It's the same every year. Like clockwork, both social media and real media clamour to do what they do best: moan. Not about politics. Not about the trains. Not even about the weather. No, it's Glastonbury Festival time, which means it's time for the annual whinge-fest over how much it costs and how bad the line-up is. It's a tradition as sacred as Glastonbury itself. Within minutes of the headliners being announced, someone somewhere will tweet "WHO?" as if that settles the matter. The tickets, they declare, are extortionate. The food is overpriced. The toilets are... well, they're not wrong there, to be fair. And yet Glastonbury sells out. Every. Single. Time. In minutes. Not hours, not days, but minutes; just 35 of them, this time around. A digital stampede of fans crashes the ticketing servers, elbows each other out of the virtual queue, and desperately parts with £373.50 of their hard-earned cash. If people really thought it wasn't worth it, why would that happen? Deep down, Glastonbury fans know it is worth it. Not just for the vibes. Not just for the bragging rights. In terms of basic maths alone, it remains a much cheaper way to see all your favourite bands compared with buying tickets to individual gigs. Let's break it down. From this year's stacked, genre-hopping, generation-spanning line-up, these are my 10 ride-or-die bands, the ones I'm determined to see come hell or high water at this year's Glastonbury. And next to them is a reasonable estimate of how much it would cost to see them individually on tour. Alanis Morissette: £60-£135 Charli XCX: £85-£200+ English Teacher: £25-£35 Gracie Abrams: £100-£400+ John Fogerty: £35-£130+ Lola Young: £25-£40 Olivia Rodrigo: £120-£200+ Raye: £50-£100+ Wet Leg: £30-£40 Wolf Alice: £40-£60 You can quickly see how these individual tickets would add up, and that's before the beer-soaked chips and £17 parking surcharges at the O2. But at Glastonbury, they're all included, alongside more than two thousand other acts. Plus five nights of camping, firewood, circus performers, standup comedy, theatre performers, secret gigs, DnB raves, late-night poetry slams, kids' clubs, drone shows, the visionary chaos of Shangri-La, a bloke dressed as a badger doing tai chi at 4am, and the very real possibility of watching Chris Martin duet with a kestrel. All for less than the price of one premium Olivia Rodrigo ticket at the Birmingham NEC with a half-decent sightline. © Amy Fern © George Harrison © Amy Fern No one involved with the festival will ever say this out loud... but in truth, this is underpricing. Glastonbury doesn't cost too much; it's that it's charging less than it's worth. The organisers know it, the scalpers know it, and deep down, so do we. Why else would the event remain massively oversubscribed year after year? The lesson for freelancers Herein lies the lesson for anyone who's ever said yes to a freelance gig, then immediately regretted it because the fee barely covers your oat milk habit. Every time you flinch at raising our rates, worrying, "What if they say no?" you need to remember that people will always complain about the price. But then they pay it anyway, if what you're offering is good. Just like a Glastonbury ticket, your work has value that goes beyond the sum of its parts. Clients might baulk at a day rate, grumble at a quote, or attempt the classic "Can you do it for exposure?". But if they really want you, they'll find the budget. Sure, you could try to undercut your peers. Offer the cheapest design package. Throw in extra concepts for free. Discount your fee before they even ask. But all that gets you is the creative equivalent of being the sad burger stand next to the rave tent: underpaid, undervalued, and slightly sticky. Here's the uncomfortable truth: clients don't always know what things should cost. They base their expectations on their last hire, a Fiverr ad, or what their mate's cousin paid a graphic design student in 2017. © George Harrison © Yushy Pachnanda © JodyHartley But it's not your job to price yourself within their comfort zone. It's your job to price yourself according to your value. If clients can't afford you, that's not rejection; that's redirection. Someone else—someone better, someone ready—will always pay you what you're worth. Just like someone always buys the last Glastonbury ticket. So ignore the noise. Just like the festival, you're not for everyone, and that's fine. Your rates should make you feel slightly nervous, not make your client feel overly comfortable. That's how you grow. That's how you stay booked. That's how you avoid burnout and build a business rather than a bargain bin. In other words, next time you feel the urge to knock 20% off your quote "just to be safe", picture yourself standing in a Somerset field surrounded by 200,000 sweaty strangers who all agreed—despite the price, despite the moaning, despite the toilets—that it was absolutely worth it. And then charge accordingly.

Next week, the former president of “Grant Theft Auto” maker Rockstar North launches his first title since leaving the Take-Two Interactive-owned video game developer and opening his own studio, Build A Rocket Boy: the AAA narrative-driven action-adventure thriller “MindsEye.” Published by IOI Partners, the team behind the “Hitman” franchise, the Unreal Engine 5-built game will debut June 10 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store with a $59.99 price tag for the standard edition. Related Stories Set in the near-futuristic city of Redrock, “MindsEye” puts players into the role of Jacob Diaz, a former soldier haunted by fragmented memories from his mysterious MindsEye neural implant, as he uncovers a conspiracy involving rogue AI, corporate greed, an unchecked military, and a threat so sinister that it endangers the very survival of humanity. Popular on Variety But the base story isn’t the biggest draw for “MindsEye,” which includes Build A Rocket Boy’s proprietary Game Creation System, that enables players to, well, “craft anything in their minds eye.” Per the studio, “Players can craft their own experiences using all of the ‘MindsEye’ assets, creating everything from custom missions to entirely new scenarios within the game’s expansive, richly detailed world. Whether you’re designing a high-speed chase through Redrock’s bustling cityscapes or a stealth mission in its industrial outskirts, it is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, ensuring that players of all skill levels can bring their imagination to life.” Benzies’ Edinburgh-based Build A Rocket Boy has promised “fresh premium content” will rollout monthly for the game, including regular releases of new missions, challenges and game assets. While “MindsEye” is the first title from Benzies since he launched BARB after leaving Rockstar in 2016 (Benzies was the lead “Grand Theft Auto” developer across the third through fifth games in the franchise, as well as “Grand Theft Auto Online,” and was in a legal battle with parent company Take Two over unpaid royalties from 2016 until 2019), it’s just step one in the prolific producer’s plan to shake up the gaming industry. “At Build A Rocket Boy, our vision goes far beyond a single title,” Benzies told Variety. “‘MindsEye’ is the first episode and central story around which ever-expanding interconnected episodes will span. We’re already working on future episodes, which will introduce alternate realities while maintaining it’s core themes of hope, redemption, and the intrigue of civilizations past and future, drawing from the lore and multiverse concepts.” See Variety‘s full interview with Benzies below, including the inevitable comparisons that will be drawn between “MindsEye” and the aesthetic of the “GTA” franchise, and his hopes for Rockstar Games’ highly anticipated and much-delayed “GTA 6.” Where did the concept for “MindsEye” come from? I pull a lot of inspiration from the real world. Watching the actions of humans – their foibles and their virtues. Watching the advancement of technology and how we adapt, or indeed, do not adapt. We’ve been moving to an automated world for many years now, and the impact on humans, especially with recent advancements in AI, which serves as good fodder for a story and even better for a video game. I think we all have this little nagging feeling about how humans and AI will blend together in the future—will it go smoothly, or will it turn sinister? We’re fans of all different types of media, and we’ve drawn influence from cinematic visionaries like Ridley Scott, Paul Greengrass, Christopher Nolan, and J.J. Abrams, and films like “The Bourne Identity,” “Memento,” and TV series “Lost” — they’re all exploring memory, perception, and control in their own ways. So, while we nod to those influences here and there, we wanted to build something that feels fresh, grounded in today’s world, but still asking the kinds of questions that have always made this genre powerful. With your “GTA” roots, obvious comparisons are already being drawn between the style and aesthetic of that franchise and “MindsEye.” Comparisons will always be made—it’s the way human beings pigeonhole concepts. But “MindsEye” isn’t built to fit into anyone else’s box. Many games share the same core elements: cars, guns, cities, and charismatic characters, and differentiation is even tougher in today’s entertainment landscape. Streaming, social media, and on-demand binge culture have fractured attention spans, and consumer mindshare is a brutal battlefield for all IP. Our industry continues to celebrate each other’s breakthroughs, and I’m proud that our collective innovation is advancing the medium of gaming, even if our paths diverge. As an independent studio we have the freedom to break ground in experimental new ways and the challenge is balancing innovation with familiarity—too much “new” risks alienating fans, too much “same” feels stale. It’s about nailing what makes your game’s world feel alive and urgent. “MindsEye” is about consequence and connection—it’s cinematic, reactive, and meant to feel like a world you’re not just playing in, but able to create in it too. We’re excited to see what they’ve crafted with “GTA VI ,” and I can’t wait to play it as a consumer for the first time. They’re always delivering something new, unique and at a scale that very few can pull off. What does MindsEye represent in BARB’s larger vision and long-term strategy? Are you plotting this out as a multi-game franchise or your first standalone? At Build A Rocket Boy, our vision goes far beyond a single title. “MindsEye” is the first episode and central story around which ever-expanding interconnected episodes will span. We’re already working on future episodes, which will introduce alternate realities while maintaining it’s core themes of hope, redemption, and the intrigue of civilizations past and future, drawing from the lore and multiverse concepts. It’s the future of entertainment to allow active participation so players feel like they have agency and can immerse themselves in our world as they want to. We are introducing three products in one game that will revolutionize AAA-quality interactive gaming and storytelling: “MindsEye” narrative story, Play.MindsEye, and Build.MindsEye. In our tightly crafted action-noir, “MindsEye” narrative story we have rips in time accessed through portals at strategic points throughout the game – so while you play as Jacob Diaz on his personal journey, players can also explore side stories and delve deeper into the backstories of characters they encounter along the way. In this way we are delivering companion content at the same time as the anchor content, weaving a rich narrative tapestry which will continue to evolve and expand giving greater depth to characters so you understand their personality and motivations. How do digital products Play.MindsEye (formerly named Arcadia) and Build.MindsEye (formerly Everywhere) tie in to plans for “MindsEye” and what BARB wants to offer gamers? In this new era of entertainment, where streaming platforms, boom-and-bust games, and an on-demand culture dominate, we’re pushing things in a new direction—with an interface that simplifies how we consume not just games, but all forms of entertainment. Consumers are moving away from 2D browsing into fully 3D, immersive experiences. Put simply, we’re shifting from passive interaction to active participation. As with all new products, things evolve. Arcadia was originally envisioned as our creation platform, but as we continued developing “MindsEye” and building out BARB’s ecosystem, it naturally grew into something more focused— Play.MindsEye and Build.MindsEye. Play delivers cinematic, high-intensity gameplay with missions and maps that constantly evolve. Build gives players intuitive tools to create their own content—no technical skills required, just imagination and intent. For BARB to fully realize our vision, we had to beta test our creation system with a community of builders in real-time and started with Everywhere while we were in stealth mode developing MindsEye. How did you settle on IOI as publishing partner? We’ve always found the way IOI handled the “Hitman” franchise interesting. They are one of the few publishers that have taken their single-player IP and increased their player count and amplified their community culture over time. From a technology point of view, their one executable approach for all of their content is very smart, and we always planned to have a similar approach, which encouraged us to join forces. This interview has been edited and condensed.

