50 Fun Facts About Mission Impossible

Ethan Hunt works for the IMF. What do the letters stand for?

The name comes straight from the 1966 TV series, whose taped briefings warned that 'the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions'.

Who created the original 1966 Mission: Impossible television series?

It ran on CBS for seven seasons and won 10 Primetime Emmys, including two for Outstanding Drama Series.

Who composed the famous Mission: Impossible theme?

It is written in an unusual 5/4 time, which famously left American Bandstand dancers unable to dance to it.

The Mission: Impossible theme is written in which unusual time signature?

Five crotchets to a bar; Dick Clark once played the single on American Bandstand and caught the teenage dancers completely off-guard.

Who directed the first Mission: Impossible film in 1996?

He designed most of the action set pieces himself, and Prague was a rare Hollywood location at the time.

Which veteran actor plays Ethan's IMF mentor, revealed as the mole, in the 1996 film?

Original TV Phelps Peter Graves and co-star Greg Morris both hated the twist; Morris reportedly walked out of the cinema before the end.

In the 1996 film, what is the IMF team in Prague trying to stop being stolen?

The list reveals the identities of every undercover CIA agent in Europe; the real one is later lifted from Langley in the famous wire-drop heist.

In the 1996 climax, a helicopter is dragged behind a TGV into which famous underground passage?

Ethan hooks the helicopter's rope to the roof of a TGV bound for Paris.

Two members of which band recorded the hit dance version of the theme for the 1996 film?

Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton were nervous about remaking Schifrin's tune; it earned a Grammy nomination anyway.

Which composer's score for the 1996 film was rejected and replaced by Danny Elfman's at short notice?

Elfman had only a few weeks and folded Schifrin's 'The Plot' theme into his own new music.

Which uncredited actor plays IMF tech Jack Harmon, killed early in the 1996 film?

An early idea for the sequel would have brought Harmon back, but no one could explain how he survived.

Who directed Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)?

His signature slow-motion doves and two-gun shootouts made it the highest-grossing film of 2000.

In Mission: Impossible 2, what is the name of the engineered virus, and its cure?

In Greek myth Bellerophon slew the Chimera; the virus has a 20-hour dormant window in which the cure works.

Which actor lost the role of Wolverine in X-Men partly because Mission: Impossible 2 overran?

He played villain Sean Ambrose; scheduling and a motorcycle accident during filming handed Wolverine to Hugh Jackman.

Where was Tom Cruise's free-solo climbing entrance in Mission: Impossible 2 filmed?

The studio was so worried about safety that it tried to stop the sequence being shot at all.

Which knighted actor makes an uncredited cameo as Mission Commander Swanbeck in Mission: Impossible 2?

He briefs Ethan in Seville and tells him to recruit thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall.

Which nu-metal band recorded 'Take a Look Around', a version of the theme, for Mission: Impossible 2?

Metallica contributed 'I Disappear' to the same soundtrack, while Hans Zimmer wrote the score.

Mission: Impossible III was the feature-film directing debut of which TV creator?

Cruise hired him after binge-watching Alias; the delay while Abrams finished Alias and Lost cost the film Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Anne Moss and Scarlett Johansson.

Who plays arms dealer Owen Davian, the villain of Mission: Impossible III?

His threat to count to ten is one of the series' most chilling moments; the MacGuffin he wants is the never-explained 'Rabbit's Foot'.

Which Simon Pegg character debuts as an IMF technician in Mission: Impossible III?

He becomes a field agent from Ghost Protocol onward and is one of only two characters besides Ethan to recur across most of the series.

Despite being a box-office success, which entry is the lowest-grossing film in the series?

It made about $398 million; the first film made $457 million and the sequel $546 million.

Ghost Protocol was the live-action directing debut of which animation director?

He had made The Incredibles and Ratatouille; composer Michael Giacchino followed him from both films.

Which building does Ethan Hunt scale with malfunctioning sticky gloves in Ghost Protocol?

Cruise was attached to the tower by cables the whole time; Industrial Light & Magic painted them out.

In Ghost Protocol, the IMF is disavowed after being framed for bombing which landmark?

The bombing gives the film its title: 'Ghost Protocol' is the order shutting the agency down.

Which Bollywood star plays Mumbai media tycoon Brij Nath in Ghost Protocol?

