A franchise-launching action classic with a hero who doesn’t even use a gun throws hands to hit #1 on streaming

As a general rule of thumb, almost every single one of the action movies regarded among the finest ever made features at least one instance of the hero using a gun to mow down reams of interchangeable goons, but not once during Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible does Tom Cruise use a firearm.

It’s a fascinatingly overlooked fact, one that obviously wasn’t kept up through the rest of the franchise, but it just goes to show you don’t need to bust out the heavy artillery in order to deliver explosive greatness. Here we are a full 27 years after the opening chapter’s release, and the odds are very high that Dead Reckoning Part One will continue Mission: Impossible‘s incredible run.

Regardless of which one you deem your personal favorite, it’s the OG that’s infiltrated the most-watched list on HBO Max and made it to the very top, with FlixPatrol revealing Cruise’s maiden outing as the IMF operative as the number one top-viewed feature on the streaming service’s worldwide rankings, having reached the summit in 21 countries.

At the time, nobody could have predicted Cruise would still be playing the role three decades on, never mind continually raising the bar when it comes to jaw-dropping feats of daredevil lunacy that see him risk life and limb without a care in the world. Should the seventh installment match Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, or Fallout – no offense to John Woo or J.J. Abrams’ second and third entries – but it’ll only enhance the property’s reputation as one of the greatest ever.