Mission: Impossible

1996 Directed by Brian De Palma

Expect the Impossible.

When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the No. 1 suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.

Tom Cruise Jon Voight Emmanuelle Béart Henry Czerny Jean Reno Ving Rhames Kristin Scott Thomas Vanessa Redgrave Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė Valentina Yakunina Marek Vašut Nathan Osgood John McLaughlin Rolf Saxon Karel Dobrý Andreas Wisniewski David Shaeffer Rudolf Pechan Gaston Šubert Ricco Ross Mark Houghton Bob Friend Annabel Mullion Garrick Hagon Jiřina Třebická Andrzej Borkowski Maya Dokic Sam Douglas Olegar Fedoro Show All…

Alternative Titles

Mission: Impossible 1, Mission Impossible 1, Миссия: Невыполнима 1, Mission Impossible, Nemoguća misija, M:I-1, Mission Impossible - IM1, Mission Impossible I, Misija - Nemogoce, Misión Imposible, Mission Impossible 01 Mission Impossible, Місія неможлива, 미션 임파서블, MI-1 - Mission Impossible, 不可能的任务, Mission։ Impossible

adventure action thriller

110 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by matt lynch ★★★★½ 4

After PULP FICTION maybe the pop masterpiece of the 90s? Probably hyperbole, but minutes after my umpteenth viewing it's the truth.
Review by Joe ★★★★★ 7

"Would you like to watch a movie?"
Usually a respected auteur like Brian De Palma doesn't get credit for delivering a great piece of pop blockbuster entertainment unless he or she subverts it in some way, deconstructs the genre or introduces some kind of wildly transgressive element like Verhoeven's satire or Scott's formal mayhem, but that's not what De Palma does here. This is more like his Manhunter, where a great director takes pulpy source material and turns it into a meditation on the act of watching, and the romance and excitement of movies themselves. In the opening sequence, IMF are basically established as a film crew, creating a fake scenario in order to get the name of a spy…
Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★ 3

If this were made now, Cruise totally would've clung to an actual bullet train. Still, good movie tho
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 6

94/100
Mission: Impossible is delightfully cheesy, aged to perfection and surrounded by the meatiest strip of bacon ever crafted. It's a tasty and junky blast, from the first frame to the last. Brian De Palma has always been known for his sensual and gleefully silly ventures, all of which possess immaculate form and content. but this is easily his most delicious in regards to spookiness. The set-pieces here are just magnificent, relishing in flawless camerawork and ingenious pacing, and it's all enhanced by Danny Elfman's peerless score. In spite of its commitment to tone, De Palma's film also has a rat complicating things and dangerous chewing gum. Fun, fun, and fun.
Review by Zach Ralston ★★★★★ 9

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

It's all about the scene in the third act when Ethan and Jim reunite and have a drink together. Jim is trying to convince Ethan that Kittridge is the mole, not knowing Ethan already figured out it was Jim because of the Drake Hotel bible. So Ethan, having the upper hand, narrates a flashback where he pretends to realize how Kittridge did it, all for Jim's benefit -- meanwhile, DePalma's visuals tell a different story: the way Ethan is seeing it, watching Jim take out the IMF team. And even in that sequence, there's a shot of Claire taking out Hannah, and then one of Jim taking out Hannah, because Ethan isn't sure yet of Claire's loyalty. And he can't…
Review by Nakul ★★★★ 6

Mission Impossible still rules!! Definitely the most auteur-driven blockbuster & the only one in the series to have that true spy thriller feel with 60's espionage aesthetic. De Palma going full De Palma with shots and camera placement. That Langley heist is just an all-timer set-piece, in terms of suspense and tension building, it's maybe the best set-piece in the series. Also that Elfman score is gold.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 1

94
Still the gold standard of auteur-franchise-fuckery. De Palma lays out all the traditional crayons and colors inside the lines, yet it still plays like one great big con-job. The *classic* opening, literally dividing its space and revealing itself as a movie-set, is only the beginning of how De Palma constantly expands and constricts his canvas. Shooting wide and large, in the case of the final train/helicopter action set-piece (which is still an all-timer), and shrinking a 'light-bulb' revelation to nothing more than conjoined edits and alternate viewpoints find common ground in his delicious zooms, ghostly steadicam, and operatic tendencies. The looming fog, traveling gazes, and canted angles are right out of early-British-period Hitchcock and Film Noir, but there's a few additions such as exploding chewing gum, floppy-disc-drives, and (gasp!) email. So assured it'll re-wire the brain.
Review by ellie ✨ ★★★½ 2

it's funny because we all know that 2018 tom cruise would actually run around on top of a moving train and so 1996 tom cruise relying on visual effects seems sort of weak by comparison
Review by Jay ★★★

if only i could tear off my cgi mask only to reveal i was tom cruise the whole time
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★

