10 Of The Best Movie Threequels Of All Time

9) Mission: Impossible III

Not quite a patch on Brian De Palma’s original Mission: Impossible movie, JJ Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III is vastly superior to John Woo’s woeful MI2. Abrams’ big idea is to ditch the campy theatrics of Woo’s sequel and go back to basics, with a movie that belongs in the spy genre first and overblown action genre second.

Not that there aren’t some grand set-pieces, like the Shanghai heist sequence or bridge assault. The film also has an acting ace in Philip Seymour Hoffman, fresh from a gruelling, Oscar-winning performance in Capote and letting loose like never before or since as villain Owen Davian. He’s just one among a talented, typically eclectic cast, with a less superhuman and more actually human than usual Tom Cruise in the lead.