Impossible Rankings - Ranking the Mission: Impossible Film Series

Its something that seems to slip my mind until the next comes out and was really cemented with Ghost Protocol, but I really think this is one of my all time favorite film franchises.  Minus one entry, every film here is terrific high end entertainment.  Why it slips my mind is that we've only had 5 films in 19 years from it and its never been rebooted.  Plus, each film is so different from one another that its almost like its not a series.  I was a bit of a fan of the reruns, but wouldn't go as far to call myself a "hardcore" Mission: Impossible TV fan.

One that was weird for a film series I'm a big fan of, the rankings for this was one of the easiest tasks I've done.  My picks came right to me and are pretty much definite.  This franchise is full of stunts, suspense, Tom Cruise and tons of fun.  Here is my ranking of the series, from end of fuse all the way to the stick of dynamite.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

2015

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin

Rated; PG-13

You have your seatbelt on?

              ~Ethan Hunt

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2011

Director: Brad Bird

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Lea Seydoux, Josh Holloway, Ving Rhames

Rated: PG-13

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

        ~Ethan Hunt

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Mission: Impossible III aka M:i:III

2006

Director: JJ Abrams

Starring: Tom Cruise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg, Maggie Q, Billy Crudup, Keri Russell, Laurence Fishburne, 

Rated: PG-13

That look in your eyes is pain in my ass, you know that, right?

                 ~Luther Stickell

Mission: Impossible II (2000) - with Commentary!

Mission: Impossible II aka M:I-2

2000

Director: John Woo

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, Dougray Scott, Anthony Hopkins

Rated; PG-13

You know, that was the hardest part about having to portray you, grinning like an idiot every fifteen minutes.

                                  ~Sean Ambrose

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Mission: Impossible

1996

Director: Brian De Palma

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emilio Estevez, Henry Czerny, Vanessa Redgrave

Rated; PG-13

RED LIGHT! GREEN LIGHT!

~Ethan Hunt

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 2011

This was the year that was supposed to just be the summer to get through in order to get to summer 2012 which was supposed to be the real big deal.  Well, summer 2011 turned out to be pretty great in the big time pictures department while 2012 wound up severely lacking.  The awful Green Lantern aside, Summer 2011 had some great superhero pictures to boot.  This was an Academy Awards year that disappointed plenty of people and many didn't care for the "cute" movie winning Best Picture.  Still a more impressive movie than King's Speech (ok, ok, I'm done harping on that haha).  I had an absolutely horrible time trying to cut this damn thing to 6.  I had a hard enough time getting it to 10 prior to that.  When I had it to 8, every movie was passing my relevancy to myself test that I've been using when decision making.  What makes it equally hard is that we're not that far removed from this particular year and have a passage of time that may make these cuts harder.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1999

If you didn't have the word "The" in your title you were by default the winner of the 1999 Academy Awards.  This was an interesting year where my list is probably the most "pop friendly" of any of them so far.  At least to me.  This year is also notable as it contained what I consider the worst film I've ever plopped down money to see in a theater.  I'm speaking of Wing Commander.  A film my friends and I went to ONLY to see the trailer for The Phantom Menace.  See, back in the day you HAD to go to the theater to see the new trailers.  They weren't online weeks before they finally showed up on the silver screen.  They even turned the house lights back on after the trailer so people could leave if they wanted to.  We should have left.  After the movie, we all realized we wanted to ask the others if they wanted to leave, but were afraid someone might have been enjoying themselves.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1996

1996 turned out to be a difficult year to pick from for me.  It was also a pretty great year for comedy for me, unfortunately having to make the final cuts of Kingpin and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.  It sucks, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose.  Overall a pretty strong year for movies and the one that introduced me to the Coen Bros.  If young me would have told you about 1996 I would have been allllll about the Independence Day.  Its surprisingly a movie I never turn back to and am kind of afraid to do so.  But, in 1996, that movie and I had our time together and it was a good one.