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How Tom Cruise Executed His 'Most Dangerous' Stunt in 'Mission: Impossible –Dead Reckoning Part One'

The death-defying moment in the franchise's seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff

Collection Christophel/Alamy

Tom Cruise  turned up the action for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning   Part One .

While the film marks the seventh installment in the highly successful franchise, Cruise, 61, made the occasion even more special by challenging himself to perform one of his most dangerous stunts yet.

The death-defying moment involved Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff, fly off the bike, and parachute to the ground. While fans got a glimpse of the stunt through the film's action-packed trailer in May, Cruise, along with writer-director  Christopher McQuarrie , first teased the big moment in 2021 at CinemaCon.

The pair explained in a special behind-the-scenes video at the event that the stunt took 500 hours of skydiving training and 13,000 motorbike jumps to get it just right. The stunt involved Cruise being attached to a set of wires as he rides a speeding motorcycle off of a large ramp before he throws himself from the bike, backed by the safety wires attached to his back.

Speaking about its execution, McQuarrie, 54, explained in the video that it was "by far the most dangerous stunt we've ever done." The clip then ended with Cruise performing the stunt himself, with a crew member saying, " Tom Cruise  rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

McQuarrie "tried to kill me," joked Cruise at the New York City premiere.

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

The film's long-awaited release comes after multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic . According to an official synopsis, it finds Cruise's Ethan Hunt as he and his team are tasked with tracking down "a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands."

During its world premiere in June , Cruise gave a speech about his passion for the franchise and filmmaking. He said in part, "It’s something that I grew up with, that made me and inspired me to dream and want to travel the world. My goal since I was little was to make movies and travel. And not just be a tourist but work in that world and understand their culture."

"Through my movies, I’ve been able to have that because everyone here has allowed me to entertain them," he continued. "It’s a privilege that I have never taken for granted."

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.

Mission: Impossible   - Dead Reckoning Part One is out now.

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Watch CBS News

Tom Cruise just performed his most dangerous stunt yet – riding a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumping

By Caitlin O'Kane

December 21, 2022 / 10:00 AM EST / CBS News

Tom Cruise has performed another daring stunt for the "Mission: Impossible" film series. 

He called this one the most dangerous thing he's ever attempted. Shot in Norway, the stunt required Cruise to ride a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jump — something he said he's wanted to do since he was a kid. 

Cruise, 60, is currently working on the two-part "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning" film. He's known for performing his own stunts, but this one took years to plan, he said in a video shared on Twitter. 

So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

In the video, writer and director Christopher McQuarrie said Cruise put together a "master plan" using experts to help execute the stunt.

He had a year of sky diving training, during which he was doing 30 jumps a day – more than 500 skydives, said Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator. He also had motocross training, doing over 13,000 motocross jumps. Once he got those skills down, the production team created 3D models to try and predict how Cruise would fly through the air during the stunt so they could film it.

Then, it came time for Cruise to execute the stunt — driving a motorcycle up a long ramp, which lead to a cliff, launching off of it and BASE jumping to the bottom. Cruise first jumped out of a helicopter over the cliff to practice, before attempting the full stunt for the cameras.

"The only things you have to avoid while doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death," BASE jumping coach Miles Daisher said. "You're riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that's elevated off the ground, so if you fall off the ramp, that's pretty bad. You're falling, so if you don't get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, or if you don't open your parachute, you're not going to make it."

The behind-the-scenes video show Cruise not only execute the stunt once, but six times in one day. 

"Pretty much the biggest stunt in cinematic history," said BASE jumping coach John DeVore. Viewers can see the final product when part one of the film premieres July 2023. The "Mission: Impossible" series is from Paramount Pictures. (Paramount is also the parent company of CBS.)

Cruise has performed countless hair-raising stunts, including jumping off of scaffolding while filming "Mission: Impossible 6" in —  a stunt that left him injured and limping. 

Cruise has been in Europe filming the seventh and eight "Mission: Impossible" films for several years. The seventh movie was scheduled to premiere in November 2021, but the COVD-19 pandemic shut down production and was pushed to May 27, 2022,  according to Variety . The date was pushed several time after that, and the film will now premier next year. 