Paula Patton's Agent Carter seduces and then overpowers him to get a satellite override code.

Who is the first director to helm more than one Mission: Impossible film?

He wrote and directed Rogue Nation, Fallout, Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning after doing uncredited rewrites on Ghost Protocol.

Rogue Nation opens with Ethan Hunt clinging to the outside of what?

Cruise really did hang from the plane; the sequence was shot for real with the actor strapped to the fuselage.

Which opera is playing at the Vienna State Opera during Rogue Nation's assassination attempt?

The film also premiered at the Vienna State Opera in July 2015.

Who plays Ilsa Faust, the MI6 agent introduced in Rogue Nation?

Her character was killed off in Dead Reckoning Part One in Venice at the hands of Gabriel.

What is the name of the rogue organisation of ex-spies led by Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation?

In Fallout its remnants regroup as the Apostles, a terror-for-hire outfit.

Which actor plays CIA chief Alan Hunley in Rogue Nation and Fallout?

He tries to have the IMF dissolved, ends up its Secretary, and is killed by August Walker in Fallout.

Henry Cavill's moustache in Fallout caused a famous problem with which other film's reshoots?

Paramount refused to let him shave, so Warner Bros. had to digitally remove the moustache from Superman.

Which bone did Tom Cruise break during a rooftop jump stunt on Fallout, halting production for months?

He finished the take, and later filmed the London meeting scene seated at a table so he and a hip-surgery-bound co-star could both lean on it.

Ethan and August Walker's HALO jump in Fallout lands them in which city?

They are dropping into a nightclub where the mysterious John Lark is to buy plutonium cores.

Fallout's climactic cliff-top fight was filmed at which Norwegian landmark, standing in for Kashmir?

The scene is set at a smallpox medical camp near the Siachen Glacier.

What does the rogue AI at the heart of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning call itself?

It first goes rogue by tricking the crew of the Russian submarine Sevastopol into torpedoing themselves.

Which sunken Russian submarine holds the AI's source code?

Ethan finally dives to the wreck in an experimental suit in The Final Reckoning as it slides down the continental shelf.

Who plays Grace, the thief who steals half of the key in Dead Reckoning?

McQuarrie called her a 'destructive force of nature'; she ends the film asking to join the IMF.

Dead Reckoning's runaway train sequence, ending with a blown bridge, is a homage to which silent film?

The Alpine scenes were shot on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and the wreck on a set built in a Peak District quarry.

Dead Reckoning Part One earned the series' first Oscar nominations, in which two categories?

The nods came at the 96th Academy Awards in 2024.

Which 1996 character returns in The Final Reckoning after 30 years exiled to a Bering Sea island?

He was the CIA analyst whose vault Ethan raided at Langley; he coincidentally memorised a set of vital coordinates.

Jasper Briggs, who hunts Ethan in Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, is whose son?

He makes amends with Ethan at the end for having exposed his father as a traitor three decades earlier.

The Final Reckoning's climactic aerial duel takes place aboard what kind of aircraft?

Gabriel dies after hitting his groin and then his head on the plane's vertical stabiliser.

Which long-running IMF team member sacrifices himself in The Final Reckoning?

Ving Rhames's hacker had appeared in every film since 1996, the only cast member besides Cruise to do so.

Roughly how much has the Mission: Impossible series grossed worldwide across eight films?

That makes it the 16th-highest-grossing film series of all time.

Who led the IMF in the first season of the 1966 TV series, before Jim Phelps took over?

Steven Hill, an Orthodox Jew, had to leave the set on Fridays before sundown and was replaced by Peter Graves without explanation.

How many Primetime Emmy Awards did the original Mission: Impossible series win?

Two were for Outstanding Drama Series, and Barbara Bain won three in a row as the model-spy Cinnamon Carter.

Whose hand lit the fuse in the title sequence of the original series until the sixth season?

In the 1988 revival the match was held by Peter Graves, who was shown on screen.

Which two actors stayed with the original series for its entire seven-season run?

Morris played gadget genius Barney Collier; in the revival his real-life son played Barney's son Grant.

How did the early episodes originally make the mission briefing recording self-destruct?

Briggs blew air onto the treated tape to start the reaction; the costly trick was soon replaced by smoke piped through the recorder.