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May 11, 2023

Tom Cruise's 14 Mission: Impossible Stunts Ranked By Most Dangerous

Tom Cruise continues to perform his own dangerous stunts for the Mission:

Tom Cruise continues to perform his own dangerous stunts for the Mission: Impossible movies, each death-defying sequence upstaging the last.

Both the Mission: Impossible franchise and its lead actor and producer Tom Cruise have become synonymous with blood-curdling, dangerous stunts. With each new film, Cruise insists on doing his own stunts, taking it upon himself to risk his life in increasingly, treacherous sequences for the quality of the finished product. At this point, Cruise is a bona fide stunt performer whose bravery in dangerous stunts allows the capture of unique moments not seen in other movies.

Luckily, Cruise's training, dedication, and ambition, coupled with experts' guidance, film direction, and stunt coordination make these sequences as safe as possible so that Cruise's stunts can get even bigger. Nonetheless, unpredictable elements and variables and there being nothing Cruise won't do for a Mission: Impossible stunt make them life-threatening. Here are 14 of the most dangerous times Tom Cruise has risked everything to make Mission: Impossible's audience's pulse race.

Seemingly shot before Cruise had a death wish, the stunts in Mission: Impossible seem tame compared to that of the franchise's later entries. However, that's not to say there weren't a few perilous moments, and one that stands out is during the film's climax. After tussling with Jon Voight's villain Jim Phelps on top of a TGV bullet train and jumping onto a helicopter that soon explodes, Cruise's Ethan Hunt then jumps back onto the train.

This stunt was filmed on a sound stage in Pinewood Studios using a wind generator firing dangerous winds of 140 mph to emulate the blast. Considering his stunt career trajectory, Cruise was initially reluctant to include the stunt. Therefore, this stunt could be the origin story of his passion for doing his own Mission: Impossible stunts. After completing the jump four times, Cruise was bleeding, bruised, and cut; however, it was a sign of even more danger to come.

One of the most iconic scenes, not only in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but in spy movies, sees Hunt rappel down from the ceiling into a locked-down room. Breaking into Langley, the CIA's headquarters, Hunt is lowered into the room to avoid triggering alarms. As if this weren't dangerous enough, Hunt's wire lifeline is also let go by Franz Kreiger, causing him to plummet to the ground and stop just inches from the floor.

The stunt was all about balance, as Cruise discovered quickly, repeatedly overbalancing and thwacking his head on the floor. Brian De Palma was about to shoot the scene differently when Cruise filled his shoes with pound coins for counterbalance and got the shot. Though this sequence is not one of Cruise's most dangerous stunts, hanging and falling 40 feet from the ceiling for days and repeatedly enduring blows to the head isn't exactly health and safety conscious.

Another entry from the movie that started it all, this stunt involves Cruise outrunning 16 tons of water bursting out of an exploding aquarium. After learning that he's been double-crossed, Hunt makes his escape from his untenable position by throwing a piece of exploding gum at a fish tank in a Prague restaurant. After stunt specialists delivered underwhelming attempts, de Palma grudgingly let Cruise undertake the sequence.

It says something about Cruise's body of stunt work that this one is low down the list. The aquarium sequence was incredibly dangerous when taking into account the water, shattering glass, and miscommunication regarding the exact timing of the stunt. Although Cruise limped away with a hurt ankle (not for the last time), the stunt made for a spectacular scene.

Related: Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked - From The 1996 Original to Fallout

In a movie with such iconic stunts, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation's bike chase is somewhat eclipsed. The thrilling sequence sees Hunt racing after Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust, first by car and then on a BMW S1000RR motorcycle. Although Hunt's chase is unsuccessful and Faust escapes, this sizzling pursuit around the extreme turns of the Casablanca highway put Cruise's life firmly in danger.

