How to watch the ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies in order

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters in a matter of days, where we’ll find out once and for all if Tom Cruise really is the man who’s destined to save cinema, or if we’re all just collectively entertaining a weirdly detached reality in which Top Gun: Maverick deserved a Best Picture nomination.

All jests aside, there’s plenty to look forward to with Dead Reckoning Part One; as it prepares to go up against the likes of Indiana Jones, Oppenheimer, and Barbie, it no doubt looks to be the top summer blockbuster in terms of high-octane adventure, and with Cruise pulling his usual double duty as the lead and the stunt double, audiences are surely in for some unadulterated fun.

The film also marks the seventh entry in the Mission: Impossible film series, so if you’re a franchise completionist who hasn’t yet taken the dive into Ethan Hunt’s adventures, you’ve got quite the binge session ahead. Here’s every Mission: Impossible film in order, and all six of them are available to stream on Paramount Plus.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Director Brian De Palma first brought the franchise to the big screen in 1996’s Mission: Impossible, in which Cruise’s perennial protagonist Ethan Hunt gets framed for the murder of his unit of IMF agents, prompting him to hunt for the identity of the true culprit in order to clear his name.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

Agent Hunt returned four years later in John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, where he teamed up with a professional thief by the name of Nyah Nordoff-Hall, and proceeded to gun for rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose, who was in possession of a deadly bioweapon known as the Chimera virus.

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

The third entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise is the aptly-titled Mission: Impossible III, directed by one J.J. Abrams. The threequel sees Ethan Hunt, now retired from the Impossible Missions Force and spending his days training new recruits, get called back into action when a malicious arms dealer rears his head.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

Following Mission: Impossible III was 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, in which the Impossible Missions Force is forced to shut down after being blamed for a Kremlin bombing. Without the resources of the IMF to fall back on, Ethan and his team must dive straight into the metaphorical lion’s den if they want to have any hope of proving their innocence.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation came shortly after Ghost Protocol, and follows a now-disbanded IMF team formerly led by Ethan, who’s now become a target of the CIA. Fractured and with more enemies than ever, the team finds themselves up against a dangerous terrorist group known as The Syndicate, who have their fingers in more than a few agencies, so to speak.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

The most recent Mission: Impossible film, at least for the next eight days, is Mission: Impossible – Fallout, where Ethan and his IMF team become the only force standing in the way of dangerous nuclear weapons falling into the hands of The Syndicate.