May 5, 2025 (Tokyo)
May 23, 2025 (United States)
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is a 2025 American action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen. The sequel to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, it is the eighth and final installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. Tom Cruise (who also produced alongside McQuarrie), Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bassett reprise their roles from the previous films.
In January 2019, Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with McQuarrie co-writing and directing both films. Plans for the eighth film later changed in February 2021. Returning and new cast members were announced soon after, including Lorne Balfe, who composed the score for two other films in the franchise, returning to score Final Reckoning, although Balfe later left the production and was replaced by his longtime collaborators Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Filming began in March 2022 in the United Kingdom, with other filming locations including Malta, South Africa and Norway. Production was halted in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, resumed in March 2024, and concluded in November 2024. The film, originally titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, dropped its subtitle in October 2023, and the new subtitle was announced in November 2024. With an estimated budget of $300–400 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
The Final Reckoning had its world premiere in Tokyo on May 5, 2025, was screened out of competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 23, by Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics.
Storyline
IMF agents Ethan Hunt and Grace pursue Gabriel, an agent previously working for the artificial intelligence known as the Entity. Instead, Gabriel captures them and coerces Ethan into retrieving the core module, revealed to be the "Rabbit's Foot", from the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol for him, which would give him control over the Entity's source code. Ethan and Grace escape with the aid of IMF agent Benji Dunn and new recruits Paris and Theo Degas. They discover a device that Gabriel used to communicate with the Entity, which shows Ethan a vision of a coming nuclear apocalypse. Ethan realizes the Entity needs access to a secure digital bunker in South Africa to ensure its survival.
Ethan sends his team to retrieve the Sevastopol's coordinates, while he rejoins Luther Stickell to disarm a nuclear device Gabriel planted in London. Luther reveals that he developed a malware for the Entity called the Poison Pill, but Gabriel has stolen it. Sacrificing himself, Luther stays behind to stop the bomb. Ethan then surrenders to U.S. President Erika Sloane, who urges cooperation due to the Entity's escalating control over global nuclear systems. With only four days before it launches global strikes, Ethan convinces Sloane to let him act independently to locate the Sevastopol, against CIA Director Eugene Kittridge's objections.
Ethan's team travels to St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea, home to a Cold War–era sonar array that detected the Sevastopol's sinking. They locate former CIA analyst William Donloe, who was exiled to the island decades earlier after a break-in at CIA headquarters. Donloe reveals he memorized the Sevastopol's coordinates after recognizing the sonar signature. As Grace and Donloe's wife Tapeesa hold off an occupying unit of Russian special forces in a firefight, Donloe transmits the coordinates to the team.
Ethan joins the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush in the North Pacific Ocean to dive to the Sevastopol wreck. Ethan retrieves the module, but accidentally triggers the wreck to slide down the continental shelf. Narrowly escaping, Ethan drowns during the ascent but is rescued and revived from decompression sickness by Grace and Tapeesa using a makeshift decompression chamber. Reunited with the IMF team, Ethan outlines his plan to use the Poison Pill to upload and isolate the Entity on a physical drive, trapping it from the outside world. Ethan suspects Gabriel is already waiting at the South African bunker with the Poison Pill, aiming to seize control of the Entity by forcing Ethan to surrender the module.
The team arrives at the bunker in South Africa only to find it abandoned, save for Gabriel and his allies. He reveals another nuclear device with a twenty-minute countdown, demanding the module. Ethan agrees, but the handover is interrupted by Kittridge, who wants the U.S. to control the Entity. The bomb is activated in the ensuing firefight, and Gabriel flees, knowing that Ethan will pursue him. Paris performs emergency surgery on a critically injured Benji as he guides Grace to reboot the bunker systems to trap the Entity. Donloe buys the team enough time for everyone to escape safely before the bomb detonates.
Ethan chases Gabriel in a biplane and climbs onto Gabriel's plane mid-air. Gabriel fails to shake him off and jumps with a parachute but is killed after hitting the plane's rudder. Ethan finds a second parachute, escapes with the Poison Pill, and unites it with the module, allowing Grace to finish the upload. Kittridge and CIA agent Jasper Briggs find Ethan; Kittridge is frustrated when Ethan hands over the destroyed module of the Sevastopol while Briggs—who is revealed to be James Phelps Jr., the son of Ethan's original team leader Jim Phelps—makes peace with him. The IMF team reunites in London, where Grace gives Ethan the Entity, now safely isolated on the drive, and the team members go their separate ways.
Also See
- Mission: Impossible (1996)
- Mission: Impossible II (2000)
- Mission: Impossible III (2006)
- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
- Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
- Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
- Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)