‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ director says the movie has ‘the most difficult thing we’ve ever done’

By Joe Allen Published January 19, 2025

The Mission: Impossible movies are known at this point for including at least one death-defying stunt from star Tom Cruise. Cruise seems hellbent on putting his life in danger for the benefit of audiences, and thus far, that dedication has led to some pretty excellent movies.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may or may not be the final installment in the franchise, but director Christopher McQuarrie is already suggesting that the movie has one of the biggest stunts in the franchise’s history. In speaking with Empire (per GamesRadar), he said that the film contains “the most difficult thing” they’ve ever done with the series. Unfortunately, he didn’t go into detail about what the sequence involved.

McQuarrie did detail a test screening, though, and the sequence went over exactly the way he had hoped. “We had a small screening and someone said, ‘I was suffocating throughout the entire sequence. I almost had a heart attack.’ And I thought, ‘I guess we did something right,” he explained.

The Final Reckoning is set to pick up many of the plot threads that were left dangling in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, as Cruise’s Ethan Hunt faces off against the artificial intelligence known as The Entity. The first trailer for the new film suggests that Cruise will hang off of at least one plane, fight plenty of bad guys, and also do something daring underwater. While we don’t know which sequence was the most difficult, it’s safe to say the movie will contain plenty of stunts.

The Final Reckoning is set to hit theaters on May 23, 2025.