Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: The Legacy of Tom Cruise’s $4B Film Franchise

With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning releasing in theaters this week, it allegedly marks the end of a film franchise that lasted 29 years (1996-2025) while producing 8 films for star Tom Cruise, who plays IMF agent Ethan Hunt in what could go down as the actor’s most iconic role.

If this really was the final mission for Cruise and company, then it ends a remarkable run of action movies the likes of which we may never see again based on the way the film industry has changed and the somewhat bleak future that’s been projected. Maybe it’s fitting that the final film’s plot deals with stopping a rogue AI (the Entity) from destroying the world.

Let’s look back at the success of the Mission: Impossible film series, why it’s so unique, and the legacy it should leave behind.

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How Successful Has Mission: Impossible Been at the Box Office?

As it stands right now, the Mission: Impossible film series is the 17th-highest grossing film series in history at just over $4.157 billion since the first film came out in 1996.

With the box office totals still to come for the latest release, The Final Reckoning, it’s likely to leapfrog Pirates of the Caribbean ($4.522B) for 16th place. However, a new Pirates movie is expected in the near future, so that No. 16 ranking will only be temporary.

Still, this is fantastic success for a film series that didn’t have a tight-knit narrative that flowed from sequel to sequel like a Star Wars trilogy. This was just pure action-spy stories on par with James Bond, but with one consistent lead actor throughout, and it started as a reimagining of a TV show from 1966 – a full 30 years before the films started.

Consistent Box Office Performance

The other impressive thing about Mission: Impossible’s success is that it was consistent. Every film turned a profit, with most quadrupling their budget. However, that will be hard for The Final Reckoning to do since it’s one of the most expensive movies ever made with a budget reportedly as high as $400 million.

That’s the other thing that’s unique about Mission: Impossible. It’s the only film franchise in the top 20 highest-grossing list to never have one of the titles make $800 million at the box office during its original release. Seventeen of the top 20 franchises had at least one film gross over $1 billion at theaters.

The Mission: Impossible franchise peaked at the box office when 2018’s Fallout sequel made $791M in its initial run before a 2025 re-release in the United Kingdom brought it up to $824M.

We’ll see how the final installment does with a good time to open on Memorial Day weekend in the US. Many feel the previous sequel, Dead Reckoning Part One, underperformed ($571M globally) because of 2023’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon at theaters, with viewers choosing to spend their money on Barbie and Oppenheimer instead.

But of the top 20 highest-grossing film series, Mission: Impossible is in a very small group that is built on live-action and doesn’t rely on other genres that are better suited for blockbusters:

• Pure action: James Bond, Fast & Furious, Mission: Impossible
• Comic book/superhero based: MCU, Spider-Man, Avengers, X-Men, DC Extended Universe, Batman
• Supernatural/fantasy elements: Wizarding World, The Twilight Saga, Pirates of the Caribbean, Middle-earth (Lord of the Rings)
• Sci-fi: Star Wars, Transformers, Jurassic Park
• Animation: The Lion King, Avatar, Despicable Me, Shrek

James Bond was really the model for what the Mission: Impossible film franchise could become. Bond was there for decades before MI (1996), and it’s going to outlive this series too. But the only other thing on this scale has been Fast & Furious, which started in 2001, is ending soon, and no one, not even Vin Diesel, probably imagined that franchise would become what it has.

If you want to enjoy chase scenes and death-defying stunts without things like aliens and costumed superheroes running around, the Mission: Impossible franchise has been one of our only establishments for 3 decades. That’s worthy of respect.

How Have Critics Viewed the Mission: Impossible Film Franchise?

You could very well make the argument that it’s never had an all-time great film out of the 8. It never had it’s The Empire Strikes Back (1980) or The Dark Knight (2008) moment. Nothing that anyone hypes up like the action classic Die Hard, and also perhaps nothing that surpasses the very best of James Bond (Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, Casino Royale, Skyfall, etc.)

But can you name a bad or subpar Mission: Impossible movie? Even the lowest-rated, Mission: Impossible II (2000), has its moments from director John Woo, including one of the series’ best mask reveals.

Meanwhile, there have been some very disappointing Bond movies such as Moonraker, Die Another Day, and The Man with the Golden Gun. For Fast & Furious, it’s actually incredible the franchise survived how bad 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) was and how disconnected Tokyo Drift (2006) was from the original story.

