There really are no actors out there like Tom Cruise. The guy is the ultimate hero, and might be the ultimate movie star ever. He knows what audiences want and has taken that seriously.

With the Mission: Impossible franchise, Cruise stepped into the producer chair as well, constantly pushing the production further, and doing his own stunts in order to make these event movies you have to see on the biggest screen possible.

Today, I want to go over the best stunts he's ever done and talk about how cool they are and what he risked.

Let's dive in.

10. The Ankle Breaker – 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' (2018)

It turns out that jumping off a roof is pretty hard. In Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Cruise attempts a relatively straightforward transition from a taller building to a shorter building. But Cruise fell short and slammed his foot into the side of the concrete wall, shattering his ankle. What makes this legendary? He pulled himself up and ran past the camera to finish the take. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. McQuarrie kept the shot in the final film.

9. The Dead Horse Point Climb – 'Mission: Impossible 2' (2000)

This is the stunt that cemented the modern Cruise daredevil mythos. It was all anyone could talk about in the '90s, because people were afraid he really could die trying it. The opening of M:I-2 has Ethan Hunt free-soloing a cliff face at Dead Horse Point in Utah. The guy is so jacked and swinging from rock to rock. While he was secured by a thin safety cable (which was digitally removed), there was no safety net as he flung himself around. Director John Woo was so terrified watching from the helicopter that he couldn't look at the monitor. The iconic shot of Cruise hanging by one arm is pure, unadulterated movie star.

8. The CIA Vault Heist – 'Mission: Impossible' (1996)

Not all stunts are about explosions and speed. Some of them are just about body control and selling the reality of a scene. The original Mission: Impossible gave us a sequence built on agonizing tension. We got Cruise suspended from a single wire in a soundproof, pressure-sensitive vault, inches from the floor. Every muscle strain, every bead of sweat feels real because it is real. Cruise is doing it all. And it cemented one of the coolest stunts anyone has ever seen.

7. The Underwater Heist – 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation' (2015)

How do you film a complex heist sequence in a single, sustained take with no cuts? For this scene, Cruise trained with free-diving experts to learn how to hold his breath for over six minutes so they could get all the shots underwater for real. The sequence required him to dive into a massive underwater tank, swim against a current, and perform intricate actions. And of course he was up to the task.

6. The Dangling Train Cars – 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' (2023)

This has the ethos of Buster Keaton’s The General, but reconfigured for the 21st century. The climax of Dead Reckoning is a monumental tribute to large-scale practical filmmaking and sets. After blowing up a bridge, Ethan Hunt and Grace must climb through the carriages of a train as they fall one by one into a ravine. The production team didn't use much CGI; they built multiple full-size train cars and mounted them on a U-shaped track over a quarry, allowing them to be wrecked. For the interior shots, the sets were built on a massive gimbal rig that could tilt to a vertical 90 degrees, sending actors, furniture, and a grand piano crashing down around the performers. Incredible commitment to craft.

5. The Helicopter Chase – 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' (2018)

Fallout is my favorite of the MI movies, and one that will be on this list several times, thanks to all the crazy stunts. We see Cruise flying a helicopter, chasing another one, and performing stunts hanging from them. Cruise earned his pilot's license and underwent intense training to become one of the few actors to ever perform such a maneuver on camera. The guy knows what people want. Filming it was a logistical nightmare, involving multiple helicopters flying in close formation through the treacherous Southern Alps of New Zealand. The result is one of the most thrilling and technically astounding aerial sequences ever committed to film.

4. The HALO Jump – 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' (2018)

The High Altitude, Low Open jump is a dangerous military maneuver performed by only the most elite special forces...and Tom Cruise for a movie. They launched themselves out of a plane 25,000 feet to capture the sequence in a single take at dusk (the "golden hour" for cinematography). Cruise and his cameraman had to perform the jump over 100 times to get it right. And a custom helmet was designed with built-in lighting and an oxygen system just for the shot.

3. The A400M Plane Hang – 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation' (2015)

Nothing says crazy like Tom Cruise clinging to the side of an Airbus A400M military transport plane as it took off. And that was in the trailer for a Mission: Impossible movie. Talk about getting people to pay attention. Cruise was strapped in by a full-body harness attached to the plane and was subjected to freezing temperatures and immense wind force that could have easily blinded him or thrown debris into his body. They did the sequence eight times to get it right.

2. The Burj Khalifa Climb – 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' (2011)

This was the moment the Mission: Impossible franchise went from a great action series to a must-see cinematic event. Dangling more than 1,700 feet (over half a kilometer) in the air from the side of the world’s tallest building, Cruise performs a series of runs, jumps, and rappels that are both breathtaking and nauseating to watch on an IMAX screen. The rigging was complex, the desert winds were a constant threat, and one mistake would have been fatal. This stunt single-handedly redefined the scale of modern practical action filmmaking.

1. The Motorcycle Cliff Jump – 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One' (2023)

This is the culmination of a lifetime of stunt work. It is, by all accounts, the biggest and most dangerous practical stunt in cinema history. To prepare, Cruise performed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps. And still, did that seem like enough to risk his life? The stunt itself involved him riding a custom-built motorcycle at top speed off a massive ramp on a Norwegian cliff edge, letting go of the bike in mid-air, and base jumping to safety. Every single element had to be perfect—his speed, his body position, the weather. He did it on the very first day of principal photography, setting a bar so high it may never be cleared again...until the next movie.

1. The Upside-Down Biplane Wing Walk – 'Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning' (2025)

You're darn right there's another number one on this list. Because Cruise upped the ante for the final installment of the franchise. Cruise climbed onto the wing of a vintage biplane mid-flight, hangs upside down as it barrel rolls, and finds himself in a close-formation dogfight where he even switches planes! It's more complex than the A400M hang and arguably more dynamic than the Burj Khalifa climb, representing a new pinnacle of sustained, in-camera aerial artistry. It's crazy he did it, and even crazier we got to see it on the big screen.

Summing It All Up 

There are many reasons to love Tom Cruise, but these stunts show me how much he cares about spectacle and audiences. He will do anything to get us to watch, and I am so lucky to be alive while he's making such amazing films.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

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