Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a 2025 American action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen. It is the direct sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and the eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The ensemble cast includes Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny and Angela Bassett. In the film, Hunt and his IMF team continue their mission to prevent the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence, from destroying all of humanity.
In January 2019, Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with McQuarrie co-writing and directing both films. Plans for the eighth film changed in February 2021, with returning and new cast and crew members being announced soon after, including Lorne Balfe, who composed the score for two other films in the series; Balfe was later replaced by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Principal photography began in March 2022 but was suspended in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Production resumed in March 2024 and concluded in November, with filming locations including England, Malta, South Africa, and Norway. Originally subtitled Dead Reckoning Part Two, the film changed its subtitle in November 2024. With a $300–400 million budget, The Final Reckoning is one of the most expensive films ever made.
The Final Reckoning had its world premiere in Tokyo on May 5, 2025, was screened out of competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 23 by Paramount Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $598.8 million worldwide, while also having the largest opening weekend of the franchise. It was the last film co-produced by Paramount and Skydance as separate entities before they merged on August 7, 2025.
Plot
Two months after retrieving the key to the source code for the malevolent artificial intelligence known as the Entity, rogue IMF agent Ethan Hunt receives a message from US President Erika Sloane. She informs Ethan that the Entity continues to seize control of global nuclear systems, aided by undercover doomsday cultists. Ethan is ordered to surrender the key, but he refuses and continues pursuing Gabriel, the Entity's former proxy, who was forsaken after failing to steal the key himself. Ethan and fellow IMF agent Benji Dunn first visit their ill IMF hacker Luther Stickell in his off-grid lab beneath London, where he has finished developing the "Poison Pill" malware that can target the Entity.The team recruits Jasper Briggs's partner, Theo Degas, and Gabriel's former lieutenant, Paris, who tells them where Gabriel is. In London, Gabriel's men capture Ethan and IMF agent Grace. Gabriel forces Ethan to recover the "Podkova" module developed from the Rabbit's Foot in the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol, which would give him control over the Entity. Ethan and Grace escape. Contacting the Entity, Ethan is shown visions of a nuclear apocalypse. The Entity says Luther will die and demands access to a digital bunker in South Africa to survive.
Ethan tasks his team with getting the Sevastopol coordinates and retrieving him after the dive. He races to save Luther, but Gabriel steals the Poison Pill and traps Luther with a time bomb. Luther sacrifices himself to minimize the blast, and Ethan is brought to Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. With three days until the Entity takes over the remaining nuclear weapons control facilities and launches nuclear armageddon, Ethan convinces Sloane to let him locate the Sevastopol, against CIA Director Eugene Kittridge's objections.
Grace, Benji, Paris, and Degas travel to St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea, home to a Cold War era naval sonar array that detected the Sevastopol sinking. They meet former CIA analyst William Donloe, who was exiled to the island after Ethan's 1996 break-in at CIA headquarters and coincidentally memorized the Sevastopol coordinates. Captured by Russian special forces seeking the coordinates, Grace and Donloe's wife Tapeesa escape by dog sled, and the others fight off the soldiers as Donloe transmits the coordinates to Ethan.
Ethan joins the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush in the North Pacific Ocean and boards the submarine USS Ohio. After receiving the coordinates and barely surviving a doomsday assassin named Hagar who had infiltrated the Ohio, Ethan uses an experimental diving suit to reach the Sevastopol and retrieve the Podkova as the wreck slides down the continental shelf. Narrowly escaping without his diving suit, Ethan is revived from decompression sickness by Grace using a portable decompression chamber. Reunited with his team, Ethan plans to plug the Poison Pill into the Podkova, fooling the Entity into entering a physical drive instead of the bunker mainframe.