A US Air Force F-16 fighter jet takes off from an airbase in Germany. Photo by Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images 2025-05-31T12:20:02Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? A Russian company said it paid 12 soldiers a combined $195,000 for shooting down an F-16 jet. Fores said it presented the soldiers the cash at a ceremony near the Russia-Ukraine border on Thursday. Kyiv had long coveted the US-made F-16. It received its first of the jets in 2024. A Russian oil company said it had awarded a total of 15 million rubles (around $195,000) to Russian soldiers who it credited with downing the first US-made F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine.In a press release, Fores, a fracking parts manufacturer, said it had presented 12 servicemen with the cash at a ceremony near the Russia-Ukraine border on Thursday."Fores fulfilled its earlier promise and paid 15 million rubles to Russian servicemen for destroying the first F-16 fighter jet in the special operation zone," the company said.The firm announced the bounty system in 2023, promising cash rewards for soldiers who destroyed certain Western-supplied military equipment.The company said it had so far paid out just over 52 million rubles (around $670,000) for the destruction of the F-16 and an unspecified number of Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long coveted the F-16 as he sought to bolster Ukraine's air defenses, and Kyiv received its first delivery of the jet in the summer of 2024. Ukraine's forces have so far lost at least three F-16s in combat, with the General Staff confirming the first loss in August last year.The F-16 has nevertheless seemingly proved a hit over the battlefield.Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the US's top general in Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in April that F-16s were flying "every day" in Ukraine and that they had been successful in both air defense and offensive operations."They've defeated a large number of cruise missile threats, and they've delivered an awful lot of offensive attacks as well," he said, adding: "Specifically, bombing attacks in the east."

The Mission: Impossible franchise is built on intense Tom Cruise stares, convoluted plot twists and reveals, and incredible stunts. It is not, however, built on compelling stories. Most of the Mission movies are about rogue agents and ill-defined MacGuffins, a repetition that would be annoying if anyone cared about the plots. However, lack of plot clarity does not equate to lack of tension. Most of the movies feature excellent villains who make life difficult for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and force him to do incredible feats, resulting in the stunts we all love so much. So as the franchise winds down (maybe) with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, let’s take a look at the best of the worst: the villains who literally drove Ethan Hunt up a wall or into a giant turbine or hanging from a biplane. Point of clarity, first. While the series does have some fun henchmen like Paris (Pom Klementieff) and some stories have shadowy baddies pulling the strings, such as duplicitous IMF director John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) or the Entity, we’re just looking at main bad guys here, the people who dare to match wills with Ethan Hunt. 7. Sean Ambrose (Mission: Impossible II) Mission: Impossible II almost killed the franchise in its infancy. It seemed like a good idea to bring on director John Woo, a Hong Kong auteur with just as much style as the first film’s director, Brian De Palma. Furthermore, Woo and screenwriter Robert Towne (a Hollywood legend who co-wrote the first movie) base their story on the Alfred Hitchcock movie Notorious, casting Thandiwe Newton in place of Ingrid Bergman as the untrustworthy spy who captures our hero’s heart. The combination proved disastrous. Woo’s melodramatic method clashed with underdeveloped characterizations, a problem particularly clear with M:I2‘s central antagonist, former IMF agent Sean Ambrose, played by Dougray Scott. The legend of how Scott, the first person cast to play Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, lost the role because of an on-set injury has been told time and again, overshadowing the worse insult, that he’s quite badly used in this movie. Ambrose is intended to be Hunt’s dark double, so much so that he begins the film masquerading as Cruise’s character. But he never has the intensity nor the charisma of his enemy, too often coming off as a sulking man-child than anyone who could threaten Hunt, let alone the world. 6. Kurt Hendricks (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) Kurt Hendricks, aka Cobalt, is so much better in conception than in execution. Played by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, Hendricks is exactly the type of antagonist who should challenge Ethan Hunt. A true believer in a nihilistic ideology, Hendricks wants to spark a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. That extremist belief gives the IMF no choice but to engage in the sort of over-the-top action that makes the franchise so special. The threat posed by Hendricks might send Ethan scaling the Birge Kalifa, but as a person, he’s a nothing onscreen. Nyqvist knows how to play menace, as demonstrated in his many genre roles in his native Sweden, or in American movies like John Wick, but he has nothing to do here but glower. Worse, he’s overshadowed by his minion Sabine (Léa Seydoux), whose personal connection to Hunt’s colleague Jane Carter (Paula Patton) gives her an edge that Hendricks never achieves. The main antagonist of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, the agent known only as Gabriel (Esai Morales) is set up as Ethan Hunt’s greatest foil. Not only does he apparently have espionage skills even greater than those of our hero, but he was directly responsible for Ethan joining IMF. We learn that Gabriel killed Ethan’s girlfriend Marie and framed him for the murder, which put him on the IMF’s radar. Worse still, Gabriel resurfaces as an acolyte of the all-powerful AI known as the Entity, giving him a driving ethos to match Ethan’s desire to save everyone. On paper there’s nothing wrong with this characterization. In practice it stinks. Dead Reckoning and especially The Final Reckoning suffer from a self-mythologizing that keeps dragging the movie back into the past instead of charging forward, and Gabriel embodies that backwards impulse. Gabriel is given some big moments of evil, directly killing fan favorites Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Morales has fun playing up the villain role, but Gabriel’s worst sin is boring the audience. 4. Jim Phelps (Mission: Impossible) Before we get further, we must be clear: Jim Phelps is a good villain. The fact that he ranks so low here is a testament to the strength of the other baddies, not a knock against Jim. One of the main protagonists of the original 1960s television series (albeit portrayed by Peter Graves instead of Jon Voight), Jim Phelps makes Mission: Impossible into a legacy sequel, connecting the classic series to a new set of heroes. However, Mission: Impossible has a bravery that most legacy sequels lack, turning the former hero into the new villain. Phelps initially seems to die in the attack that takes out most of Hunt’s team at the start of the movie, during a mission that IMF boss Kitteridge later reveals to be a “mole hunt.” However, Phelps returns late in the film as first Ethan’s ally and then his enemy, the true traitor that Kitteridge seeks. Voight brings plenty of gravitas to the role, but he struggles a bit with the stunts at the end—despite the fact that he was 57 when the movie was shot, a year younger than Cruise was when filming on Dead Reckoning began. 3. August Walker (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) Going into Fallout, the buzz was all about the mustache that Henry Cavill grew for the movie. Because he could/would not shave the facial hair for reshoots on Justice League, that movie’s director Joss Whedon had to digitally remove the ‘stache from Cavill’s face, resulting in an infamously absurd looking Superman. It seemed like a petty move at the time, but once we all saw Fallout, we got it. The mustache looks amazing and deserves to stay. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The mustache is important because it sums up Cavill’s character August Walker. Described as a “blunt instrument” assigned to work with (read: spy on) Hunt for CIA Director Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), Walker proves to be a force of nature who is just as destructive as our hero. Even before he’s revealed to be the malevolent John Lark, the man who the IMF sought in Rogue Nation, Walker proves a credible threat to Ethan. He’s ready to pummel our hero to death at any second—and he looks great doing it. 2. Owen Davian (Mission: Impossible III) For all of the death-defying derring-do in the Mission: Impossible franchise, it’s notable that the scariest moment comes not during one of Ethan Hunt’s feats, but in a line of dialogue. When arms dealer Owen Davian wakes up to discover he’s been captured by IMF, he ignores Ethan’s questions and blithely asks some of his own: “Do you have a wife, a girlfriend? Because you know what I’m gonna do next? I’m gonna find her… and I’m gonna hurt her.” It’s not so much the specific words that Davian says that send a chill down the spine. It’s the way that they’re delivered, completely without passion. Of course Davian is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest actors of his generation. Hoffman’s ability to play cool and controlled (and, in one memorable scene, play the ever-energetic Ethan Hunt disguised as Davian) elevates the otherwise mundane J.J. Abrams-directed third film. In fact, Hoffman brings so much to the part that it’s hard to notice how bland the writing of Davian is, a demerit that knocks him to second place despite the utterly mesmerizing performance. 1. Solomon Lane (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) Owen Davian may talk about killing Ethan’s loved ones, but Solomon Lane actually almost did it. The pure sorrow and terror on sweet Benji’s face when he reveals the bomb strapped to his chest tells us more about Lane’s capacity for evil than any of Davian’s monologues could do. In fact, Lane encapsulates everything about the franchise’s past baddies, perfecting everything they tried to do. He has Davian’s quiet menace, the espionage skills of Gabriel and Ambrose, and he has the twisted worldview of Hendricks. By the time he sends a bomb to the worksite of Ethan’s estranged wife Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) out of pure pettiness, Lane even develops a personal animosity like Phelps. Much of the credit goes to Sean Harris, who uses his raspy voice and dark eyes to enhance the malevolence. So much of the Mission: Impossible franchise rests on Cruise’s gift of being earnest on camera, looking out from the screen with yearning blue eyes and a furrowed brow to convince viewers that he can do whatever he intends to do. Harris’ eyes do the exact opposite. When he looks out from the screen, we see pools of blackness, drowning us in nothingness. If Hunt is, as IMF Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) memorably put it, “the living manifestation of destiny,” then Lane is truly the opposite; the living manifestation of nihilism.

poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 I was listening to Brian Shea's Zelda series recap podcast and thought dang, I really like this. I remember the split timeline being a big point of contention when Nintendo first announced it. And the second split into a THIRD timeline was also fun to witness. It makes sense to me that Ocarina was such a pivotal moment in time that it could spawn multiple possible realities. Shea said something like is there a timeline where a simple bokoblin killed Link? Probably! I'd love to see that timeline. I hope they make it even more crazy. I haven't seen where Echoes of Wisdom lives, but I hope it's super weird. Also! Apparently the Ganon at the end of Wind Waker is gone-gone. What a cool way to go. Probably my favorite ending of any Zelda game. Anyway I sure would like to read y'alls thoughts on whether the split timelines are good or not, and of course thoughts on the timelines themselves  blueredandgold Member Oct 25, 2017 8,679 Quick question off the top - that image was only ever sighted at PAX Aus correct?   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 blueredandgold said: Quick question off the top - that image was only ever sighted at PAX Aus correct? Click to expand... Click to shrink... As far as I know, yeah. I'm not sure if it's official official.   Stencil Mailing His Own Damn Business Member Oct 30, 2017 13,549 USA There was ONE brief moment where I sort of bothered to think about it -- hard enough to mentally map each game I'd played into it -- and it amounted to an entire "Huh, that's kind of neat" and I immediately moved on and never thought about it again. I don't think Nintendo even really cares that much about it, therefore it's not a topic of discussion I ever engage in. I feel like it's such an obvious afterthought. If the creators don't care why would I?  StephenNotStrange Member Jan 16, 2019 784 blueredandgold said: Quick question off the top - that image was only ever sighted at PAX Aus correct? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah, but a very similar one which show where BotW and TotK is already on the Zelda's JP website long ago.  Sandstar Member Oct 28, 2017 8,165 I guess the part I don't like is that the original legend of zelda is from the "bad" timeline.   Walpurgisnacht Member May 7, 2020 1,724 I think the only people that get super passionate and heated and can never shut up about it are timeline-haters. Aside from that it's fine. It's something Miyamoto and Aonuma have been alluding to in interviews since the 90's.  Cheesy Member Oct 30, 2017 2,565 I feel like it doesn't really add anything and I honestly forget it exists most of the time.   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 Has anyone read the manga series? Does it go into timeline split shenanigans?   RagnarokX Member Oct 26, 2017 17,710 I wouldn't call it convoluted. Before BotW only like 3 games didn't fit nicely. I never got why people act like you have to put effort to understand it and got so heated at anyone discussing it. What we had before is certainly preferable to the irreverent JJ Abrams mystery box style they're going for now with BotW where they can't even keep things coherent between direct sequels.   EllipsisBreak One Winged Slayer Member Aug 6, 2019 2,274 poptire said: Has anyone read the manga series? Does it go into timeline split shenanigans? Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'm no expert, but I've seen some images of the Twilight Princess one and it's definitely a factor there.   Zyrokai Member Nov 1, 2017 5,214 Columbus, Ohio I love it.   PAFenix Unshakable Resolve Member Nov 21, 2019 20,137 I love it! poptire said: Has anyone read the manga series? Does it go into timeline split shenanigans? Click to expand... Click to shrink... The bits I read of the old manga kinda goes into each game as it's own separate one-off or story. But most of those were, at the most, 2 volumes. Dunno about the Twilight Princess manga, since that actually goes up to ELEVEN. I wouldn't be surprised if it does make hints towards it, because of the Hero Shade.  Tom Nook Says... Member Jan 15, 2019 7,406 The fact that Nintendo themselves don't care a whole lot about it is what makes it fun. The holes and loose connections are where the theorizing happens. If it was overly-detailed and concrete there wouldn't be much to talk about.   The Adder Member Oct 25, 2017 20,609 It's legitimately fun to talk about and piece together. Especially when you think of it from the perspective that Nintendo themselves don't make games based on where they want to fill in the timeline, but make the game they want and then figure out what to do about placement. That makes theorizing so much more fun because it could still be liquid even after release.   Angst Member Oct 27, 2017 4,306 I think it sucks and choose to ignore it.   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 EllipsisBreak said: I'm no expert, but I've seen some images of the Twilight Princess one and it's definitely a factor there. Click to expand... Click to shrink... PAFenix said: I love it! The bits I read of the old manga kinda goes into each game as it's own separate one-off or story. But most of those were, at the most, 2 volumes. Dunno about the Twilight Princess manga, since that actually goes up to ELEVEN. I wouldn't be surprised if it does make hints towards it, because of the Hero Shade. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The Hero Shade stuff is super interesting to me. That's Adult Link from OoT, right? Except he's all messed up and battle scarred. I'd like to see that story   Rockodile Member Dec 7, 2018 1,256 I think it's pretty fun, and it's easy to ignore if you don't care. Don't understand why some people get so pissed off about it.   SupersonicHypertonic Member Apr 20, 2022 3,530 Yeah I really like it in theory but over the years it's it's kinda just there and Nintendo didn't utilise it properly. There's 3 lines but in practice there's very little actual reasons to games within the same line. MM and TP are in the same line but there's very little convergence for them, the hero shade was never confirmed in game to be the hero time and even after it was in Historia it still doesn't explain what happened to Link after MM. For all we know he had another adventure in Disney world in between lol. In the downfall line a lot of the games repeat the same story of Ganon being resurrected in the same as if no one learns the lesson to fully kill him for good. I wish games had stronger connections to one another without needing direct sequels. My biggest peeve is Nintendo tried to be clever with the creation of downfall timeline but they fucked everything up instead. If a time like can be created because Link dies then literally EVERY SINGLE GAME has at least 2 endings - Link lives and saves the world continuing the same line or Link dies and Ganon wins or someone else seals him which creates a 2nd parallel line. Now with BOTW and TOTK it seems it's a reboot which basically creates a multiverse now. Or knowing Nintendo they'll somehow fit in a really awkward way.  Aiqops Uncle Works at Nintendo Member Aug 3, 2021 19,387 Couldn't care less about trying to find connections between the games. To me they are all standalone.   EllipsisBreak One Winged Slayer Member Aug 6, 2019 2,274 poptire said: The Hero Shade stuff is super interesting to me. That's Adult Link from OoT, right? Except he's all messed up and battle scarred. I'd like to see that story Click to expand... Click to shrink... I don't have all the context, but... yeah. This is a thing.   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 SupersonicHypertonic said: Yeah I really like it in theory but over the years it's it's kinda just there and Nintendo didn't utilise it properly. There's 3 lines but in practice there's very little actual reasons to games within the same line. MM and TP are in the same line but there's very little convergence for them, the hero shade was never confirmed in game to be the hero time and even after it was in Historia it still doesn't explain what happened to Link after MM. For all we know he had another adventure in Disney world in between lol. In the downfall line a lot of the games repeat the same story of Ganon being resurrected in the same as if no one learns the lesson to fully kill him for good. I wish games had stronger connections to one another without needing direct sequels. My biggest peeve is Nintendo tried to be clever with the creation of downfall timeline but they fucked everything up instead. If a time like can be created because Link dies then literally EVERY SINGLE GAME has at least 2 endings - Link lives and saves the world continuing the same line or Link dies and Ganon wins or someone else seals him which creates a 2nd parallel line. Now with BOTW and TOTK it seems it's a reboot which basically creates a multiverse now. Or knowing Nintendo they'll somehow fit in a really awkward way. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I completely understand the frustration. I like to believe the OoT split happened because that singular moment in time was special. Like how Doc Brown believes there's something about November 5, 1955 that makes it cosmically important.   Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,072 North Carolina I love the Zelda timeline and talking about it and fuck the haters. There IS a timeline no matter how much you don't like it it's fun and I like fun. Same reason I fuckin love Kingdom Hearts. There's just so much to talk about when a new game hits.   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 EllipsisBreak said: I don't have all the context, but... yeah. This is a thing. Click to expand... Click to shrink... That rules regardless of the context   Ashes of Dreams Fallen Guardian of Unshakable Resolve Member May 22, 2020 19,693 I used to be VERY into the Zelda timeline and lore talk. This was mostly pre-Historia though, where the only evidence we had were from the games themselves and a few random interviews and developer comments. Like we'd known since way back that the ending of OoT depicted a split timeline and they confirmed on Twilight Princess' release that it was on the timeline opposite of Wind Waker. But how it all connected was more up in the air and the games often had hints like suggesting how the Temple of Time was over time overgrown and fallen apart in TP, suggesting an in-between state of OoT and ALttP. Hyrule Historia changed things. I thought it was a bit of a cop-out to shove all the old games without much story into a new third timeline. It clearly wasn't the intention when those games were made. But it was still mostly fine. I was still into it because it at least meant that they were going to open themselves up to interacting with the timeline more in the future. Now that it was set in stone, we could play with it... And then they just threw it all away one game later. I cannot stand the whole "well, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are their own thing" angle. Especially when those games are FILLED with references and call-backs to prior games. They want to have their cake and eat it too with this stuff but in my view it's completely undermined any legitimacy the timeline could have had. They clearly don't care. So, I'm kinda out now. Which hurts to say because this stuff really mattered to me when I was younger. But the series has just gone in a direction away from me in so many ways nowadays.  Soapbox Member Oct 28, 2017 33,865 I adore it and have wild thoughts and ideas about all the different options, mainly how Skyward Sword has at least 3 time line splints unto itself. The robots from another timeline with the time shift stones are probably from the future and not the past. Also they make another timeline when they defeat The Imprisoned in the future then go back in time and defeat Demise.  J_ToSaveTheDay "This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance Avenger Oct 25, 2017 22,546 USA It's a fun and weird thing for Nintendo to put together and to think about as a fan, but it's not a point of importance to my personal enjoyment of the franchise.   Chemo Member Oct 28, 2017 1,283 No.   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 Ashes of Dreams said: I used to be VERY into the Zelda timeline and lore talk. This was mostly pre-Historia though, where the only evidence we had were from the games themselves and a few random interviews and developer comments. Like we'd known since way back that the ending of OoT depicted a split timeline and they confirmed on Twilight Princess' release that it was on the timeline opposite of Wind Waker. But how it all connected was more up in the air and the games often had hints like suggesting how the Temple of Time was over time overgrown and fallen apart in TP, suggesting an in-between state of OoT and ALttP. Hyrule Historia changed things. I thought it was a bit of a cop-out to shove all the old games without much story into a new third timeline. It clearly wasn't the intention when those games were made. But it was still mostly fine. I was still into it because it at least meant that they were going to open themselves up to interacting with the timeline more in the future. Now that it was set in stone, we could play with it... And then they just threw it all away one game later. I cannot stand the whole "well, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are their own thing" angle. Especially when those games are FILLED with references and call-backs to prior games. They want to have their cake and eat it too with this stuff but in my view it's completely undermined any legitimacy the timeline could have had. They clearly don't care. So, I'm kinda out now. Which hurts to say because this stuff really mattered to me when I was younger. But the series has just gone in a direction away from me in so many ways nowadays. Click to expand... Click to shrink... My hope is that either this movie (possible trilogy?) coming out they'll finally start to make a concrete timeline that, I PRAY, is still insane.   eamono Member Nov 17, 2020 341 honestly I always thought that the 3d games have a coherent timeline and they kinda mucked it up by jamming the 2d games in. I'm down for some timeline discussion but I think some of the games like zelda 2 or the capcom ones just kinda obviously werent made with the timeline in mind and its just kinda not fun to discuss. its very telling that the "hero fails" timeline off OOT is just filled with the games that dont actually fit in the 2 that make sense the 3d games for sure have an intended timeline though, and every question about how BOTW being at the end of both child and adult timelines could easily be fixed with a lore dump or a new game  JasperMyst Powered by Friendship™ Member Sep 25, 2023 805 If it means we get creative stuff like tears of the kingdom and majoras mask I'm all for it. Actually thanks for reminding me starting Majora's Mask for the vibes.  Giga Man One Winged Slayer Member Oct 27, 2017 23,197 I thought it was weird Nintendo would put one out in the first place, but nowadays, I don't really care. I thought Nintendo had abandoned it anyway.   Grunty Member Oct 28, 2017 10,029 Gruntilda’s Lair I LOVE the timeline and think it's mostly pretty straight forward. It's not really complicated. The one thing I look forward to anytime a new Zelda game is its timeline placement. I get so much more enjoyment out of the games thanks to it. Also, don't want to spoil Echoes of Wisdom for anyone, but its placement and how a portion of the story of that game answers something about the timeline that was never really being asked to begin with was really darn cool. Something new to think about now when playing the games, particularly Ocarina of Time.  Houtarou Oreki Member Dec 31, 2021 99 poptire said: I hope they make it even more crazy. I haven't seen where Echoes of Wisdom lives, but I hope it's super weird. Click to expand... Click to shrink... According to the official Zelda site, they put it in the Hero Defeated branch, just after Tri-Force Heroes and before the big gap leading to the original NES Zelda. HISTORY | Zelda Portal | Nintendo Introducing the history of Hyrule, the setting for The Legend of the Zelda series. www.nintendo.com   JasperMyst Powered by Friendship™ Member Sep 25, 2023 805 Giga Man said: I thought it was weird Nintendo would put one out in the first place, but nowadays, I don't really care. I thought Nintendo had abandoned it anyway. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They haven't which is quite hilarious but I'll take it 😂   Neutron Member Jun 2, 2022 3,531 Sandstar said: I guess the part I don't like is that the original legend of zelda is from the "bad" timeline. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I agree - although not so much about the idea of a "bad timeline", but just that it kinda makes it... non-canonical? Link could fail at any point, creating other failure timelines. So why is this one somehow a "real" timeline and not just a what-if like any other point of failure?  Sandstar Member Oct 28, 2017 8,165 Neutron said: I agree - although not so much about the idea of a "bad timeline", but just that it kinda makes it... non-canonical? Link could fail at any point, creating other failure timelines. So why is this one somehow a "real" timeline and not just a what-if like any other point of failure? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah, i guess that's what I mean, it's non-canon. It just kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  SupersonicHypertonic Member Apr 20, 2022 3,530 poptire said: I completely understand the frustration. I like to believe the OoT split happened because that singular moment in time was special. Like how Doc Brown believes there's something about November 5, 1955 that makes it cosmically important. Click to expand... Click to shrink... That could be a solution why OoT creates a split but since there isn't a reason you could easily argue other games are special and could/should timelines. SS has stupid time travel at the end where Link destroys the present imprisoned (AKA Demise) using the Triforce but also goes back in time to destroy Demise.....so how can the present imprisoned exist? Surely that could create 2 timelines (or 3 if Link dies) especially as this Link is the first to use the Triforce and this Zelda is the direct reincarnation of Hylia so they should have special privileges. Zelda team needs a few people to say the very least get the skeleton of the timeline to make sense and not contradict itself at times.  Last edited: Yesterday at 10:03 PM StraySheep It's Pronounced "Aerith" Member Oct 26, 2017 9,157 Rockodile said: I think it's pretty fun, and it's easy to ignore if you don't care. Don't understand why some people get so pissed off about it. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Same  OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 A good way to "fix" the timeline(s) is to say it's all based on in-continuity folklore and hearsay, so any errors or impossibilities it has are entirely man-made, as the citizens of Hyrule who are trying to figure it out also don't really know.   WhiteRabbitEXE Member Oct 25, 2017 15,094 Arizona Literally my only issue is the failed hero timeline. It's just so, so silly. But whatever, it's not a big deal lol   Jane Member Oct 17, 2018 1,626 The problem isn't the complexity. The problem is that Nintendo clearly didn't give a fuck about the lore being consistent or the stories connecting outside of direct sequels when they made the games, but they're now trying to pretend after the fact that it's all connected. The "doomed" timeline has never been hinted at and came out of nowhere.   Berordn One Winged Slayer Member Oct 26, 2017 10,711 NoVA poptire said: A good way to "fix" the timeline(s) is to say it's all based on in-continuity folklore and hearsay, so any errors or impossibilities it has are entirely man-made, as the citizens of Hyrule who are trying to figure it out also don't really know. Click to expand... Click to shrink... this has always been how i've viewed it the timelines existing is whatever, but the actual games are retellings and reinterpretations of legends and i think that's more fun than having a strictly true history to look at  Boopers Member Nov 1, 2020 4,358 Vermont usa I came in here to endorse Tingle, and the poll choices did not leave me disappointed. 🫡   OP OP poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 15,552 Berordn said: this has always been how i've viewed it the timelines existing is whatever, but the actual games are retellings and reinterpretations of legends and i think that's more fun than having a strictly true history to look at Click to expand... Click to shrink... This kinda thing has always been enjoyable to me. And it can explain away literally any holes in any story. The magic bullet / infinite crutch of storytelling. George RR Martin should take notes. Boopers said: I came in here to endorse Tingle, and the poll choices did not leave me disappointed. 🫡 Click to expand... Click to shrink... Tingle Team represent  Servbot24 The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 47,579 It's fine. I don't really want a precise timeline of events. General allusions to a mystical history is better.   TheNormalMan Member Oct 27, 2017 149 Los Angeles, CA I love it and have always loved it. I never understood why people hated on it so much. You can just ignore it. When they revealed the downfall timeline in HH I thought it genius. It essentially established a way to justify any storyline moving forward. It also gave people more to talk about. And adjust their theories. There are still plenty of mysteries in the timeline—particularly in the BOTW/TotK area. I know they separated them but they can always add to it. Also, I know they never go into games with story in mind, but eventually the mechanics of a game might sync of pretty well with a specific area of the timeline. I love story heavy Zelda's. They don't all need to be that way but variety is the spice of life.  Hambulance Member Oct 30, 2017 2,296 I am ready for Into the Zeldaverse   Lump One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 18,210 It does nothing for me, but I do highly enjoy watching others try and piece together the timeline, it is like watching non-problematic flat earth discourse from afar.   Tathanen One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 7,176 WhiteRabbitEXE said: Literally my only issue is the failed hero timeline. It's just so, so silly. But whatever, it's not a big deal lol Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's weird and I'm not a huge fan, they had to contend with the fact that while there are multiple timelines the LTTP branch is a separate canon, not a timeline. So I can understand the logic of basing it on a What If scenario, particularly since OOT kinda straddles the two. In their shoes tho I'd have probably just called those games "old legends of Hyrule" or something and not tried to draw a line between them and the rest. To the thread question: yes the timeline is my life. 

