While it’s almost hard to believe, we are a few months out from seeing what could be Tom Cruise’s last Mission: Impossible movie. On the 2025 movies calendar for May is the release date for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, and while that definitely sounds like the name of a movie that could conclude Ethan Hunt’s nearly thirty years in the IMF, what does Tom Cruise have to say?
A couple of months ago, The Final Reckoning teaser trailer oozed an upcoming M:I goodbye, between its callback to Cruise’s iconic scene of him hanging from the ceiling from the first movie, and Hunt ending the trailer by asking someone off camera to trust him “one last time.” When Cruise was recently asked about this, here’s what he said:
You gotta 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.
Hey, if there’s one thing Tom Cruise is going to do, he’s going to convince you to go out and see a movie in theaters. It sounds like it’s too soon for the actor to really unpack whether the Mission: Impossible movie is his final sendoff because the ending has yet to be revealed. During their interview with Empire, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie perhaps had a more straightforward answer with these words:
It is, I hope, the satisfying conclusion to a 30-year story arc. I’m pretty confident that people are going to feel that the title was appropriate.
The last two Mission: Impossible movies have been a massive undertaking and labor of love from Cruise and McQuarrie since they started production just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to spread in early 2020. This particular movie reportedly began filming back in 2022 and wrapped production this past November with a $400 million production budget under its belt – making the movie one of the most expensive ones ever made.
In the interview, Cruise also called The Final Reckoning an “epic, emotional journey of the entire franchise” that he compared to The Odyssey, calling it “Homeric.” The Mission: Impossible 8 cast will include all sorts of actors from prior films, including Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Angela Bassett and Hayley Atwell. When the latter actor was asked about whether The Final Reckoning will be the end of things, Atwell pointed out the obvious of the title before saying she both “wouldn’t be surprised” if Cruise leaves the door open and moves on from it, considering all that he has in the works.
The last Mission: Impossible movie, 2023’s Dead Reckoning, was regarded as a commercial disappointment. We have to wonder how that movie’s response may affect how the filmmakers approached this movie and how much audiences will turn out for what could be Ethan Hunt’s last ride. While we wait for The Final Reckoning’s release on May 23, you can prepare by watching all the Mission: Impossible movies in order.
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