time to becoming a stunt pilot. The actor underwent helicopter training in order to maneuver his own flights without the aid of a second pilot.
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A High Altitude Low Open (H.A.L.O.) jump is the type of skydiving that special ops use to go undetected behind enemy lines, so naturally, it was a good fit for Cruise's Ethan Hunt in "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol". The stunt involved the actor jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet and opening a parachute at less than 200 feet from the ground... which is a very small window when you are falling at 200 miles per hour.
Filmed at dusk, director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise had one chance per day to be able to capture the epic stunt
To date, Cruise is the only actor to ever perform this task.
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That's the face you make immediately before slamming into the side of a building and breaking your ankle. Ever the professional, the scene in which Cruise's Ethan Hunt leaps across a rooftop in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is actually from the take where the actor broke his ankle after missing his mark and slamming into the side of a building.
"I knew instantly my ankle was broken and I really didn’t want to do it again so just got up and carried on with the take. I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital’ and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangement," he told "The Graham Norton Show".
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Cruise is once again taking his stunts to new heights. In a stunt sequence that reportedly cost over $2 million to film, the actor's latest stunt in "Mission: Impossible 7" involves Cruise riding a motorcycle off the ramp, into the air, and then opening a parachute to land safely. Photos captured him practicing the stunt with safety wires in place in 2020.