At the bunker, Gabriel ambushes the team with a timed nuclear device, demanding the Podkova. Kittridge interrupts, seeking control of the Entity. During the gunfight, the bomb activates and Benji is shot. Gabriel flees with the Poison Pill, pursued by Ethan with the Podkova. Donloe, Tapeesa, and Degas defuse the bomb; Paris, Grace, and Benji prepare the mainframe to trap the Entity.
Sloane avoids a preemptive nuclear strike, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is fatally wounded protecting her from a doomsday assassin, allowing the Entity time to take full control of the world's nuclear arsenal. Ethan chases Gabriel in a biplane, climbs onto his plane, breaks Gabriel’s arm, and retrieves the Poison Pill. Gabriel gets himself killed after hitting his forehead on the plane’s rudder after making a reckless attempt to escape. Ethan finds another parachute and inserts the Poison Pill into the Podkova mid-air, allowing Grace to trap the Entity just before nuclear launch.
Ethan listens to a farewell message from Luther in the Poison Pill, which self-destructs afterwards. He gives the destroyed Podkova to Kittridge, and Briggs, revealed to be the son of Jim Phelps, makes amends with Ethan for exposing his father as a traitor. Reuniting in London, Grace gives Ethan the drive with the Entity, and the IMF team part ways.
Cast
Additionally, through archival footage from previous films, Jon Voight, Michelle Monaghan, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Emilio Estevez, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė, Anthony Hopkins, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Maggie Q, Jean Reno, Dougray Scott, Michael Nyqvist, Emmanuelle Béart, Lea Seydoux, Kristoffer Joner, Keri Russell, Kristen Scott Thomas, Jens Hultén, Henry Cavill, Vanessa Redgrave, Liang Yang and Alec Baldwin all appear as their respective characters Jim Phelps, Julia Meade-Hunt, Ilsa Faust, Alanna "The White Widow" Mitsopolis, Jack Harmon, Hannah Williams, Swanbeck, Owen Davian, Theodore Brassel, William Brandt, Jane Carter, Zhen Lei, Franz Krieger, Sean Ambrose, Dr. Kurt "Cobalt" Hendricks, Claire Phelps, Sabine Moreau, Nils Delbruuk, Lindsey Farris, Sarah Davies, Janik "Bone Doctor" Vinter, August "John Lark" Walker, Max Mitsopolis, the fake John Lark, and Alan Hunley. Rob Delaney and Indira Varma, also uncredited, appear as the heads of JSOC and the DIA, respectively, via archival audio footage from Dead Reckoning. Director Christopher McQuarrie also makes a small cameo appearance at the end of the film.Production
Development
On January 14, 2019, Tom Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with Christopher McQuarrie writing and directing both films for July 23, 2021, and August 5, 2022, releases. However, in February 2021, Deadline Hollywood revealed that Paramount had decided to no longer move forward with that plan.Casting
In September 2019, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff joined the cast of the eighth installment. In December, Simon Pegg confirmed his return for the film, while Shea Whigham was also cast. Nicholas Hoult joined the cast by January 2020, along with Henry Czerny, who reprised his role as Eugene Kittridge from Dead Reckoning Part One and the first film. However, due to scheduling conflicts, Hoult was replaced by Esai Morales for both films. Vanessa Kirby, who first appeared in Fallout, announced she was returning for both films, but did not appear in Final Reckoning. In July 2022, it was reported that Holt McCallany had joined the cast. In August 2022, it was revealed that Nick Offerman and Janet McTeer were also added to the cast.In March 2023, McQuarrie announced Hannah Waddingham, Lucy Tulugarjuk and Rolf Saxon's addition to the cast, the last of whom reprises his role from the first film. In March and April 2024, respectively, Katy O'Brian and Tramell Tillman joined the cast in then-undisclosed roles. In November 2024, it was revealed that Angela Bassett would reprise her role as CIA Director Erika Sloane.
