50 free Mission Impossible trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Mission Impossible trivia questions with answers. Tom Cruise has been accepting impossible missions since 1996, and the trivia is as good as the stunts: a score that was thrown out weeks before release, a moustache that broke Superman, an ankle broken on camera and a villain who missed out on Wolverine because the shoot ran long. This quiz runs 50 questions across all eight films, from Brian De Palma's Prague heist and John Woo's doves to Ghost Protocol's Burj Khalifa climb, Rogue Nation's opera, Fallout's HALO jump and cliff fight, and the Entity storyline of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning. There are questions on the 1966 TV series and its 5/4 theme too, so casual fans and completists both have somewhere to start. Every answer has been checked against reference sources, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a movie night, a franchise rewatch or a film round at pub trivia.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ethan Hunt works for the IMF. What do the letters stand for?
Impossible Missions Force
The name comes straight from the 1966 TV series, whose taped briefings warned that 'the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions'.
Q 02Who created the original 1966 Mission: Impossible television series?
Bruce Geller
It ran on CBS for seven seasons and won 10 Primetime Emmys, including two for Outstanding Drama Series.
Q 03Who composed the famous Mission: Impossible theme?
Lalo Schifrin
It is written in an unusual 5/4 time, which famously left American Bandstand dancers unable to dance to it.
Q 04The Mission: Impossible theme is written in which unusual time signature?
5/4
Five crotchets to a bar; Dick Clark once played the single on American Bandstand and caught the teenage dancers completely off-guard.
Q 05Who directed the first Mission: Impossible film in 1996?
Brian De Palma
He designed most of the action set pieces himself, and Prague was a rare Hollywood location at the time.
Q 06Which veteran actor plays Ethan's IMF mentor, revealed as the mole, in the 1996 film?
Jon Voight
Original TV Phelps Peter Graves and co-star Greg Morris both hated the twist; Morris reportedly walked out of the cinema before the end.
Q 07In the 1996 film, what is the IMF team in Prague trying to stop being stolen?
The NOC list of undercover agents
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.
Q 08In the 1996 climax, a helicopter is dragged behind a TGV into which famous underground passage?
The Channel Tunnel
Ethan hooks the helicopter's rope to the roof of a TGV bound for Paris.
Q 09Two members of which band recorded the hit dance version of the theme for the 1996 film?
U2
Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton were nervous about remaking Schifrin's tune; it earned a Grammy nomination anyway.
Q 10Which composer's score for the 1996 film was rejected and replaced by Danny Elfman's at short notice?
Alan Silvestri
Elfman had only a few weeks and folded Schifrin's 'The Plot' theme into his own new music.
Q 11Which uncredited actor plays IMF tech Jack Harmon, killed early in the 1996 film?
Emilio Estevez
An early idea for the sequel would have brought Harmon back, but no one could explain how he survived.
Q 12Who directed Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)?
John Woo
His signature slow-motion doves and two-gun shootouts made it the highest-grossing film of 2000.
Q 13In Mission: Impossible 2, what is the name of the engineered virus, and its cure?
Chimera and Bellerophon
In Greek myth Bellerophon slew the Chimera; the virus has a 20-hour dormant window in which the cure works.
Q 21Despite being a box-office success, which entry is the lowest-grossing film in the series?
Mission: Impossible III
It made about $398 million; the first film made $457 million and the sequel $546 million.
Q 22Ghost Protocol was the live-action directing debut of which animation director?
Brad Bird
He had made The Incredibles and Ratatouille; composer Michael Giacchino followed him from both films.
Q 23Which building does Ethan Hunt scale with malfunctioning sticky gloves in Ghost Protocol?
Burj Khalifa
Cruise was attached to the tower by cables the whole time; Industrial Light & Magic painted them out.
Q 14Which actor lost the role of Wolverine in X-Men partly because Mission: Impossible 2 overran?
Dougray Scott
He played villain Sean Ambrose; scheduling and a motorcycle accident during filming handed Wolverine to Hugh Jackman.
Q 15Where was Tom Cruise's free-solo climbing entrance in Mission: Impossible 2 filmed?
Dead Horse Point, Utah
The studio was so worried about safety that it tried to stop the sequence being shot at all.
Q 16Which knighted actor makes an uncredited cameo as Mission Commander Swanbeck in Mission: Impossible 2?
Anthony Hopkins
He briefs Ethan in Seville and tells him to recruit thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall.
Q 17Which nu-metal band recorded 'Take a Look Around', a version of the theme, for Mission: Impossible 2?
Limp Bizkit
Metallica contributed 'I Disappear' to the same soundtrack, while Hans Zimmer wrote the score.
Q 18Mission: Impossible III was the feature-film directing debut of which TV creator?
J. J. Abrams
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.
Q 19Who plays arms dealer Owen Davian, the villain of Mission: Impossible III?
Philip Seymour Hoffman
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'.
Q 20Which Simon Pegg character debuts as an IMF technician in Mission: Impossible III?
Benji Dunn
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.
Q 24In Ghost Protocol, the IMF is disavowed after being framed for bombing which landmark?
The Kremlin
The bombing gives the film its title: 'Ghost Protocol' is the order shutting the agency down.
Q 25Which Bollywood star plays Mumbai media tycoon Brij Nath in Ghost Protocol?
Anil Kapoor
Paula Patton's Agent Carter seduces and then overpowers him to get a satellite override code.
Q 26Who is the first director to helm more than one Mission: Impossible film?
Christopher McQuarrie
He wrote and directed Rogue Nation, Fallout, Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning after doing uncredited rewrites on Ghost Protocol.
Q 27Rogue Nation opens with Ethan Hunt clinging to the outside of what?
An A400 cargo plane taking off
Cruise really did hang from the plane; the sequence was shot for real with the actor strapped to the fuselage.
Q 28Which opera is playing at the Vienna State Opera during Rogue Nation's assassination attempt?
Turandot by Puccini
The film also premiered at the Vienna State Opera in July 2015.
Q 29Who plays Ilsa Faust, the MI6 agent introduced in Rogue Nation?
Rebecca Ferguson
Her character was killed off in Dead Reckoning Part One in Venice at the hands of Gabriel.
Q 30What is the name of the rogue organisation of ex-spies led by Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation?
The Syndicate
In Fallout its remnants regroup as the Apostles, a terror-for-hire outfit.