Having started riding motorcycles at the age of 10, it is no surprise that Cruise is keen to use them in his stunts. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie even wrote the script around this motorcycle chase, and it pays off as it injects a high-octane punch brimming with raw danger. Cruise rides up to 130 mph and leans over sometimes just inches from the ground, and all without a helmet.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout somehow managed to outdo its predecessor's motorcycle chase, but this time Hunt becomes the hunted. For this sequence, Cruise and his fellow biker stunt performers abandoned their safety rigs, meaning that did the whole chase by free riding. All the turns weaving in and out of oncoming traffic and going well above the Parisian speed limits executed by Cruise, were all as dangerous as they look.

Hurtling through the streets at over 100 mph with cars and bikes pursuing and coming at him head-on sounds like enough to deal with, but McQuarrie revealed Mission: Impossible - Fallout's motorcycle chase was more perilous than it seemed. Between numerous automotive variables, slippery wet cobblestones, and cameras seeking close-ups at stomach-turning speeds just inches away from his head, it's amazing Cruise escaped from shooting this sequence without a scratch. Further, a miscommunication problem with the local stunt drivers meant they sometimes failed to hit their mark.

The opening of the franchise's second film establishes that even in Hunt's time off between missions he enjoys getting his heart pumping. It is during some R&R mountain free climbing at Dead Horse Point in Utah that Hunt gets his mission that sets up Mission: Impossible 2. Despite safety precautions taken by the film's production, it shows what Cruise is made of.

Unlike his adrenaline junkie character, Cruise wore a safety rope throughout the sequence, however, the margin of error was so chillingly slim that even director John Woo had to look away. The only scene where the free climber in the shot isn't Cruise is when Hunt almost slips and tumbles between two cliffs. Other than that, it's really him hanging off the red rocks, 600 feet above a talus slope and a further 2000 feet from the ground. It's a precarious, impressive feat and a great opening sequence.

Related: Every Time Tom Cruise's Hunt "Died" In The Mission: Impossible Series

One of the most famous stunt accidents in recent years, Cruise's ankle break occurred while filming a relatively straightforward stunt in London for Mission: Impossible - Fallout. As he leaps from one building to another, misjudging it horribly, Cruise clatters into the building's side and bends his foot nine ways to Sunday.

Though it might not seem as dangerous as the other stunts on this list, as anyone who has seen the nauseating footage of the injury can attest, this jump looked very painful. It was also an expensive injury, as Cruise was unable to continue filming it halted production for seven weeks and cost the studio $80 million. This was of the few times a Mission: Impossible stunt has gone wrong, and it shows how real the stakes are and that Cruise is, in fact, human.

A similarly disturbing stunt that features in Mission: Impossible 2, and the risk was even higher. During the third-act battle, Dougray Scott's villain Sean Ambrose tries to sink his very sharp knife into Hunt's eye. To ensure maximum realism, Woo wanted Scott to genuinely push down with all of his force onto Cruise's eye. During the stunt, the blade gets as close as a quarter-inch away, Cruise being protected only by a steel cable attached to an overhead rig. Needless to say, if these cables malfunctioned, the consequences could be at the very least life-changing and at the very most life-ending.

The mission in Paris in Mission: Impossible - Fallout begins with a high-altitude low-open jump that goes awry when Henry Cavill's character August Walker's oxygen supply malfunctions. The sequence is breathtaking and its realism is palpable with Cruise's face alight as he exhibits both expert skydiving and high-caliber acting. It's the fruit borne by hard work and sheer nerve in the face of danger, and not just from Cruise.

Falling from 25,000 feet, Cruise, Cavill's stunt double, and a videographer jumped 106 times (including rehearsals) and shot the sequence in three-minute takes, once per day, to ensure the dusk lighting was perfect. The scene is three takes stitched together, each more dangerous than the last. Jumping out of the plane is hazardous enough, and there was a serious risk of colliding with Cavill's double when filming Hunt plummeting to Walker's aid. Finally, during the take in which Hunt saves Walker, Cruise had to judge the height at which to stop providing him oxygen and deploy his parachute.