Filming
In February 2021, Deadline Hollywood reported that the film would no longer be filmed back to back with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. By November, McQuarrie was in the process of rewriting the film's script. On March 23, 2022, The Hollywood Reporter reported the beginning of principal photography of the then untitled Mission: Impossible 8. Filming took place in the UK at Longcross Studios and the Lake District. Other locations included Malta, South Africa, and Norway. In December 2022, filming was finished in the UK. The crew then moved to Apulia in Italy to continue filming aboard the aircraft carrier. During the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, production was thought to have been put on hold according to an interview with McQuarrie in the June 2023 issue of the Empire magazine. However, this was later revealed to have been a misinterpretation of McQuarrie's statement, and continued production was only waiting for the promotion of Part One to complete. Filming was officially suspended in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.The film returned to production in March 2024, though in May, it encountered a delay due to a submarine malfunction. During filming in England, Cruise and Morales were observed performing stunts from an airborne biplane, with Cruise holding onto the wings of the open cockpit aircraft as it flew upside down, while the pilot wore a greenscreen suit so as to be digitally removed from the final shot. In July 2024, Simon Pegg revealed filming had concluded for his part, though the cast and crew were maintaining radio silence. By November 2024, production had concluded and the film was in post-production. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the budget had neared $400 million due to the production delays.
Post-production
Industrial Light & Magic returned from the seventh film to produce the visual effects, with Clear Angle Studios and Halon Entertainment as the additional vendors for lidar, cyber scanning, and previsualization. In October 2023, Dead Reckoning Part Two was removed as the film's subtitle, and the new subtitle was confirmed as The Final Reckoning in November 2024.Music
Lorne Balfe was originally announced in May 2020 to be composing the film's score, after previously doing so for Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, but it was later announced in April 2025 that he would be replaced with Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Aruj has previously provided additional music for Dead Reckoning and served as technical score assistant on Fallout. Both Aruj and Godfrey have contributed music to numerous projects scored by Balfe over the years. Cecile Tournesac was credited as the supervising music editor and score producer. The full album was released on May 23, 2025.Release
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning had its world premiere in Tokyo on May 5, 2025. The film screened at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2025, prior to its scheduled theatrical release on May 23, by Paramount Pictures. It was previously set for release on August 5, 2022, but was delayed to November 4, 2022, July 7, 2023, June 28, 2024, and then to the current date in response to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, taking the original release date of The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. Due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, the budget for the film reportedly increased to at least $400 million, placing it among the most expensive films ever made. Based on typical industry expectations, the film may need to earn around $1 billion worldwide to recoup its production costs. However, in addition to its box office, its performance on Paramount+ is also expected to be a significant factor in evaluating its overall success.Internationally, it was released theatrically in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India and South Korea on May 17, 2025 before releasing in the United Kingdom on May 21. The film was released in Dolby Cinema, ScreenX, RPX, 4DX, IMAX and other premium formats.
Home media
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was released on digital download on August 19, 2025, and was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on October 14, 2025. The film started streaming on Paramount+ from December 4, 2025.Reception
Box office
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning grossed $197.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $401.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $598.8 million.In the United States and Canada, The Final Reckoning was released alongside Lilo & Stitch, and was initially projected to gross $80–110 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend. Final Reckoning earned $24.8 million on its opening day, which included $8.3 million from Thursday night previews, setting a new opening day record for the franchise. The film debuted to $64 million over its standard three-day weekend and reached $79 million across the four-day Memorial Day weekend, placing second behind Lilo & Stitch. Despite not topping the box office on its opening weekend, a first for the franchise, not counting Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol limited release in IMAX and other large-format theaters in its first five days where it finished third, it contributed to the biggest Memorial Day weekend in domestic box office history, with all films combining for a record-breaking $334.5 million. In its second weekend the film made $27.3 million, remaining in second ahead of Karate Kid: Legends. In its third weekend the film made $14.8 million, and it finished in third place behind Lilo & Stitch and Ballerina.
