Tom Cruise is bringing death-defying stunts to the big screen once again. The latest installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, is set to premiere in theaters on May 23, and will see Cruise return as field agent Ethan Hunt. Other familiar faces from the series, including Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell) and Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), will also reprise their roles.
The Final Reckoning, the eighth Mission: Impossible movie, will pick up where the 2023 film Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning left off. Hunt and his team are still in the midst of a potentially catastrophic fight against a rogue artificial intelligence machine dubbed “the Entity.”
Though The Final Reckoning will conclude the events set up in the last film, director Christopher McQuarrie is careful to say whether or not this will be the final Mission: Impossible movie.
“It is, I hope, the satisfying conclusion to a 30-year story arc,” he told Empire in February 2025. “I’m pretty confident that people are going to feel that the title was appropriate.” Here’s everything to know about Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and if it will be the last film in the decades-long series.
What is Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning about? The upcoming Mission: Impossible movie will leave off where Dead Reckoning ended, with Ethan and the IMF working to stop Gabriel and the Entity before it’s too late. Few details have been released about what’s at stake, but according to the trailer, “the fate of every living soul” is at risk.
“What really needs to happen in the story is the stakes have to be real, they can’t be implied,” McQuarrie told Entertainment Weekly in 2023 when asked about Faust’s death in Dead Reckoning. “We have to have the courage to let [Ethan] fail and it has to cost, the mission has to cost, and without that, the villain simply will not have a threat … what you’re seeing in the escalation of the story is what it costs Ethan personally in Venice.”
Which cast members are returning for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning? In addition to Cruise playing the iconic role of super spy Ethan Hunt, a few other beloved characters are reprising their roles in The Final Reckoning. Rhames and Pegg will return to Ethan’s team as IMF’s computer technician Luther Tickell and IMF’s technical field agent Benji Dunn, respectively. Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff and Henry Czerny, who were all cast in the seventh film, will appear in the eighth as well.
Deadline announced in November 2024 that fan-favorite Angela Bassett, who played CIA Director Erika Sloane in the 2018 film Mission: Impossible – Fallout, will also return for The Final Reckoning.
Which new cast members are joining Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning? There are a few new faces joining the Mission: Impossible franchise. Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), Tramell Tillman (Severance), Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), Janet McTeer (Ozark) and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) have all been cast in the eighth film per Entertainment Weekly. However, the details of their roles have been kept under wraps.
What has Tom Cruise said about returning to Mission: Impossible? Dangerous stunts are a hallmark of the Mission: Impossible movies and The Final Reckoning is no exception. Cruise told Empire in February 2025 that one scene — which involves him barely hanging on to the wing of a 1930s Boeing Stearman biplane as it flies 10,000 feet in the air over South Africa — was so intense that he passed out while attempting it.
“When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” Cruise explained. “So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”
Will Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning be the last?With a word like “final” in the title, fans have debated whether or not The Final Reckoning will conclude the Mission: Impossible franchise which started in 1996. Neither Cruise nor McQuarrie have confirmed that this film will be the last and instead just urge people to see the movie.
“It’s a hard thing for me to discuss at the moment, because it really is something that you have to experience,” Cruise told Empire in February 2025. The Top Gun actor also described The Final Reckoning as “an epic, emotional journey of the entire franchise.”