While shooting in the U.K. last year, Cruise, who was traveling by helicopter, needed a place to land,  BBC News reports.  He ended up landing in a family's backyard, and then let their kids go for a ride in the helicopter, making headlines.

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

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Watch Tom Cruise Rehearse and Perform the 'Biggest Stunt in Cinema History'

Here's how the movie star prepared for his most ambitious action sequence yet in 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning.'

A mini-documentary released on YouTube by Paramount Pictures follows the months of preparation that went into planning and executing a heart-stopping chase scene in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One , in which Cruise's character, secret agent Ethan Hunt, rides a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and goes into a base jump, free-falling towards the earth before pulling his parachute cord.

"There's a lot going into this stunt," says director Christopher McQuarrie. "So Tom put together this master plan to coordinate all of these experts in each of the particular disciplines involved, to make this whole thing happen.

Prior to the shoot in Hellesylt, Norway in 2020, Cruise undertook a year of training to master motocross, base jumping and advanced skydiving, including working on his strength and stability to ensure he can control his own position mid-air, and manoeuver the parachute canopy in the right way.

"You train and drill every little aspect over and over and over and over again," says Cruise.

When the prep for the shoot was at its most intense, Cruise was doing 30 jumps per day, and he racked up more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps over the course of rehearsal. Throughout this entire process, Cruise also wore a GPS chip so that they were able to track his speed and location in three-dimensional space at every stage of the stunt, which then enabled them to plan exactly where the drone cameras needed to be for the shoot.

"The key is me hitting certain speeds and being consistent with that," says Cruise. "There's no speedometer, so I do it by sound and feel of the bike. And then as I depart the bike, I'm using the wind that's hitting me, I'm pumping my chest, that will give me lift."

On the day of the shoot, all conditions have to be perfect for Cruise to pull off the staggering feat, and things are tense behind the camera as the actor shoots off the edge of the precipice and plummets into the valley below... a total of six times.

"We've been working on this for years," says Cruise. "I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid."

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Tom Cruise says 'Mission: Impossible 7' motorcycle stunt was shot on the first day of production so everyone knew if they could keep going or if it needed a 'major rewrite'

• Tom Cruise said the motorcycle stunt was done on the first day of shooting so everyone knew how to go forward.
• "Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?" he told Entertainment Tonight.
• The director told Empire that doing it early also let production figure out how to use the stunt in the plot.

Tom Cruise says there's a simple explanation for why his thrilling stunt of driving a motorcycle off a cliff was completed on the very first day of production on "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1" — there would need to be a major change to the story if it wasn't successful.

"We know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one!" Cruise told "Entertainment Tonight" (at the 2:00 mark). "Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?"

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"I was training and I was ready," Cruise continued. "You have to be razor sharp when you're doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don't want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let's just get it done."

The stunt is the latest thrilling moment in the "M:I" franchise that has seen Cruise do everything from hang onto the side of a plane as it takes off to perform a HALO jump with a broken ankle.

Though those stunts were all extremely dangerous for Cruise to pull off, this one might be the most death-defying to date for the superstar.

The stunt has Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway. Then in mid-air, he disposes of the bike and free-falls until he opens his parachute.

To train for it, Cruise did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps. And that wasn't just so Cruise had the skill and comfort to pull off the stunt; the training also made it possible for director Christopher McQuarrie and his crew to map out camera angles to capture it. 

McQuarrie recently told Empire a stunt like this has to be done at the start of production because then plot points can be written into the movie as to why Cruise's character Ethan Hunt jumped off the cliff in the first place.

"Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he was doing what he was doing," McQuarrie said. "If we sat around and tried to figure out these movies the old-fashioned way, you'd never find it, simply because it's such a living, breathing thing."

Cruise ended up doing the stunt six times on the first day of shooting. That meant a lot of cleanup.

Insider has learned from a source close to production that after each jump, a team at ground level in Norway was responsible for recovering and disposing of all the broken pieces of motorcycle that shattered on impact before the next jump was attempted.

• Main content

How Tom Cruise Survived Mission: Impossible 7’s Jaw-Dropping Motorcycle Stunt

Actor Tom Cruise reveals how he shot a key Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One action scene and how far back his love of stunts goes.