The Final Reckoning opened in 64 markets alongside the United States and Canada, earning $127 million on its opening weekend and with its biggest numbers coming from South Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom. The $31 million earned from IMAX screenings was the biggest of the franchise. It opened in China on June 2, topping the box office with a $25.6 million gross, with $4.9 million from IMAX screenings; it is also IMAX's biggest opening weekend for a Hollywood film in China in 2025.
Critical response
Reviews of The Final Reckoning were generally positive but subdued compared to the four previous critically acclaimed installments, with several critics praising the action sequences but criticizing the exposition in the first hour. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an 89% overall positive score, with 79% saying they would definitely recommend the film.Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film five stars out of five, calling it a "wildly silly, wildly entertaining adventure which periodically gives us a greatest-hits flashback montage of the other seven films". In another positive review, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said the film was a "satisfying capper to an eight-film franchise" and praised the return of Rolf Saxon, "He may not hang off a biplane, but the year's unlikeliest franchise MVP makes Final Reckoning something better than superhuman: human." Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph said, "Even by the series' own now well-established standards, this widely presumed last entry in Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise is an awe-inspiringly bananas piece of work." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying it "stays true" to the franchise's "core tenets, even if it too often feels baggy and redundant", and particularly praised "a callback from the first film that strikes a particularly winning chord of humor and sentimentality".
Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com was more critical of the film, calling its first hour "unwieldy and truly clunky" and "the worst segment in the entire franchise", although he noted that the action sequences during the film's peaks were "enough to ignore everything wrong with the movie up to that point". Cary Darling of the Houston Chronicle described the film as a "disappointing installment" that felt "bloated and tired, despite the dizzying, high-flying stunt work at the film's climax". He also criticized its runtime, stating "just shy of three hours, it takes a heck of a long time to achieve lift-off".
Accolades
Cruise set a Guinness World Record for most burning parachute jumps by an individual while filming one of the film's final stunts, where Cruise burned his first parachute doused in flammable liquid before opening his second parachute a total of 16 times. An article about the stunt was published on the Guinness World Records official website on June 5, 2025.| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result | |
| Actor Awards | March 1, 2026 | Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Alliance of Women Film Journalists | December 31, 2025 | Female Focus: Best Stunts Performance | Hayley Atwell | Nomitated | |
| Alliance of Women Film Journalists | December 31, 2025 | Female Focus: Best Stunts Performance | Pom Klementieff | Nomitated | |
| American Cinematheque Tribute to the Crafts Awards | January 16, 2026 | Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Art Directors Guild Awards | February 28, 2026 | Contemporary Feature Film | Gary Freeman | ||
| Astra Film Awards | January 9, 2026 | Best Action or Science Fiction Feature | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| Astra Film Awards | December 11, 2025 | Best Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Astra Film Awards | December 11, 2025 | Best Stunt Coordinator | Wade Eastwood | Won | |
| Astra Film Awards | December 11, 2025 | Best Second Unit Director | Wade Eastwood | Nomitated | |
| Astra Midseason Movie Awards | July 3, 2025 | Best Picture | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| Astra Midseason Movie Awards | July 3, 2025 | Best Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Austin Film Critics Association | December 18, 2025 | Best Stunt Work | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | December 11, 2025 | Best Use of Visual Effects | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| Chinese American Film Festival | November 7, 2025 | Most Popular U.S. Film in China | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Cinema Audio Society Awards | March 7, 2026 | Motion Pictures – Live Action | Lloyd Dudley ; Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor ; Chris Fogel ; Nick Roberts ; Adam Mendez | ||
| Critics' Choice Awards | January 4, 2026 | Best Visual Effects | Alex Wuttke, Ian Lowe, Jeff Sutherland, and Kirstin Hall | Nomitated | |
| Critics' Choice Awards | January 4, 2026 | Best Stunt Design | Wade Eastwood | Won | |