Doom: The Dark Ages just launched on May 15. But it's already received "difficulty" balance changes "that have made the demons of Hell even more dangerous than ever," writes Windows Central: According to DOOM's official website Slayer's Club, these balance adjustments are focused on making the game harder, as players have been leaving feedback saying it felt too easy even on Nightmare Mode. As a result, enemies now hit harder, health and armor item pick-ups drop less often, and certain enemies punish you more severely for mistiming the parry mechanic. It reached three million players in just five days, which was seven times faster than 2020's Doom: Eternal," reports Wccftech (though according to analytics firm Ampere Analysis (via The Game Business), more than two million of those three million launch players were playing on Xbox, while only 500K were playing on PS5.") "id Software proves it can still reinvent the wheel," according to one reviewer, "shaking up numerous aspects of gameplay, exchanging elaborate platforming for brutal on-the-ground action, as well as the ability to soar on a dragon's back or stomp around in a giant mech." And the New York Times says the game "effectively reinvents the hellish shooter with a revamped movement system and deepened lore" in the medieval goth-themed game... Double jumping and dashing are ditched and replaced with an emphasis on raw power and slow, strategic melee combat. Doom Slayer's arsenal features a brand-new tool, the powerful Shield Saw, which Id Software made a point to showcase across its "Stand and Fight" trailers and advertisements. Used for absorbing damage at the expense of speed, the saw also allows players to bash enemies from afar and close the gap on chasms too wide to jump across. While previous titles allowed players to quickly worm their way through bullet hell, The Dark Ages expects you to meet foes head on. "If you were an F-22 fighter jet in Doom Eternal, this time around we wanted you to feel like an Abrams tank," Hugo Martin, the game's creative director, has told journalists. And Doom Slayer's beefy durability and unstoppable nature does make the gameplay a refreshing experience. The badassery is somehow ratcheted to new heights with the inclusion of a fully controllable mech, which has only a handful of attacks at its disposal, and actual dragons. Flight in a Doom game is entirely surprising and fluid, and the dragons feel relatively easy to maneuver through tight spots. They can also engage in combat more deliberately with the use of dodges and mounted cannons... One of my favorite additions is the skullcrusher pulverizer. Equal parts heinous nutcracker and demonic woodchipper, the gun lodges skulls into a grinder and sends shards of bones flying at enemies. The animation is both goofy and satisfying. Another special Times article notes that Doom's fans "resurrect the original game over and over again on progressively stranger pieces of hardware: a Mazda Miata, a NordicTrack treadmill, a French pharmacy sign." But what many hard-core tech hobbyists want to know is whether you can play it on a pregnancy test. The answer: positively yes. And for the first time, even New York Times readers can play Doom within The Times's site [after creating a free account]... None of this happened by accident, of course. Ports were not incidental to Doom's development. They were a core consideration. "Doom was developed in a really unique way that lent a high degree of portability to its code base," said John Romero, who programmed the game with John Carmack. (In our interview, he then reminisced about operating systems for the next 14 minutes.) Id had developed Wolfenstein 3D, the Nazi-killing predecessor to Doom, on PCs. To build Doom, Carmack and Romero used NeXT, the hardware and software company founded by Steve Jobs after his ouster from Apple in 1985. NeXT computers were powerful, selling for about $25,000 apiece in today's dollars. And any game designed on that system would require porting to the more humdrum PCs encountered by consumers at computer labs or office jobs. This turned out to be advantageous because Carmack had a special aptitude for ports. All of Id's founders met as colleagues at Softdisk, which had hired Carmack because of his ability to spin off multiple versions of a single game. The group decided to strike out on its own after Carmack created a near-perfect replica of the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3 — Nintendo's best-selling platformer — on a PC. It was a wonder of software engineering that compensated for limited processing power with clever workarounds. "This is the thing that everyone has," Romero said of PCs. "The fact that we could figure out how to make it become a game console was world changing...." Romero founded a series of game studios after leaving Id in 1996 and is working on a new first-person shooter, the genre he and Carmack practically invented. He has no illusions about how it may stack up. "I absolutely accept that Doom is the best game I'll ever make that has that kind of a reach," he said. "At some point you make the best thing." Thirty years on, people are still making it. And in related news, PC Gamer reports... As part of a new "FPS Fridays" series on Twitch, legendary shooter designer John Romero streamed New Blood's 2018 hit, Dusk, one of the first and most influential indie "boomer shooters" in the genre's recent revitalization. The short of it? Romero seems to have had a blast. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After spending several months doing not much besides watching Tom Cruise movies, I now spend a lot of time wondering about Tom Cruise running. The Mission: Impossible star is a high-cadence runner. He’s famously short of stature, low to the ground and with short legs. But that build is perfect for cinema, because those arms swing and those legs churn and convey a viscerality, a violence, a constant labored activity that translates perfectly to the screen. What they convey is a man of action, a man summoning all of his energy and will in a single direction: to move as quickly as he can. What is he thinking about when he’s running? I like to think the answer is nothing. That Tom Cruise is able to empty his head when he runs, blanking out his career, his cultural meaning, his past and present personal relationships, and move in a state of pure being. Maybe he’s doing one of his infamous stunts, a run towards a large dangerous vehicle, or off the side of a cliff. Maybe that makes him run faster. Maybe he feels a drive toward oblivion (and for Oblivion), to make the ultimate sacrifice to cinema, resulting in a cultural afterlife even longer than eternal stardom allows. This, in many ways, has been Tom Cruise’s career-long relationship with action movies. They’re his port in the storm, a safe harbor, a place to go and find love and acceptance when there seemingly is none to be had elsewhere. When the press is digging into your religion or snickering about your failed marriages or accusing you of being awkward or crazy or scary, you can find refuge in a MacGuffin to track down, a bad guy’s plot to foil, a world to save. The challenge each writer and director must face is how to handle Cruise’s well-known persona. Do they lean in or subvert? And to what end? When gifted with perhaps the most charismatic, committed movie star ever, are you willing to grapple with this stardom, how it explains the actor at a given point in his career, and what our response to him means? Or do you run? The following is a ranking of Tom Cruise’s greatest action films. In the interest of gimmicky symmetry, we’ve once again capped ourselves at 26 titles. We didn’t cheat… much. The films below all contain shootouts, fistfights, corpses, and missile crises. Most importantly, they are (mostly) tense, suspenseful, violent, escapist popcorn, not to be confused with the other half of Cruise’s equation: the pool-playing, the bartending, the litigating, and the deeply felt character work with auteurs, intended to get him the ultimate prize, which has eluded him for nearly half a century. Let’s run the numbers. 26. Valkyrie (2008) Director: Bryan SingerWhere to watch: Free on Pluto TV, Kanopy, Hoopla You could make a decent argument that this piece of shit doesn’t even belong on this list. It’s mostly a plodding chamber drama about “good Germans” ineffectually plotting to not kill Hitler at the end of World War II. But there’s an explosion, a dull shootout, and a bunch of executions at the end, so it seems to qualify as an action movie. Making Valkyrie is one of the most baffling decisions in Cruise’s entire career. And yet it’s also one of the most important films of his career, one that arguably defines his late period, because it’s how he first met his future M:I steward Christopher McQuarrie. Run report: Ominously, Tom Cruise doesn’t run in this movie.   25. Oblivion (2013) Director: Joseph KosinskiWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Like Valkyrie, Oblivion technically qualifies as an action movie, but there’s little actual action or narrative tension to any of it. Cruise essentially plays the source code for a clone army created by a weird super-intelligence in space that runs Earth via killer droids, and the clones to service them. It comes out of a filmmaking period packed with sci-fi puzzlebox movies that were all atmosphere and often led nowhere, though this is probably the “best” example of that tiresome trend. The silver lining is that, like Valkyrie, this film led to Cruise meeting an important future collaborator: Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Run report: Cruise literally exercises by running on a giant sleek modern hamster wheel in this. It’s the physical manifestation of everything I hate about this film. 24. Legend (1985) Director: Ridley ScottWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple This 1985 fantasy movie has its defenders, but I am not one of them. The action is completely disjointed and chaotic, a fractured fairy tale composed of an incoherent, weird/horny unholy union of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Henson, Peter Greenaway, Ken Russell, and a handful of psilocybin mushrooms. Legend looks like something pieced together by Jack Horner on a camcorder, so it’s hard to fault Cruise for looking clunky and uncomfortable. Who knows what a good performance in that role would look like?  Run report: A lot of odd almost skipping around in this, which adds to the “high school play” quality of the film. Cruise has a proper run toward the end, but it’s not fully baked yet.  23. The Mummy (2017) Director: Alex KurtzmanWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Rewatching 2017’s The Mummy actually made me slightly disappointed we didn’t get the Dark Universe Universal Pictures briefly promised us. The setup had potential: Cruise as Indiana Jones, with Jake Johnson as Short Round and Courtney B. Vance as the archetypal no-bullshit sergeant? Potential. But Alex Kurtzman’s take on Karl Freund’s 1932 Boris Karloff Mummy needed less plot and more screwing around. This is an instance where Spielbergian pacing actually ruins a blockbuster, because it entirely lacks Spielberg Sauce. It becomes a horror movie after the first act, with Cruise as a largely personality-free, mentally unsound Black Swan/Smile protagonist. Then they spend all this time with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, introducing this universe of monsters that never gets off the ground. No fun! Run report: Notable because co-star Annabelle Wallis did a ton of press speaking to how much thought Cruise puts into his on-screen running. She specifically said he initially didn’t want to run on screen with Wallis, because he doesn’t like to share his on-screen run time. He relented, to little effect.  22. Mission: Impossible II (2000) Director: John WooWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Folks, I rewatched this recently. I really wanted to love it because some close and valued colleagues sing its praises, and I love a good, hot contrarian take. Respectfully, I don’t know what the hell they’re on. The camera work in Mission: Impossible II is so berserk, it borders on amateurish. The series hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but not in an interesting exploratory way: This installment is more like trying on a pair of pants that are not your vibe. The idea that Ethan Hunt lost his team in Mission: Impossible and now he’s a broken lone wolf (plus Ving Rhames’ Luther and Thandiwe Newton’s Nyah), an agent with the weight of the world on his shoulders, is not a bad premise. But in the role that ruined his career, Dougray Scott is a wooden, toothless bad guy. And somehow, the stakes feel impossibly low, even with a world-killing bioweapon on the line. Mission: Impossible II does, however, get points for being far and away the horniest movie in the franchise. Run report: Unsurprisingly, Woo is great at filming running, and there’s a lot of clay to work with here: Cruise’s long hair flopping in the wind, slow motion, a rare mid-run mask-rip, the inevitable dove-release: It’s all good! A definitive ranking of love interests and partners in the Mission: Impossible movies 6. Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) in Mission: Impossible5. Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) in Mission: Impossible III and Fallout4. Grace (Hayley Atwell) in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton) in Mission: Impossible II2. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning1. Jane Carter (Paula Patton) in in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 21. American Made (2017) Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple It’s a funny idea: What if Top Gun’s Maverick was a schmuck pilot turned drug-runner? It’s clearly Cruise reaching for a Blow of his own, but decades into this type of narrative, we know the beats by heart. American Made is sorely lacking in depravity. Cruise’s affected good ol’ boy Southern accent both has nothing to do with the film’s disposability, and explains everything. It’s a sanitized drug narrative in which we never see Cruise blow a line or fire a gun. We don’t even see his death on screen — Cruise dying in a movie is a big deal, and has only happened a few times. It’s almost like he knew this nothingburger wasn’t worth the distinction. Run report: Not much running, which is indicative of a larger problem with this film. But at one point, Cruise runs after a car with Caleb Landry Jones in it, and it explodes, in arguably the highlight of the film, for whatever that’s worth.  