Tom Cruise, an expert at pulling off dangerous stunts, provides an overview of the upcoming Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One 's most insane set piece.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! , Cruise broke down how he and Dead Reckoning 's crew achieved a motorcycle jump off a mountainside ramp that transitions into him opening a parachute in freefall. "That was the first time I did it," he said over footage of the stunt's production. "When I let go, you have to make sure that I'm not attached to the bike in any way. Even my shoelaces are taped, and you let go and you start flying, and I have about six seconds to open that parachute before I hit the ground." When Kimmel questioned whether Cruise counted to six in his head, the Mission: Impossible star confessed that it was closer to eight seconds.

RELATED: Top Gun: Maverick’s Tom Cruise Cried Reuniting with Val Kilmer

Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible 7 Stunts

Cruise also showed Kimmel footage in which he does warmups before jumping and parachuting out of a helicopter eight times. He notably addresses why he enjoys performing stunts in films like the Mission Impossible franchise . "I just try to do everything I can, use every tool that I have, to entertain the audience," he continued. "So, even as a little kid, like, I used to steal lumber from, uh, junkyard, or you know, and then I'd ride down the hill as fast as I could and hit the ramp and go over garbage cans." The star admitted the bike trick didn't work, stating, "I went through it, and I split the wood in half and I went smashing through the garbage cans, and then spent the next few days in the hospital."

Paramount released footage of the Dead Reckoning motorcycle stunt's shoot in December, featuring commentary from Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie. The seventh Mission: Impossible and its upcoming 2024 sequel, Dead Reckoning Part Two , marks Cruise's fourth and fifth directorial collaborations with the director after 2012's Jack Reacher adaptation and the Mission: Impossible sequels Rogue Nation and Fallout . McQuarrie also wrote the screenplays for multiple Cruise-led films like Edge of Tomorrow and Top Gun: Maverick , the latter of which is currently nominated for six Oscars .

RELATED: Mission Impossible Director Might Join James Gunn's DCU on One Condition

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Cast

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One 's first trailer dropped last May, teasing Ethan Hunt's (Cruise) newest mission and death-defying action scenes. Alongside a returning Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby, Dead Reckoning will star Haley Atwell, Esai Morales and Pom Klementieff in supporting roles. Also joining the movie is Henry Czerny, who starred opposite Cruise in the original 1996 Mission: Impossible movie .

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 14.

Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live! via YouTube

Tom Cruise Explains Why This ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Stunt Was the Most Dangerous of His Career

The actor jumped a bike off a ramp over a cliff, then released a parachute. You know, for fun.

With each successive Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise has made a habit of putting his life in danger for the sake of audience entertainment. This all really began with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol , for which Cruise dangled off the tallest building in the world for a high-flying set piece that made viewers positively nauseous. For Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation , he attached himself to the outside of an airplane while it lifted off a runway. And for Mission: Impossible – Fallout , he both dangled below a helicopter and also flew a helicopter himself for the thrilling finale set piece. But for Mission: Impossible 7 , he’s outdone himself.

You may recall that set photos revealed Cruise riding a motorcycle up a ramp, flying off a cliff, and then immediately pulling a parachute to safely make his way down to the ground. That is indeed one of the central set pieces of Mission: Impossible 7 (for which Rogue Nation and Fallout filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returns), and now Cruise is pulling back the curtain on why it’s the most dangerous stunt of his career.

RELATED: Tom Cruise Rides a Train in New 'Mission: Impossible 7' Image, Talks Pandemic Filming

Speaking to Empire, Cruise broke down the challenging logistics of riding a motorcycle off a cliff:

“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp,” he explains. “The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike. I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

The actor and producer said the pressure was on, largely because he pushed to resume production safely on Mission: Impossible 7 during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to get people back to work and ensure theaters would be supplied with a big blockbuster to lure folks back to theaters:

“All those emotions were going through my mind,” he says. “I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief. It was very emotional, I gotta tell you.”

This will surely make for a hell of a behind-the-scenes documentary, so here’s hoping McQuarrie and/or Paramount Pictures had someone onhand to chronicle the challenging production of Mission: Impossible 7 , which is being shot back-to-back with Mission: Impossible 8 . Filming is still ongoing at this moment in time, but McQuarrie and Cruise have a bit more time to put the finishing touches on the first sequel before it hits theaters – M:I 7 ’s release date was recently delayed to May 27, 2022.