| Critics' Choice Super Awards | August 7, 2025 | Best Action Movie | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Critics' Choice Super Awards | August 7, 2025 | Best Actor in an Action Movie | Tom Cruise | Won | |
| Golden Globe Awards | January 11, 2026 | Cinematic and Box Office Achievement | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| Golden Reel Awards | March 8, 2026 | Outstanding Achievement in Music Editing – Feature Motion Picture | Cécile Tournesac and Timeri Duplat | ||
| Golden Trailer Awards | May 29, 2025 | Best Action TV Spot | "Crackle" | Won | |
| Golden Trailer Awards | May 29, 2025 | Best Original Score | "Certainty" | Won | |
| Golden Trailer Awards | May 29, 2025 | Best Summer 2025 Blockbuster Trailer | "Certainty" | Nomitated | |
| Houston Film Critics Society | January 20, 2026 | Best Stunt Coordination Team | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| ICG Publicists Awards | March 13, 2026 | Maxwell Weinberg Award for Motion Picture Publicity Campaign | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Japan Academy Awards | March 13, 2026 | Excellent Foreign Work | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Kansas City Film Critics Circle | December 21, 2025 | Buster Keaton Award for the Best Stunt Ensemble Film | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Las Vegas Film Critics Society | December 19, 2025 | Best Action Film | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Las Vegas Film Critics Society | December 19, 2025 | Best Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Las Vegas Film Critics Society | December 19, 2025 | Best Visual Effects | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| Location Managers Guild International Awards | August 23, 2025 | Outstanding Locations in a Contemporary Feature Film | Ben Firminger, Jonas Christiansen, Morten Nelson, Niall O'Shea, Jason Roberts, Peter Bardsley, Jasmine Burridge, Clara Butler, and Sam Millner | Won | |
| Movieguide Awards | February 6, 2026 | Best Faith & Freedom Movie | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Movieguide Awards | February 6, 2026 | Best Mature Audience Movie | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| National Board of Review | December 3, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Online Film Critics Society | January 26, 2026 | Best Choreography | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | December 15, 2025 | Best Visual Effects | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Nomitated | |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | December 15, 2025 | Best Stunt Choreography | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Satellite Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Sound (Editing and Mixing) | Chris Burdon, Lloyd Dudley, James H. Mather, Mark Taylor, and Cécile Tournesac | ||
| Satellite Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Visual Effects | Alex Wuttke, Ian Lowe, Jeff Sutherland, and Kirstin Hall | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Action / Adventure Film | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Film Direction | Christopher McQuarrie | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Actor in a Film | Tom Cruise | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Film Screenwriting | Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Film Editing | Eddie Hamilton | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best Film Visual / Special Effects | Alex Wuttke, Jeff Sutherland, Ian Lowe, Kristin Hall, and Dave Newton | ||
| Saturn Awards | March 8, 2026 | Best 4K Home Media Release | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | ||
| Seattle Film Critics Society | December 15, 2025 | Best Action Choreography | Wade Eastwood | Won | |
| St. Louis Film Critics Association | December 14, 2025 | Best Action Film | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| St. Louis Film Critics Association | December 14, 2025 | Best Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won | |
| Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association | December 7, 2025 | Best Stunts | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Won |
Future
In June 2023, McQuarrie told Fandango that both parts of Dead Reckoning would not necessarily end the series, and they were developing ideas for future installments. In July 2023, during promotion for Dead Reckoning, Cruise expressed interest in reprising his role as Hunt in future films, citing Harrison Ford's portrayal of Indiana Jones over 40 years from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. On November 12, 2024, Jeff Sneider reported Cruise sought to cast Glen Powell, one of his co-stars in Top Gun: Maverick, to replace him as the new lead for potential future Mission Impossible films. Powell denied this during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show.In May 2025, during the New York premiere for The Final Reckoning, Cruise confirmed that the film would be his last time portraying Ethan Hunt in the series, stating, "It's the final! It's not called 'final' for nothing."