Happy birthday to Brian De Palma, who with this movie has little to say but "Hi, I'm Brian De Palma and I'm extremely good at making movies"
Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★

An ideal DePalma lark. The dedication to artifice and interchangeable faces has a perversity that belongs only to him. It is the least Cruisian film of the series as well. Very much an action film of its time which helps explain the mediocre reviews. I always forget for all the DePalmisms how much it sets the series template.
Review by CinemaClown ★★½ 12

One of the most popular films of the 1990s that catapulted Tom Cruise into the league of Hollywood's biggest stars, Mission: Impossible is an intriguing, entertaining & seemingly engaging spy-thriller that packs in enough action spectacle to satisfy its viewers but also suffers due to its convoluted premise, illogical twists & unfleshed characters.
The story of Mission: Impossible follows Ethan Hunt; the point man of a secret government agency who's suspected to be the mole within the organisation after he turns out to be the sole survivor of a mission gone wrong. Fleeing from the scene to avoid arrest, Hunt enlists the help of two former agents to find out the real culprit and prove his innocence.
Directed by Brian De Palma…

Recent reviews

Review by colinfsawyer ★★★½

Doing a Mission Impossible marathon as this was the only one I had seen.
I feel pretty much the same about this one as I did when I first saw it: great set pieces, lots of interesting choices by DePalma, some I don’t love, but ultimately a pretty satisfying movie.
Review by Pootiequeen ★★★½

Tom Cruise’s teeth give me anxiety which keeps the review at 3.5 and not 4.
Review by Logan Smith ★★★★★

Balls-to-the-wall exciting from start to finish.
Review by TeenyPoki ★★★½

Nice intro, one of the best hook scenes I've seen, really well executed film for it's time.
Iconic soundtrack.
Review by FanchiseFatigue ★★★★

Podcast Link:
www.spreaker.com/user/ufpearth/ff001
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow along as Brandon and Zach cover all the films in the Mission: Impossible franchise! This episode is devoted to the 1996 film directed by Brian DePalma.
MASK COUNT
4
RATINGS
Brandon: 4/5
Zach: 4/5
Average Rating: 4/5
IS THIS FRANCHISE FATIGUED?
Brandon: NO
Zach: NO
Review by Andy Meakin ★★★★★

The clever thing the first film did was to play very close to the original series - missions that self destruct, disguises, and Jim Phelps - but then flip it and play it for a new audience, whilst also smartly setting up the new lead Ethan Hunt. In addition, in offering the twist of who the bad guy really was, but making the reason fit so well for the character, it showed this wouldn’t be just another spy genre film series….it had plans to be more.
Cruise, as producer and star, was heavily involved in the creativity of the film, even being the source for the idea of the restaurant with fish tanks - and of course doing his own…
Review by Gavin Ramsden ★★★★

Absolutely had a blast watching this. There's no real shoot-outs here, just great thought out suspenseful scenes coupled with a plot that has enough twists and turns to keen you engaged throughout. Mission Impossible excellently crafted big budget entertainment. Cruise is perfect for the role and is surrounded by a great cast. There's some incredible and iconic moments here that make it well worth the watch.
Review by Billy Crash ★★★ 1

“Hasta lasagna, don’t get any on ya”
Pretty good spy movie the sets up a great series. Ethan Hunt is a lad. Fun fact: this was the first movie I ever added to my Letterboxd watchlist.
Why was Jim’s wife like 20 years younger than him?
Review by Hugh Jass ★★★½ 4

Classic
Favorite Character: Ethan Hunt
Review by Mike Garland ★★★★½

Still the best MI movie. I do not understand why it gets slandered. DePalma and Towne deliver the only movie in the series that doesn’t just feel like a bond movie that takes itself way too seriously.
Review by Josiah Blizzard ★★★½

This screams 90s to me for 2 hours. My first viewing of the film that kicked off the MI series. I’m a huge fan of 4, 5, and 6, and this movie actually holds up alright. Only difference is that Cruise today would’ve actually shot that sequence on a real train. Overall a solid entry especially for the 90s into perhaps the greatest action film series ever released.
Review by Thomas Scully ★★★½

I think we all need to recognize that Eugene Kittridge is just Caleb Boatman if you give him code word clearance. This should greatly concern us