20. The Last Samurai (2003) Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple The one’s a weird movie about a mercenary who, after participating in the genocide of Native Americans, goes native in 19th-century Japan, in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. But it’s a somewhat unusual approach to the standard Cruise narrative arc. In this, he begins as a broken, drunken husk, a mercenary arm of the growing American empire who belatedly regains his honor by joining up with some samurai. The aspects of that plotline which feel unusual for a Cruise movie don’t make up for all the story elements that have aged terribly, but they’re something.  Run report: Less running than you’d expect, but running with swords while wearing leather samurai armor. 19. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)  Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple A lot of the films in the lower ranks of this list suffer from the problem of filmmakers settling, simply putting Cruise on screen and letting his iconography do the heavy lifting, sans interesting backstory or dialogue. In this sequel, thanks to Lee Child’s blunt dialogue, the deep-state rogue-army plotting in the source material, and Cruise’s typical level of meticulous fight choreo, it’s simply really entertaining, solid, replacement-level action. This sequel to 2012’s Jack Reacher gives the title troubleshooter (played by Cruise) a surrogate daughter and a foil in Cobie Smulders, which is great. But its primary sin is replacing Werner Herzog, the villain from the first movie, with a generic snooze of a bad guy. Run report: Some running and sliding on rooftops with guns, as fireworks go off in the night sky. Impressive for some action movies, a bit ho-hum compared to the bigger hits on this list.  18. Taps (1981) Director: Harold Becker Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Fascinating film. A Toy Soldiers riff interrogating the military-school system, and suggesting that it’s probably not a bad thing that former American ideals like patriotic honor, duty, and masculinity are fading. It’s Cruise’s first major role (with George C.Scott, Sean Penn, and baby Giancarlo Esposito!), and you’ll never believe this, but he plays a tightly wound, thrill-addicted, bloodthirsty maniac. Run report: Great characterization via run here. Cadet Captain David Shawn is a hawkish conservative dick, and Cruise’s running reflects that. He’s stiff, carrying an automatic rifle that he looks like he’s going to start firing wildly at any minute.  17. Mission: Impossible III (2006)  Director: J.J. Abrams Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus In the last Mission: Impossible installment made before the filmmakers really figured out what the series was doing, J.J. Abrams assembles a mostly incoherent, boring clunker that has a few very important grace notes. It’s a film about Ethan Hunt trying to carve out a normal life for himself, with the great Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the bucket of ice water dumped on his domestic fantasy. Hoffman’s Owen Davian is the greatest bad guy in the Cruise filmography, and there’s really no close second. (I suppose, if there was a gun to my head, I would point to Werner Herzog in Jack Reacher, or Jay Mohr in Jerry Maguire.) There are many moments I could point to in Hoffman’s wonderful performance, but the one I’d recommend, if you want to feel something, is when Hoffman gets to play Ethan Hunt playing Owen Davian with a mask on for a few scenes during the Vatican kidnapping, roughly 50 minutes in. He was so fucking great.  Run report: A lot of running, but none of it is very good. No knock on Cruise, but Abrams is doing perfunctory work, shot poorly via shaky cam that has trouble keeping Cruise in the frame, from a perfunctory director making a perfunctory action film. There are two notable exceptions. “The Shanghai Run,” which we may have more on later, and Cruise running straight up a wall. A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible villain performances 10. Dougray Scott in Mission: Impossible II9. Eddie Marsan in Mission: Impossible III8. William Mapother — that’s right, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV’s cousin! — in Mission: Impossible II7. Lea Seydoux in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol6. Sean Harris in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout5. Jean Reno in Mission: Impossible4. Esai Morales/The Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Jon Voight in Mission: Impossible2. Henry Cavill in Mission: Impossible – Fallout1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III 16. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: In theaters The franchise potentially falls with a thud — or is it an AI-generated death fantasy that plays out entirely in Ethan Hunt’s head when he gets trapped in a digital coffin early in the movie? Either way, the resulting film is something the McQuarrie-Cruise collaboration has never been before: clunky and imprecise, a disjointed watch that delivers some high highs, but is unfortunately thin on story. McQuarrie seems unconcerned with character arcs, or any substantive grand narrative that might land in any meaningful way. This movie plays out like an aimless succession of beats, allowing boredom to creep in. That hasn’t been a part of the franchise since M:I 3. It’s a Simpsons clip show masquerading as a Mission: Impossible film, signaling that this iteration of the franchise is exhausted, with little left to say or explore. Perhaps there was no other way for this series to go out than on its back.  Run report: A run through the tunnels to save Luther, oddly reminiscent of the run attempting to save Ilsa Faust, followed by the run out of the tunnels, allowing Ethan to escape the film’s first trap (or does he?) A definitive ranking of Ethan Hunt’s “best friends/allies” (non-love interest/boss division) 17. Wes Bentley16. Greg Tarzan Davis15. Aaron Paul14. Jonathan Rhys Meyers13. Maggie Q12. Shea Whigham11. Hannah Waddington 10. Katy O’Brian9. Pom Klementieff8. Rolf Saxon7. Vanessa Kirby6. Keri Russell5. Simon Pegg4. Jeremy Renner3. Emilio Estevez2. Bogdan (Miraj Grbić)1. Luther (Ving Rhames) 15. War of the Worlds (2005) Director: Steven Spielberg Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus A curious movie I liked better on a rewatch than I did on my initial watch 20 years ago. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is often misremembered as Spielberg’s darkest movie, but I’d argue that War of the Worlds beats it: It’s a divorced-dad-anxiety horror movie that has the most nightmare-inducing, traumatic, post-9/11 visuals in the master’s oeuvre. It can be read as Spielberg wrestling with his relationship with his son Max, who would’ve been around the age of Cruise’s disgruntled, estranged son in the movie. War of the Worlds has issues: Cruise never works when he’s cast in a “just some guy” role, as he’s meant to be here, and the plot goes off the rails in the third act. But it has some of the best set pieces Spielberg ever directed. What will haunt me for the rest of my life is a scene where Cruise’s character is forced to essentially make a Sophie’s Choice between his son and daughter (a great Dakota Fanning), and lets his son go. The ominous music at the end when he’s magically reunited with his son is completely bizarre and unsettling, and I don’t think is meant to be taken at face value.  Run report: This is why Cruise is the king. He’s playing a supposed normal, everyday schmoe in this movie. When you focus on the running, compared to other roles, you can see he’s running like a mechanic who is still a little athletic, but doesn’t know where he’s going, or what is happening from one moment to the next. It’s building character through running. Incredible. 14. Knight and Day (2010) Director: James Mangold  Where to watch: Free on Cinemax; rent on Amazon, Apple Knight and Day is a sneakily important film in the Cruise action canon because it’s the first time a movie really puts Cruise into the role of the creepy, charismatic, psychotically intense, beleaguered, put-upon invincible cartoon character he became in the Mission: Impossible franchise as of Ghost Protocol. This movie is based around a funny idea: It’s basically a Mission: Impossible movie from the perspective of a clueless civilian. It helps that the civilian is phenomenal, physical, funny, and fucking ripped: Cameron Diaz plays the world’s hottest mechanic, and makes me wish she had gotten her own Atomic Blonde-style vehicle. Run report: Some co-running with Cameron Diaz here, which is as you might imagine, is good.  13. The Firm (1993) Director. Sydney PollackWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s easy to put The Firm on a pedestal because of Sydney Pollack, the jazz score, the ’90s outfits, Gene Hackman, and every other significant gravitas-oozing “That Guy” as a mobster, shady lawyer, or Fed in a great “They don’t make them like that anymore” legal thriller. But what really stood out to me on a recent rewatch is this movie is two and a half hours about the now laughably quaint notion of rediscovering purity in the law. It isn’t much more than a story about a shady law firm that gets hit with mail-fraud charges, plus several deaths and a few smartly tied up loose ends. Run report: A clinic in Tom Cruise running, a draft-version highlight reel of his running scenes. In my memory, this contains some of his most iconic early runs, and it signals the moment when “Tom Cruise running” became a whole cultural thing.  12. Top Gun (1986) Director: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Top Gun set the template for Tom Cruise’s on-screen narrative, and it took a decade before filmmakers were willing to start subverting that narrative again. This is straight-up hero porn, without any of the humbling that the sequel eventually dishes out. Tom Cruise as Maverick is the best pilot on Earth. He loses his best friend and co-pilot Goose, due to a combination of a mechanical failure and another pilot’s fuck-up. He then has to find the courage to fly with the exact same lack of inhibition he did at the outset of the film, which he finally does, based on essentially nothing that happens in the plot. Scott makes the wise decision to center the action (or non-action) of the film on pure Cruise charisma and star power, and it works. Run report: Believe it or not, Tom Cruise does not run in this movie.  11. Days of Thunder (1990) Director: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Scott and Cruise’s Top Gun follow-up is essentially Top Gun with cars instead of jets — but yes, it’s marginally better. Why? Because this is a quintessential “We didn’t know how good we had it” classic. It’s the film where Cruise met his future spouse Nicole Kidman on set. Robert Duvall is swigging moonshine. It’s Randy Quaid’s last performance actually based on planet Earth. Plus there’s John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Cary Elwes, Fred Thompson, Margo Martindale, and a rousing Hans Zimmer score. Need I say more? Run report: They cut the climatic race off, but Cruise’s character Cole potentially gets smoked by 59-year-old Robert Duvall?! 10. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023) Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus The metaphor that the Mission: Impossible franchise is a manifestation of Tom Cruise’s deep-seated need to save blockbuster filmmaking and the Hollywood star system has never been more overt. Cruise is literally up against AI, which is always a step ahead of him, dismantling his every gambit. It’s an update/remix of Ghost Protocol’s premise: The only antidote to the world-spanning AI known as The Entity is becoming a refusenik anti-tech Luddite in the spirit of John Henry, and using the raw materials of humanity to defeat an invincible machine.  Run report: Cruise running in confined spaces is a lot of fun, but the heavily CGI’d running up the side of a train losing its battle with gravity isn’t.  A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible MacGuffins 8. Ghost Protocol’s Russian launch codes7. Fallout’s plutonium cores 6. Rogue Nation’s $2.4 billion Syndicate bankroll5. M:I2’s Chimera Virus4. Final Reckoning’s Sevastopol3. M:I’s NOC list 2. Dead Reckoning Part One’s cruciform key1. M:I3’s rabbit’s foot 9. Jack Reacher (2012)  Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I loathe hyperbole: it’s a shortcut for unimaginative writers. I’ve never resorted to it in my entire life. So I hope you’ll take me at my word when I say that this movie is a fucking masterpiece. Amazon’s great Reacher series is made more in the image of Lee Child’s books, with a distinctive breakout lead in Alan Ritchson, who appears to have been designed in a lab to draw striking contrast to Tom Cruise in this role. But Reacher made us forget how good Jack Reacher gets. It’s a perfect elevated action programmer with a remarkable cast: David Oyelowo! Richard Jenkins! Rosamund Pike! A Days of Thunder reunion with Robert Duvall! Werner Herzog showing up in a completely brilliant, bonkers heel turn! McQuarrie made this one in vintage Shane Black ’90s style, with a dash of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. I totally get why Cruise decided to turn his career over to McQuarrie after this. I don’t understand why he didn’t let McQuarrie direct the sequel. Run report: There isn’t much running in this. At one point, Cruise is darting from shelter point to shelter point because a sniper is trying to pick him off, but that’s it. It’s because Jack fucking Reacher doesn’t have to run, which is simply good writing and filmmaking.  8. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)  Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus This film famously opens with Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it takes off. But to me, the key moment comes when he’s broken into the plane, attached himself to a package which isn’t named, but looks like a crate of rockets the size of a minivan. He gives a final raised eyebrow and shrug to a gobsmacked henchman, who watches helplessly as Cruise deploys a parachute and falls out the back of the plane’s cargo bay with a ton of atomic weapons, and no plausible way to land without killing himself and creating a Grand Canyon-sized nuclear crater in Belarus. This scene was practically drawn by Chuck Jones, which sets the tone for a film that repositions Ethan Hunt on the border of superherodom, in a film about Tom Cruise as the literal manifestation of destiny.  It also marks the return of Alec Baldwin, the first (but not last) M:I handler who carried over from one film to the next. Evaluating the handlers’ position in the franchise (see below) is challenging: They’re constantly shifting allegiances, at times working in service of Hunt’s mission, at times in direct opposition to it, either attacking him with governmental red tape, or colluding with nefarious forces. Run report: A lot of different looks when it comes to the running in this. Shirtless running, running with Rebecca Ferguson, running across the wing of a moving plane. It’s all good. A definitive ranking of the “most fun” M:I handlers 6. Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) in Mission: Impossible III5. Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Final Reckoning4. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) in Mission: Impossible3. John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) in Mission: Impossible III2. Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins) in Mission: Impossible II1. Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin*) in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout * One of my only lingering complaints about the M:I movies is that aside from Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, we don’t get enough big family continuity. The Fast & Furious franchise is an exemplar/cautionary tale of how found-family dynamics can be a great source of fun and emotion — and also tank the series, if creators keep piling on new recurring elements. It sounds like Baldwin didn’t want to stay on board, but I would love to live in a world where he didn’t jump ship — or where, say, Henry Cavill’s August Walker joined Ethan’s team at the end of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, as he would have if he’d had a similar role in an F&F installment. 7. Minority Report (2002) Director: Steven SpielbergWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I’m guessing this placement on this ranking will upset some people. I’m surprised it’s this low in the rankings too — but that’s how good the next six films are. And honestly, Minority Report doesn’t hold up as the masterpiece I remember it being. It’s a very cool story. It marks the first fantasy-team matchup of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. They’re adapting a paranoid Philip K. Dick story, and largely delivering on the promise that implies. Minority Report is an inventive, dark, weird future horror movie, made with Spielberg’s standard stunning visual economy. But among the perfect elements in this film, I have to call out some aspects that didn’t age well. Janusz Kaminski’s lighting effects feel like the whole movie is stuck inside an iPod halo. and this dutch-angled high melodrama, sauced with a dash of Terry Gilliam dystopian/gross wackiness, which lends the film a degree of occasionally atonal, squishy gonzo elasticity you’ve likely forgotten.   Run report: Mileage may vary on white pools of light, but running through them in futuristic uniforms is decisively cool.  6. Mission: Impossible (1996) Director: Brian De PalmaWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Because MI:2 and MI:3 struggle with tone (and long, listless patches), and because it’s actually Brad Bird that sets the template for the McQuarrie era of the franchise, you could argue the first Mission: Impossible is the strangest, most personal vision of what this series is and what it can be. DePalma is asserting himself with every practical mask and stylized shot. Your mileage may vary with that approach to what has become this Swiss set piece machine, I love it. A few things stand out nearly three decades on: Of course, how ridiculously young Cruise looks, but perhaps crucially, how collegial, intimate, and even tender the first act is before his first team is eliminated and the movie becomes a DePalma paranoid thriller. It’s an element we never quite get from Mission: Impossible again, one that brings the arc of the franchise into focus and explains Ethan Hunt if you extend continuity: He’s a character betrayed by his father figure and his government in the first film, and spends the rest of the franchise running from this largely unspoken trauma, determined to never let that happen again. In the wake of this, he reluctantly pieces together a life, semblance of a family, and all the risks that come with those personal attachments. In honor of my favorite set piece in any of the films, one of DePalma’s finest taught masterpieces: A definitive ranking of the top 10 M:I set pieces  Honorable Mention: The Sebastopol Extraction- (Tie) The Train Fights– MI:1 & Dead Reckoning 10. The Plane Door- Rogue Nation9. The “Kick In The Head” Russian Jail Break- Ghost Protocol8. The Water Vault Ledger Heist Into The Motorcycle Chase- Rogue Nation7. The Handcuffed Car Chase- Dead Reckoning6. The Red Baron Plane Fight- Final Reckoning5. The Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol4. Kidnapping At The Vatican- MI:33. The Opera House Hit- Rogue Nation2. The Louvre Halo Jump Into the Bathroom Fight- Fallout1. The NOC List Heist- MI:1 Run report: Fitting that this franchise opens with Cruise putting on a running clinic, as that first op falls apart, then of course his run away from Kittridge and the massive fish tank explosion.  5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol  Director: Brad Bird (2011) Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Nothing is working like it’s supposed to. Not the Impossible Mission Force, not the mask machine, not the radio comms, not the magnet gloves keeping Ethan Hunt tethered to the side of the world’s tallest building, not the Mission: Impossible franchise, and not Tom Cruise’s at-the-time fading movie stardom. But somehow, one incredible film made by a career animation director solves all of these problems, by stripping down, getting back to basics and reminding us what we always loved about these films and its star. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise reboot, with Jeremy Renner stepping in. Bird (and McQuarrie, in for a pass at the troubled screenplay and on deck to become Cruise’s Guy For Life) fights this decision off, gets away from trying to figure out the character Ethan Hunt and lets him be a superhero, more annoyed than concerned by the escalating difficulty of the impossible problems he has to solve. Through this, Bird correctly identifies the difference between Cruise and these other Hollywood candy asses: He’s a reckless warrior with a death wish who will do whatever is necessary to win, and he does. The team concept is back in full force with a genuinely showstopping stunt, and without the masks and tech, Cruise has to do it all with his wits, his hands, and his pure bravado. The series, and Cruise, never looked back.  Run report: Some of the most fun, imaginative set pieces built around running in this installment. A definitive ranking of who should replace Tom Cruise in the inevitable M:I reboot 10. Aaron Taylor Johnson9. Charlie Cox8. Sterling K. Brown7. Florence Pugh6. John David Washington5. Haley Atwell4. Miles Teller3. Jeremy Renner2. Aaron Pierre 1. Glen Powell 4. Top Gun: Maverick  Director: Joseph Kosinski (2022) Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s a death dream, it’s red meat nationalist troopaganda, it’s the greatest legacyquel ever made that no one asked for and you didn’t realize you desperately needed, it’s nostalgia porn, it saved the movie going experience post-COVID, it’s a finely calibrated joy machine. Cruise is downright mystical, shimmering in the sun’s reflection off the surf, dominating an endless football game with no rules that doesn’t make sense. He has actual chemistry with Jennifer Connelly, and he has the grace to cede the floor to his old nemesis — both in the first Top Gun and as a once contemporary Hollywood star/rival — the late Val Kilmer, to drive home the crush of time and destroy everyone in the theater, no matter how many times they went to see this monster hit that first summer back in theaters.  Run report: Immediately coming off of the stunning, emotional high point of the film, we get Cruise running in salt water soaked jeans shirtless on the beach. Are you not entertained? 3. Collateral  Director: Michael Mann (2004) Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus An elemental, visceral faceoff that is radical in its simplicity of purpose. A film made by the second-best director on this list, and on a very short list of Cruise’s finest performances ever. He’s the salt and pepper terminator in a taxi, playing a pure evil bad guy, a classic Mann anti-hero samurai nihilist that also lives by a code and values being good at his job. Of course Cruise retains a kind of charm, but is also willing to get slimy and be deeply unlikeable and die on screen. Well worth the sacrifice.  Run report: Incredible running on display here. Once again he is running like a professional killer probably runs, almost always holding a gun, the hair matches the suit, so fucking bad ass.  2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout  Director: Christopher McQuarrie (2018) Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus As much time and energy as I just expended exalting Ghost Protocol, at a certain point you have to eschew poetic narratives and tip your cap, by the slightest of margins, to a fucking perfect movie. Ghost Prot is close, but you can feel its lack of a nailed-down shooting script at certain points towards its conclusion, as the action begins to wind down. McQuarrie becomes the first director in the franchise to get a second bite of the apple, and the result is a finely cut diamond. Fallout is about exhaustion and the impossibility of that manifestation of destiny idea from Rogue Nation. It makes the argument that you can’t actually save the day and save everyone without making any sacrifices forever, and because of that, sets up The Trolly Problem over and over again to try and get Ethan Hunt to compromise and/or give up. But, of course, he won’t, and neither, seemingly, will Cruise.  Run report: You can tell McQuarrie loves watching Cruise run as much as we do. He frames the runs in these wide shots and takes his time with them. It’s not conveying any additional information, a beat or two less would suffice, but the camera lingers and you get to just sit and appreciate the form and it really connects. It’s why he was the logical choice to take control of this franchise. He understands how a Tom Cruise action flick operates and what makes it special. And of course: A definitive ranking of the best runs in the franchise 10. The Opening Plane Run- Rogue Nation9. The Sandstorm Run- Ghost Protocol8. The Mask Rip Run- MI:27. Running through the alleys of Italy- Dead Reckoning6. Running Through the Tunnels for Luther (then out)- Final Reckoning5. Running down the Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol 4. Running from the fishtank explosion- MI:13. The Rooftop Run- Fallout2. The Shanghai Run- MI:31. The Kremlin Run- Ghost Protocol 1. Edge of Tomorrow  Director: Doug Liman (2014) Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Edge of Tomorrow is the best Tom Cruise action film had to be made in his late period of action stardom. You need the gravity and the gravitas, the emotional baggage earned through those decades of culture-remaking roles, the toll that exerted effort took on him, and the time spent and time passed on his face. The late, largely perfect Mission: Impossible films that dominate the top 10 of this list do much of that work: They feint, they allude, they nod to the realities of stardom, of life and death. But Ethan Hunt is a superhero, an inevitability, so the outcome is never in doubt — until, perhaps someday, it is. But for now, the masterpiece from Doug Liman — a director who either hits dingers or strikes out looking, with no in between — is a movie that punctuated Cruise’s post-Ghost Prot action renaissance: Edge of Tomorrow, or Live. Die. Repeat. It’s the unlikely on-paper melding of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day, but in practice it’s the action film equivalent of Jerry Maguire, a movie that relies on your history with Maverick, and Mitch McDeere, and Ethan Hunt, and uses it to dismantle and subvert Tom Cruise, the infallible hero.  Liman is at the top of his game, particularly in editing, which uses repetition and quick cuts masterfully to convey the long and slow transformation of a public relations major named Cage — who becomes trapped in a disastrous, endless intergalactic Normandy scenario — from a marketing clown in a uniform to an alien killer badass while he falls in love and saves the world. We watch as Cruise has all his bravado and bullshit stripped away by “a system” (maybe the single best Paxton performance?!) with no time for that, a woman smarter and stronger than he is and immune to his charms, and an invading force that tears him to pieces over and over again. We watch the five-tool movie star — robbed of all his tools — regroup, rebuild, and in the process, grow a soul. It’s the platonic ideal of what a great blockbuster action film can be, one that only could’ve been made by one of its most important, prolific, and talented stars.  Run report: A beautiful physical metaphor for this film is watching the evolution of Cruise’s ability to move in that ridiculous mech suit. 