During the comic opening scene and plane stunt of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Benji Dunn fails to remotely open the door to let Hunt onto a plane in Minsk, Belarus. This gave Cruise the opportunity to perform a stunt in which he clings to the side of an Airbus A400M plane as it takes off. The scene follows Hunt ascending thousands of feet into the air; as the seconds elapse the danger proliferates.

Considering Cruise was bolted to the plane via a harness, at speeds of 260 mph, birds and debris became the biggest dangers. Indeed, the actor was actually injured by a pebble at high speed. The stunt is even more terrifying considering that, according to McQuarrie, Cruise was wearing earplugs and contact lenses, meaning he couldn't see or hear. Further, the toxic fumes from the engine added potential long-term effects to the mix.

Related: Tom Cruise's New Cliff Stunt Creates A Big Mission: Impossible 8 Challenge

During the Mission: Impossible - Fallout helicopter chase stunt, Hunt finds himself on a rope hanging from a moving helicopter, eventually crawling up the rope to fly it and chase Cavill's character. Again, all that stands between Cruise and certain death, as he hangs out of the side of the helicopter, is a harness. That said, what makes this sequence especially dangerous is the proximity to which the two helicopters come to each other.

Cruise piloted the helicopter himself after becoming certified in an unusually accelerated timeframe and training hard for 16 hours per day. Moreover, flying in dim seasonal light Cruise got as close as a few feet from the other helicopter's rotor blades. It was so dangerous that director McQuarrie has said that he wouldn't have begun filming the sequence had he known beforehand what it took to capture.

In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Hunt and his team are tasked with swapping a file in an underwater database. When he fails to open the escape hatch, Faust must come and save him to prevent him from drowning. This extremely dangerous stunt had real stakes; both Cruise and Ferguson risked their lives holding their breaths while exerting themselves, burning through oxygen at a rapid rate.

Cruise's underwater Rogue Nation heist stunt was filmed in a succession of continuous shots, meaning the actors had to train to hold their breath for over six minutes. According to McQuarrie, by the end of the stunt's 10-day shooting schedule, Cruise was spent, with nitrogen in his blood and brain fog so bad that he couldn't memorize his lines. As if this life-threatening sequence weren't enough, Cruise also had to perform a jump off of a 120-foot ledge to get Hunt into the subaqueous security system.

The franchise's most memorable stunt saw Cruise climbing the side of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Hunt had to 11 floors of the 2,722-foot skyscraper to get to the 130th floor with only adhesive gloves, one of which fails. Though secured with a harness, Cruise actually performed this climb almost half a mile in the air, including the part where he plummeted when the glove failed.

Both the scene and the shoot itself were a race against the clock. It was time sensitive to film, as Cruise's harness was at risk of cutting off the actor's circulation, and it doesn't tend to be easy to breathe at that height. This stunt is the epitome of danger, a truly petrifying feat; nevertheless, the sensational scene speaks for itself.

Cruise himself has labeled the marquee motorcycle cliff stunt Mission: Impossible 7 as the greatest in cinema history. It's a stunt he's wanted to perform since he was a child, and is the most dangerous yet. It certainly delivers the wow factor in the film's trailers.

Shot in Norway, the stunt involves Cruise riding his motorcycle off of a cliff, propelling into a nosedive, and deploying a parachute. Cruise performed 13,000 training jumps for the sequence to ensure he could execute it with the precision required. This Evel Knievel-like jump that's been all over the marketing campaign has unquestionably piqued fans' interest in the eagerly anticipated next Mission: Impossibleinstallment.

Sources: The New York Times, The Independent

Having gained experience in copywriting, Joe Merison is a newer voice and Content Writer for Screen Rant. Based just outside of London, he is an Edgar Wright, Coen Brothers and Tarantino fanatic, as well as a Star Wars and MCU fanboy. When not watching and writing about films, he is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and enjoys writing screenplays and watching stand-up comedy. He has always had strong opinions about movies and TV shows, finding their Easter eggs, lore and deeper worlds fascinating, as well as loving to evaluate their cinematic elements. He is also on a strenuous, lifelong mission to stop people talking and going on their phones in cinemas.