Again, consistency is a defining characteristic of the Mission: Impossible film franchise, as you’re usually getting quality work from Cruise and company. But it’s also true that none of the 8 films have ever been nominated for an Oscar, which you couldn’t say for successful film series like the MCU, James Bond, or Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

Still, most Mission: Impossible movies have been well received by critics and fans when you look at their scores on IMDb, Letterboxd, and Rotten Tomatoes (critics):

• Mission: Impossible (1996): IMDb: 7.2/10, Letterboxd: 3.6/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 65%
• Mission: Impossible II (2000): IMDb: 6.1/10, Letterboxd: 2.7/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 57%
• Mission: Impossible III (2006): IMDb: 6.9/10, Letterboxd: 3.4/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 73%
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011): IMDb: 7.4/10, Letterboxd: 3.7/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015): IMDb: 7.4/10, Letterboxd: 3.7/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018): IMDb: 7.7/10, Letterboxd: 4.0/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023): IMDb: 7.6/10, Letterboxd: 3.7/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025): IMDb: 7.6/10, Letterboxd: 3.7/5, Rotten Tomatoes: 79%

At IMDb, 6-of-8 MI movies have a 7.2 or higher, and the last 5 are all 7.4 or higher, which is very impressive when you consider how many franchises plummet in quality after the 2nd or 3rd movie.

Only Mission: Impossible II dips under a 3.4 at Letterboxd and under 65% at Rotten Tomatoes as it is the weakest link, made at a time when even Cruise probably didn’t foresee this as an 8-film series that would end in 2025.

Fallout is the consensus best Mission: Impossible movie ever made, with stellar scores across the board. Good luck even naming another film franchise that peaked with its 6th film. That’s just not supposed to happen.

What Is the Legacy of the Mission: Impossible Film Franchise?

If it’s truly over, I think you have to acknowledge Mission: Impossible as one of the greatest action franchises ever put to film. It’s right up there with James Bond.

One huge distinguishing quality it has over James Bond is the constant presence of Cruise in all 8 movies. This franchise, more than any other project, has made him known as a daredevil who does his own stunt work. Even as he got older – he’s 62 in the last one – he continued to push the envelope with stunts.

Iconic Elements that Define the Series

This series should also have a trademark on the plot device of wearing a life-like mask to imitate another person, as that comes into play in just about every movie but Ghost Protocol. If you ever see another movie do a dramatic face mask reveal, you’ll think of Mission: Impossible. The theme music and the way they queue it up in the films is also iconic.

But another reason to appreciate this franchise is that you may never see something like this again from Hollywood.

Nowadays, blockbusters and high-budget action flicks have to hit certain metrics to show they’re viable for sequels and to turn into a franchise/intellectual property juggernaut for a studio. If the 1st movie isn’t a smashing success, there may never be another.

The Long Road to Greatness

It’s rare that a huge star like Cruise got to stick with a project that went through various directors and didn’t even come close to peaking early. As a 10-year-old kid in 1996, I saw the first MI in the theater and enjoyed myself even if the plot was convoluted and I had never seen the TV series from 1966-73.

When the sequel came out in 2000, it felt unfocused and seemed more interested in selling music videos for the bands on the soundtrack. The performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in MI: III as arguably the franchise’s best villain got things back on track.

Influence from Bond and a New Era

But we also should credit the success of the Daniel Craig-led Bond movies, starting with Casino Royale in 2006, as having a major influence on Mission: Impossible to step up its game on the spy-action front.

It’s no coincidence that 2011’s Ghost Protocol, the 1st sequel made after Craig’s Bond entries, was the turning point in the franchise. They gave the stories more emotional depth, more practical stunts, and raised the stakes while starting to make a more connected narrative from film to film. Bringing in actors like Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby were great moves.

Even if things peaked in Fallout, Dead Reckoning Part One was absurdly fun to watch and is outstanding work for a 7th entry in a franchise like this that could have ended years ago.

In the future, a franchise like this probably will self-destruct if a sequel gets bad reviews (MI II) and the next only returns $400M on a $150M budget (MI III). There wouldn’t even be a Ghost Protocol and a chance to redeem and reinvent itself. Not in this business today.

The most impossible mission will be finding another action franchise like this to put on the big screen. But good luck to all the filmmakers willing to try.