This article contains some Mission: Impossible – The Final reckoning spoilers. In the most recent and supposedly final Mission: Impossible film, Ethan Hunt receives his briefing on a VHS cassette tape. That is a marvelous wink to the era in whichMission: Impossible, but these films have remained consistently at the zenith of quality blockbuster cinema. And through it all remains Tom Cruise, running, gunning, and smoldering with his various, luxuriant haircuts. Indeed, the first M:I picture was also Cruise’s first as a producer, made under the banner of Cruise/Wagner productions. Perhaps for that reason, he has stayed committed to what was once viewed as simply a “television adaptation.” It might have begun as TV IP, but in Cruise’s hands it has become a cinematic magnum opus that sequel after sequel, and decade after decade, has blossomed into one of the most inventive and satisfying spectacles ever produced in the Hollywood system. The final decade of the series’ run in particular has been groundbreaking. After five movies with five very different directors, aesthetics, and sensibilities, Christopher McQuarrie stuck around—alongside stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood. Together with Cruise, they turned the series into an old-fashioned, in-camera spectacle that harkens back to the earliest days of cinema. In the process, Cruise has added another chapter to his career, that of an onscreen daredevil like Harold Lloyd or Douglas Fairbanks. It’s been an amazing run, and honestly it’s a bit arbitrary to quantify it with any sort of ranking. But if we were going to do such a thing, here is how it should go… 8. Mission: Impossible II (2000) It’s hardly controversial to put John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II dead last. From its overabundance of slow-mo action—complete with Woo’s signature flying doves—to its use of Limp Bizkit, and even that nonsensical plot about manmade viruses that still doesn’t feel timely on the other side of 2020, MI:-2 is a relic of late ‘90s Hollywood excess. On the one hand, it’s kind of marvelous that Cruise let Woo completely tear down and rebuild a successful franchise-starter in the Hong Kong filmmaker’s own image. On the other, it’s perhaps telling of where Cruise’s ego was at that time since Woo used this opportunity to transform the original all-American Ethan Hunt into a god of celluloid marble. And make no mistake, there is something godlike to how Woo’s camera fetishizes Cruise’s sunglasses and new, luxuriant mane of jet black hair during Hunt’s big introduction where he is seen free-climbing across a rock face without rope. It would come to work as metaphor for the rest of the movie where, despite ostensibly being the leader of a team, Ethan is mostly going it alone as he does ridiculous things like have a medieval duel against his evil doppelgänger (Dougray Scott), only both men now ride motorcycles instead of horses. The onscreen team, meanwhile, stares slack-jawed as Ethan finds his inner-Arnold Schwarzenegger and massacres entire scores of faceless mercenaries in multiple shootouts. While gunplay has always been an element of modern spy thrillers, the Mission: Impossible movies work best when the characters use their wits (and the stunt team’s ingenuity) to escape elaborate, tricky situations. So there’s something banal about the way M:I-2 resembles any other late ‘90s and early ‘00s actioner that might’ve starred Nicolas Cage or Bruce Willis. Technically the plot, which involves Ethan’s reluctance to send new flame Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton) into the lion’s den as an informant, has classical pedigree. The movie remakes Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) in all but name. However, the movie is so in love with its movie star deity that even the supposedly central romance is cast in ambivalent shadow. 7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Yes, we admit to also being surprised that what is allegedly intended to be the last Mission: Impossible movie is finishing near the very bottom of this list. Which is not to say that The Final Reckoning is a bad movie. It’s just a messy one—and disappointing too. Perhaps the expectations were too high for a film with “final” in the title. Also its reportedly eye-popping $400 million only fueled the hype. But whereas the three previous Mission films directed by Christopher McQuarrie, including Dead Reckoning, had a light playfulness about them, The Final Reckoning gets lost in its own self-importance and grandiosity. Once again we have a Mission flick determined to deify Ethan Hunt with McQuarrie’s “gambler” from the last couple movies taking on the imagery of the messiah. Now the AI fate of the world lies in his literal hands. This approach leads to many long expository sequences where characters blather endlessly about the motivations of an abstract artificial intelligence. Meanwhile far too little time is spent on the sweet spot for this series: Cruise’s chemistry with co-stars when he isn’t hanging from some death-defying height. In fact, Ethan goes it pretty much alone in this one, staring down generals, submarine captains, and American presidents—fools all to think for one instance Ethan isn’t the guy sent to redeem them for their sins. The action sequences are still jaw-dropping when they finally come, and it is always good to see co-stars Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, and an all too briefly used Ving Rhames again, but this feels less like a finale than a breaking point. If Mission does come back, it will have to be as something wildly different (and presumably less expensive). 6. Mission: Impossible III (2006) Before he transformed Star Trek and Star Wars into remarkably similar franchises, writer-director J.J. Abrams made his big screen debut by doing much the same to the Mission: Impossible franchise. With his emphasis on extreme close-ups, heavy expository dialogue dumps, and intentionally vague motivations for his villains that seem to always have something to do with the War on Terror, Abrams remade the M:I franchise in the image of his TV shows, particularly Alias. This included turning Woo’s Übermensch from the last movie into the kind of suburban everyman who scores well with the Nielsen ratings and who has a sweet girl-next-door fiancée (Michelle Monaghan). Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Your mileage may vary with this approach, but personally we found M:I-3 to be too much of a piece with mid-2000s television and lacking in a certain degree of movie magic. With that said, the movie has two fantastic aces up its sleeve. The first and most significant is a deliciously boorish performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the franchise’s scariest villain. Abrams’ signature monologues have never been more chilling as when Hoffman cuts through Cruise’s matinee heroics like a knife and unsettles the protagonist and the audience with an unblinking declaration of ill-intent. Perhaps more impressively, during one of the franchise’s famed “mask” sequences where Ethan disguises himself as Hoffman’s baddie, the character actor subtly and convincingly mimics Cruise’s leading man charisma. That, plus introducing fan favorite Simon Pegg as Benji to the series (if in little more than a cameo), makes the movie worth a watch if not a regular revisit. According to more than a few critics in 2023, the then-newest installment in the series was also the best one. I respectfully disagree. The first half of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise’s Dead Reckoning In terms of old school spectacle and breakneck pacing, Dead Reckoning is easily the most entertaining action movie of summer 2023’s offerings. However, when compared to the best entries in the M:I franchise, Dead Reckoning leaves something be desired. While McQuarrie’s counterintuitive instinct to script the scenes after designing the set pieces, and essentially make it up as they went along, paid off in dividends in Fallout, the narrative of Dead Reckoning’s first half is shaggy and muddled. The second act is especially disjointed when the film arrives in Venice, and the actors seem as uncertain as the script is over what exactly the film’s nefarious A.I. villain, codename: “The Entity,” wants. That this is the portion of the film which also thanklessly kills off fan favorite Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) does the movie no favors. Elsewhere in the film, Hayley Atwell proves a fantastic addition in her own right as Grace—essentially a civilian and audience surrogate who gets wrapped up in the M:I series’ craziness long enough to stare at Cruise in incredulity—but the inference that she is here to simply interchangeably replace Ilsa gives the film a sour subtext. Still, Atwell’s Grace is great, Cruise’s Ethan is as mad as ever with his stunts, and even as the rest of the ensemble feels underutilized, seeing the team back together makes this a good time—while the unexpected return of Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge is downright great. 4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) There are many fans who will tell you that the Mission: Impossible franchise as we know it really started with this Brad Bird entry at the beginning of the 2010s, and it’s easy to see why. As the first installment made with a newly chastened Cruise—who Paramount Pictures had just spent years trying to fire from the series—it’s also the installment where the movie star remade his persona as a modern day Douglas Fairbanks. Here he becomes the guy you could count on to commit the most absurdly dangerous and ridiculous stunts for our entertainment. What a mensch. And in terms of set pieces, nothing in the series may top this movie’s second act where Cruise is asked to become a real-life Spider-Man and wall-crawl—as well as swing and skip—along the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s a genuine showstopper that looms over the rest of the movie. Not that there isn’t a lot to enjoy elsewhere as Bird brings a slightly more sci-fi and cartoonish cheek to the proceedings with amusing gadgets like those aforementioned “blue means glue” Spidey gloves. Even more amusingly, the damn things never seem to work properly. This is also the first Mission: Impossible movie where the whole team feels vital to the success of the adventure, including a now proper sidekick in the returning Pegg and some solid support from Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner. For a certain breed of fan that makes this the best, but we would argue the team dynamics were fleshed out a little better down the road, and in movies that have more than one stunning set piece to their name. 3. Mission: Impossible (1996) The last four entries of the series have been so good that it’s become common for folks to overlook the movie that started it all, Brian De Palma’s endlessly stylish Mission: Impossible. That’s a shame since there’s something admirably blasphemous to this day about a movie that would take an ancient pop culture property and throw the fundamentals out the window. In this case, that meant turning the original show’s hero, Jim Phelps (played by Jon Voight here), into the villain while completely rewriting the rulebook about what the concept of “Mission: Impossible” is. It’s the bold kind of creative move studios would never dare make now, but that’s what opened up the space to transform a novelty of ‘60s spymania TV into a ‘90s action classic, complete with heavy emphasis on techno espionage babble and post-Cold War politics. The movie can at times appear dated given the emphasis on floppy disks and AOL email accounts, but it’s also got a brisk energy that never goes out of style thanks to De Palma’s ability to frame a knotty script by David Koepp and Robert Towne (the latter of whom penned Chinatown) into a breathlessly paced thriller filled with paranoia, double crosses, femme fatales, and horrifying dream sequences. In other words, it’s a De Palma special! The filmmaker and Cruise also craft a series of set pieces that would become the series’ defining trademark. The finale with a fistfight atop a speeding train beneath the English Channel is great, but the quiet as a church mouse midpoint where Cruise’s hero dangles over the pressure-sensitive floor of a CIA vault—and with a drop of sweat dripping just out of reach!—is the stuff of popcorn myth. It’s how M:I also became as much a great heist series as shoot ‘em up. Plus, this movie gave us Ving Rhames’ stealth MVP hacker, Luther Stickell. 2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) In retrospect there is something faintly low-key about Rogue Nation, as ludicrous as that might be to say about a movie that begins with its star literally clinging for dear life to the outside of a plane at take off. Yet given how grand newcomer director Christopher McQuarrie would take things in the following three Mission films, his more restrained first iteration seems charmingly small scale in comparison. Even so, it remains an action marvel in its own right, as well as the most balanced and well-structured adventure in the series. It’s the one where the project of making Ethan Hunt a tangible character began. Rightly assessing Ethan to be a “gambler” based on his inconsistent yet continuously deranged earlier appearances, McQuarrie spins a web where Hunt’s dicey lifestyle comes back to haunt him when facing a villain who turns those showboat instincts in on themselves, and which pairs Ethan for the first time against the best supporting character in the series, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. There’s a reason Ferguson’s MI6 double (triple, quadruple?) agent was the first leading lady in the series to become a recurring character. She gives a star-making turn as a woman who is in every way Ethan’s equal while keeping him and the audience on their toes. She, alongside a returning Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, solidify the definitive Mission team, all while McQuarrie crafts elegant set pieces with classical flair, including a night at the opera that homages and one-ups Alfred Hitchcock’s influential sequence from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), as well as a Casablanca chase between Ethan and Ilsa that’s the best motorcycle sequence in the series (if only they stopped by Rick’s). Also McQuarrie’s script ultimately figures out who Ethan Hunt truly is by letting all those around him realize he’s a madman. And Alec Baldwin’s Alan Hunley gets this gem of a line to sums the series up in total: “Hunt is uniquely trained and highly motivated, a specialist without equal, immune to any countermeasures. There is no secret he cannot extract, no security he cannot breach, no person he cannot become. He has most likely anticipated this very conversation and is waiting to strike in whatever direction we move. Sir, Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny—and he has made you his mission.” 