The craziest Mission: Impossible stunts

Ash Walker • 15 May 2025 Features

Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Tom Cruise really seems to like putting himself in harm’s way.

The movie megastar has, in recent years, developed something of a death wish, taking the statement ‘I do my own stunts’ to a whole new level. And in no other franchise is this as evident than the Mission: Impossible series.

Each new film sees Cruise (and lately, director Christopher McQuarrie) try to up the ante, performing bigger, more dangerous, more insane stunts, all in the name of cinema spectacle.

Now, with the latest - and possibly last - Mission swan-diving into cinemas, we’re looking back at the craziest stunts the series has produced so far.

5. The HALO jump (Mission: Impossible - Fallout)

Credit: Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) - HALO Jump Stunt Behind The Scenes (Paramount Pictures, YouTube)

While the climactic helicopter scenes - which Cruise, obviously, flew himself - get all the attention, for us the standout stunt in 2018’s Fallout has to be the HALO jump.

For those unaware, HALO stands for High Altitude Low Opening, and is an exceedingly dangerous type of parachute jump mainly used by military units. In effect, you leap out of a plane at nosebleed-inducing height, plummet to earth at bone-shattering speeds and pop your chute at the very last moment.

Tom Cruise did this over 100 times in preparation for the stunt, which in and of itself is utterly insane. The man just loves leaping out of planes.

4. The Burj Khalifa climb (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

Credit: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol BEHIND THE SCENES - Burj Khalifa Climb (Rotten Tomatoes Trailers, YouTube)

Only Tom Cruise would consider climbing the world’s tallest building, all for a brief but incredibly tense scene in 2011’s fourquel, Ghost Protocol.

In the movie, Hunt must scale the slick, glassy exterior of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower with nothing but a pair of malfunctioning suction cups to stop him plummeting hundreds of storeys. In reality there were safety harnesses involved, but Cruise actually did the climbing himself.

It’s since become a pretty iconic scene in the series, and was even parodied with vacuum cleaners in Paddington - truly, the highest honour.

3. The knife in the eye (Mission: Impossible 2)

Credit: Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) - Not a Bad Way to Go Scene (Movieclips, YouTube)

Yes, they really did that.

While it might not be as big or bombastic as some of the other stunts on this list, this wince-inducing moment was every bit as dangerous to film. And it almost makes this lesser entry in the series worth a rewatch.

During a climactic knife fight - following that daft-but-iconic moment where the two lunge at one another from duelling motorbikes - rogue agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) stabs at our hero, bringing the tip of the blade within millimetres of our hero’s eyeball.

You’d think the whole thing was CGI, but no. The stunt crew hooked the knife up to a steel cable and worked out the distances - several times, you’d hope - so that it would stop in just the right place, creating a shocking moment of tension while avoiding any unfortunate ocular injuries.

Really, it’s your quintessential Mission: Impossible stunt: totally unnecessary, but undeniably ballsy.

2. The airplane hang (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)

Credit: Tom Cruise Describes Hanging On Airplane Stunt | Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (Paramount Movies, YouTube)

This stunt was such a big deal that the studio used it, almost in its entirety, for the trailer for 2015’s Rogue Nation. And you can totally see why.

Hanging onto the side of an Airbus A400M with his bare hands, superspy Ethan Hunt is dragged high into the air, wind whipping furiously at his floppy hairdo. In reality, Cruise was strapped to the plane with a safety tether, but that doesn’t take away from the sheer insanity of this stunt.

It’s easily the most memorable moment in the film, and one of the most impressive parts of Cruise’s long, storied career of death-defying feats. Absolutely bonkers.

1. The motorcycle jump (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1)

Credit: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Paramount Pictures, YouTube)

It’s been called the biggest stunt in cinema history, and that may well actually be the case. The only thing more impressive than Tom Cruise riding a speeding motorbike over the edge of a cliff is the fact that he did it six times to get the right shot.

The preparation that went into this stunt is almost as nuts as the feat itself. Cruise himself undertook a year of base jump and parachute training, and performed over a thousand motocross jumps to get the timing right. The crew used sophisticated computer modelling to work out all the variables, like velocity and wind speed.

But in the end, it all comes down to the jump itself - a mind boggling leap from a huge ramp atop the unforgiving crags of Hellesylt in Norway, into mist and wind, Cruise dropping hundreds of feet before deploying his parachute. Insanity.

Plus, you can’t help but wonder where all of those bikes were landing…

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is in cinemas from 21st May. Fancy seeing it for free? All Sky Cinema customers receive two free cinema tickets, every month.

Plus, all of the previous Mission films are now available to stream on Paramount+, available at no extra cost for Sky Cinema subscribers.