The Big Picture · Discussion

The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 21 - ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’

April 30, 2025/ 44 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins

Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins put Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Fallout at No. 21, the one they'd already ranked the best in the franchise. They walk the six all-world set pieces, read the film as late-period Tom Cruise mythologizing himself through Ethan Hunt, and rank it over the Top Gun: Maverick they left off the list.

21 films across 1 segment.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

No. 21: ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’25 for 25

Mission: Impossible - Fallout 2018

The pick, and the hosts' No. 1 Mission after Dead Reckoning came out. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie; Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan and Alec Baldwin. Sean and Amanda saw it together on his birthday in 2018 at the ArcLight Dome. They read it as the film where late-stage Cruise reinvents himself: the funniest Mission, the first psychologically probing one since the original, and, they argue, a coded apology to someone in his life given how much Ethan keeps saying sorry to Julia. Sean counts six all-world sequences: the HALO jump onto the Palais Royal, the Grand Palais bathroom fight, the White Widow gala shootout, the Solomon Lane extraction, the London rooftop chase from St. Paul's to the Tate, and the closing helicopter fight and cliff climb. Lorne Balfe's score gets singled out, down to the drums timed to Angela Bassett's heels.

Mission: Impossible 1996

Brian De Palma's 1996 original, Sean and Amanda's shared second-favorite. Cited as the last psychologically probing Mission before Fallout: Ethan's team is murdered in the first 20 minutes and his mentor turns out to have betrayed him. Vanessa Redgrave's Max ties into Fallout through her daughter, the White Widow.

Mission: Impossible II 2000

The John Woo entry, placed right at the century's start; named while the hosts count up how many of the six films they could have picked from.

Mission: Impossible III 2006

J.J. Abrams's entry, which the hosts are cooler on than the consensus (shout-outs to the Ringer staffers who love it). Still crucial: it introduces Michelle Monaghan's Julia and the idea of Ethan as a regular person, and Sean rates Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian the best performance in the series.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol poster

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 2011

Brad Bird's entry, important but flawed per the hosts. Source of the McQuarrie-on-set story about the Burj Khalifa climb: "blue is glue, red is dead."

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation poster

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation 2015

McQuarrie's first Mission, three years before Fallout. Introduced Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust and the opening plane stunt; the hosts see 4, 5 and 6 as roughly in a battle for the top.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One poster

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One 2023

Named as one of the six the hosts weighed; after it came out, Fallout still topped their shared rankings.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning poster

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning 2025

Recorded a week before it opened, so unseen. The hosts wonder aloud whether it could bump Fallout off the list, but suspect it has too much to tie up (the biplane, the submarine, the cruciform key), the way finales usually do.

The Usual Suspects 1995

McQuarrie won a screenwriting Oscar for it in his 20s; used to argue he's a mechanics-and-tone writer first, an underrated director second.

Edge of Tomorrow 2014

Cited for the Cruise move Fallout leans into: getting beaten and killed over and over, winning by being smart rather than the strongest guy in the room.

Oblivion 2013

One of the around-this-time Cruise vehicles that look like they should be classics and don't quite land, part of why he clings to Ethan Hunt.

Lions for Lambs 2007

Named in the same run of Cruise movies from the era that didn't work.

American Made 2017

Another of the recent Cruise films the hosts group as not quite getting there.

Knight and Day 2010

The Cruise-Cameron Diaz caper (Amanda mis-says "Night and Day"), on paper a classic Cruise vehicle that fell flat in practice.

John Wick 2014

The action franchise the hosts love but rank below Cruise: thrilling, but designed like a video game and schematic, where Fallout's set pieces carry the story.

Tenet 2020

Invoked for the Nolan-Mission arms race; the hosts argue Fallout's leveling-up is why Tenet exists. The Odyssey that Ethan's mission is hidden in gets a "hello, Christopher Nolan."

Top Gun: Maverick 2022

The film Sean chose Fallout over. He calls it a four-star movie to Fallout's five-star conversation and loves it dearly, but says you can only carry one late-stage Cruise movie about Cruise's own glory. McQuarrie has a writing credit on it too.

Skyfall 2012

A recommended-if-you-like and, the hosts announce, not on their list. Fallout is "the Skyfall spot," the same lineage of a spy reckoning with his own history.

The Bourne Identity 2002

Sean's recommended-if-you-like: a man moving through European cities, piecing it together and trying to save someone he loves.

Vertigo 1958

Named among the classic-Hollywood homages the rooftop material nods to.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

A running gag ("the last Marvel movie ever made") when the hosts talk about finales having too much to resolve.

Also mentioned raised along the way

McQuarrie's adventure-movie touchstones The Bridge on the River Kwai Raiders of the Lost Ark The Great Escape The Adventures of Robin Hood The Three Musketeers

The best kind of movie The Wizard of Oz Casablanca

Paramount's biggest hits Forrest Gump Titanic Transformers Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shrek Shrek 2 Shrek the Third Shrek Forever After Madagascar

In passing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Jurassic World Fast Five Sinners Brokeback Mountain Pride & Prejudice Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Thunderbolts Shrek 5

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