1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) If one were to rank these movies simply by virtue of set pieces and stunts, pound for pound it’s impossible to top Mission: Impossible – Fallout (forgive the pun). A virtuoso showcase in action movie bliss, there are too many giddy mic drop moments to list, but among our favorites are: Tom Cruise doing a real HALO jump out of a plane at 25,000 feet and which was captured by camera operator Craig O’Brien, who had an IMAX camera strapped to his head; the extended fight sequence between Cruise, Henry Cavill, and Liam Yang in a bathroom where the music completely drops out so we can hear every punch, kick, and that surreal moment where Cavill needs to reload his biceps like they’re shotguns; and did you see Cruise’s ankle bend the wrong way in that building to building jump?! For action junkies, there was no better adrenaline kick out of Hollywood in the 2010s than this flick, and that is in large part a credit to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. As the first filmmaker to helm more than one M:I movie, McQuarrie had the seemingly counterintuitive innovation to meticulously hammer out all of the above action sequences as well as others—such as a motorcycle chase across the cobblestones of Paris and a helicopter climax where Cruise is really flying his chopper at low altitudes—with stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and Cruise, and then retroactively pen a surprisingly tight and satisfying screenplay that continues to deconstruct the Ethan Hunt archetype into a man of flesh and blood. McQuarrie also reunites all the best supporting players in the series—Rhames, Pegg, and his own additions of Rebecca Ferguson as the ambiguous Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris as the dastardly Solomon Lane—into a yarn that is as zippy and sharp as you might expect from the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects, but which lets each action sequence unfurl with all the pageantry of an old school Gene Kelly musical number. Many will call this the best Mission: Impossible movie, and we won’t quibble the point.

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Tom Cruise is taking on one last daring adventure in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," which pits Ethan Hunt against an evil AI that threatens to destroy the world.The actor has been the face of the franchise since the first movie in 1996, and has starred in eight films in total.The Impossible Mission Force (yes, really) first debuted in the "Mission: Impossible" TV series in 1966, which starred Steven Hill and Peter Graves and ran for six seasons until 1973, before it was revived for another two seasons on ABC in 1988.With the franchise set to end with "The Final Reckoning," here are all the "Mission: Impossible" movies, ranked. 8. "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000) Tom Cruise riding a motorbike in "Mission: Impossible 2." Paramount Pictures "Mission: Impossible 2" should be given way more love than it gets, mainly because the Hong Kong cinema legend John Woo helmed it. Yes, the "Hard Boiled" and "Bullet in the Head" director brought his signature bullet ballet style to the "Mission: Impossible" sequel, with all the slow-motion flair you could ask for.Is it cheesy? Sure. Does the script need some work? Definitely. Is there any smart subtext or meaning underneath all the action? Absolutely not. This is a peak 2000s action movie, and it knows it. "Mission: Impossible 2" is so over the top that once you've made peace with it, it's best to just go along for the ride. Come on, Tom Cruise and Dougray Scott play motorbike chicken with each other before a midair tackle sends them both crashing to the ground. What's not to love? It's the type of vehicular chaos that the "Fast & Furious" franchise's Dominic Toretto would be proud of.Even so, "Mission: Impossible 2" ranks at the bottom of the bunch. 7. "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" (2011) Tom Cruise on the side of the Burj Khalifa in "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol." Paramount Pictures The 2011 film "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" takes the franchise into the modern era. It follows Hunt and his team as they're forced to go on the run when they're framed for bombing the Kremlin.It quickly becomes a race to stop the villainous Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who wants to start a nuclear war so that only the strongest members of humanity will survive. It's this plot that keeps "Ghost Protocol" from ascending the ranking, because, as spy thrillers go, stopping a nuclear war feels predictable, and the film fails to do anything unique with the premise. Plus, there's nothing particularly extraordinary about Hendricks as a baddie.But generic plot devices aside, the film features some brilliant fights and gripping set pieces. The stand-out moment is when Cruise's hero climbs the Burj Khalifa in Dubai with nothing but sticky gloves and rope.One of the most surprising elements of the film is Jeremy Renner's William Brandt, a disgraced former agent who's grappling with the guilt of failing Ethan on a former mission. That sub-plot works very well among the rest of the action, and it's a clever way of injecting a bit of heart into the mission. 6. "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006) Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Keri Russell as Lindsey Farris in "Mission: Impossible 3." Paramount Pictures Two words: JJ Abrams. The "Lost" and "Fringe" creator made his big screen debut in 2006 with "Mission: Impossible 3," which takes a mid-noughties approach to the Impossible Mission Force and gives it a brutal edge.The sequel pits Ethan, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Zhen Lei (Maggie Q), and Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) against a nefarious arms dealer played by the incomparable Phillip Seymour Hoffman.Part of what elevates "Mission: Impossible 3" from previous films is that it never actually explains what Ethan and the gang are chasing. It's known only by its mysterious codename, the Rabbit's Foot. It could be an infectious disease, a computer virus, a hard drive teeming with currency, or nuclear codes — and that's what makes it so compelling. It's also refreshing to see Ethan settled and in love with Michelle Monahan's Julia Meade. What does married life look like for a superspy? How does that complicate his responsibility to save the world? The sequel feels very busy, as Abrams packs a lot into a tight two-hour run time. And some parts don't quite work, like Ethan's dynamic with his young mentee Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell). But there are some stellar sequences throughout, like the ballistic shoot-out on the bridge, which is an eye-popping piece of action choreography. 5. "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" (2025) Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning." Skydance/Paramount Pictures "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" is the sequel to 2023's "Dead Reckoning," and sees Hunt race to stop an assassin known as Gabriel (Esai Morales) from controlling a sentient AI called the Entity. Just to raise the stakes, the Entity has already taken control of the world's nuclear weapons and plans to wipe out humanity.While the 2025 movie is billed as the final entry in the franchise, its story doesn't quite live up to the high expectations set by "Dead Reckoning." The first hour is bogged down by lengthy exposition and generic action movie silliness.That being said, as soon as the action picks up and Cruise embraces his adrenaline junkie persona once more, "The Final Reckoning" provides a breathtaking cinematic experience.Whether it's the suspenseful scuba dive into a wrecked submarine or how Hunt climbs between two biplanes in the sky to fight Gabriel, the film's ambitious sequences deserve to be seen on the big screen. 4. "Mission: Impossible" (1996) Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in "Mission: Impossible." Paramount Pictures Taken from the 1966 TV series of the same name, 1996's "Mission: Impossible" introduces Cruise's Ethan Hunt, a field agent working for Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), the main character from the show. It has audiences instantly on their toes when Ethan's entire team, including Phelps, are assassinated by a double agent in the opening — forcing our hero to go on the run after being framed for their deaths."Mission: Impossible" earned itself a place in cinema history thanks to the brilliantly intense break-in scene, in which Cruise's Hunt hacks into a CIA mainframe computer while suspended on cables.And of course, the high-octane ending on top of a Channel Tunnel train is a pulse-pounding affair set to the iconic theme music. Cruise effortlessly brings Hunt to life alongside top-notch performances from Voight, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ving Rhames, which really help sell the paranoid atmosphere of the film 3. "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" (2015) Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation." Paramount Pictures "Rogue Nation" is where frequent Tom Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie properly put his stamp on the franchise. McQuarrie expands the world in a fascinating way with the introduction of the Syndicate, a vast organization made up of rogue agents from every intelligence agency on the planet.Their mission (should they choose to accept it) is to create disorder and chaos to destabilize the global intelligence community, although their true goals don't become apparent until 2018's "Mission: Impossible - Fallout." Hunt is determined to root out the Syndicate, and its sinister leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris)."Rogue Nation" also introduces Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), an enigmatic British agent who has a delicious will-they-won't-they dynamic with Cruise's hero.A brawl in the rigging above an opera stage in Vienna is a stunning highlight, as is Cruise's underwater dive to retrieve a computer chip from a submerged safe. Cruise broke the world record for holding his breath for six minutes while completing that stunt in 2014. 2. "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023) Esai Morales as Gabriel and Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One." Paramount Pictures "Dead Reckoning Part One" sees Hunt's IMF team chasing a key that will lead them to an unstoppable AI that could wreak havoc on the world.And, of course, every government agency in the world wants to get their hands on it, so Hunt and his team are effectively on the run from everyone. "Dead Reckoning's" focus on AI gives it a grounding in the real world, but the film also continues to elevate the sheer scale of action that audiences have come to expect from the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. That jaw-dropping mountain jump at the movie's climax has to be seen to be believed, and it only gets more bonkers after that.It's a testament to Cruise and McQuarrie that the film feels fresh and new — even if the script does drag on at points. Then again, audiences are coming to see Cruise throw himself off a mountain, not to hear Oscar-winning dialogue. 1. "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" (2018) Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout." Paramount There's no question that McQuarrie's "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is the best movie in the franchise, which is impressive considering it's the sixth outing for Hunt and the gang. It continues the Syndicate storyline from "Rogue Nation" and dives further into Solomon Lane's scheme. He wants to destabilize the world by irradiating the Siachen Glacier, which supplies water to India, Pakistan, and China. This would kill off a third of the world's population and drastically change society in the process.  But most of the story revolves around a CIA and IMF mole who goes by the codename 'John Lark.'The hunt to find this rogue agent crosses the world, introducing the likes of Henry Cavill's CIA agent August Walker and Vanessa Kirby's underworld matriarch, Alanna Mitsopolis. The scope of McQuarrie's movie is massive, and its huge stunts mirror that size. A gobsmacking scene sees Hunt dive with Walker from a plane and parachute into Paris. Cruise shot the stunt alongside a cameraman to properly capture the chaotic dive. Then, of course, there's the film's exhilarating helicopter chase through a New Zealand mountain range — just another example of McQuarrie and Cruise's commitment to filming these stunts in the most jaw-dropping way possible."Fallout" is a thrilling chapter of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise that deepens the audience's understanding of Cruise's hero while delivering a stunning cinematic experience.