KEEP READING: Tom Cruise Says He Was Told to Lose the Smile While Filming Death-Defying Stunts

The Insane Way Tom Cruise Prepared For His Hardest Stunt Ever In Mission: Impossible 7

The new "Mission: Impossible" movie is finally set to premiere next year, and as has become traditional, that means the audiences at the theater owner convention CinemaCon have gotten a preview of exactly how Tom Cruise plans to defy death this time. 

Cruise and "Mission: Impossible" director Christopher McQuarrie sent a featurette to the convention to show off what they're calling the actor's most dangerous stunt yet, which feels like quite the boast. How do you compare things like climbing the outside of the Burj Khalifa from "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" to performing more than 100 HALO jumps to get the shot for "Mission: Impossible – Fallout"? Is there a scale stunt professionals use, something that ranges from, say, riding the coconut horses in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on the low end to doing what Cruise's Ethan Hunt does in the "Mission Impossible" films? If so, Cruise is committed to pushing the limits of what he and the teams that prepare and film him can do.

The Hollywood Reporter says Cruise's appearances are traditionally CinemaCon favorites, especially when he's presenting footage of the latest bit of stunt insanity he's attempting on behalf of the franchise. The footage from "Mission: Impossible 7" brought the house down as the star and director explained exactly how they managed to film a stunt in which Hunt rides a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff.

How many motorbike jumps did Tom Cruise do to prepare for Mission: Impossible 7?

According to THR , the stunt was shot in Norway on the first day of principal photography for the film, but Cruise's preparations for it stretch back more than a year. In order to get himself ready, the man who has already learned to fly a helicopter, to hold his breath underwater for six minutes, and cling to the outside of an airplane as it takes off — all for the sake of this franchise — did more than 500 skydives and more than 13,000 motorbike jumps. (Where does he find the time?)

The CinemaCon presentation showed previews of the stunt and the camera setups used, including drone-mounted cameras to capture the jump and fall. There is no word yet on why Hunt needs to jump a motorbike off a cliff in the film, or indeed, on the plot of "Mission: Impossible 7" at all. We do know that a nother motorcycle stunt from the production didn't go as planned.

Paramount's presentation at CinemaCon actually featured a double dose of Cruise soaring through the skies. In addition to the "Mission: Impossible 7 stunt," the studio also showed off the first 13 minutes of Cruise's upcoming fighter pilot sequel, "Top Gun: Maverick." According to reports from the convention, the footage included just about everything you might expect from a "Top Gun" film: Maverick defying the orders of a superior officer in order to show off his flying skills, fighter jets doing cool things, and Maverick on his motorcycle, though presumably not flying through the air on it.

"Mission: Impossible 7" is currently set to hit theaters on May 27, 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Watch Tom Cruise Speedfly—His Most Dangerous 'Mission: Impossible' Stunt Ever

The action star had to train for 3+ years just to pull this off—and we have the first footage of the “absolute terror.”

Tom Cruise is obscenely famous for so many things, but especially for performing death-defying stunts on the silver screen, each more ludicrous than the last.

To list all of Cruise’s formidable feats in the Mission: Impossible franchise feels like reciting from a fabricated resumé during a job interview for the position of World’s Most Badass Action Star: As indestructible spy Ethan Hunt, Cruise has leapt between buildings, hijacked a helicopter, hung from an Airbus A400M during takeoff, jumped out of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet in the air, and scaled the friggin’ Burj Khalifa, among other perilous pursuits. References available upon request.

No surprise, then, that Cruise is upping the ante for the seventh Mission: Impossible installment, Dead Reckoning Part One , which hits theaters on July 12. “With Tom, there are no limits,” says director Christopher McQuarrie. “So we’ve become a little more adventurous every time.”

In Dead Reckoning , Cruise pulls off an especially complicated “speedflying” stunt, a sport in which you launch by foot with a small, wing-like canopy and glide down mountainsides. Very few people in the world even attempt speedflying, which is a bit like paragliding, only—duh—considerably more dangerous.

“One of the things that is particularly dangerous about speedflying is the close proximity to the ground that you’re flying,” says McQuarrie. “And the other is the risk that the canopy can collapse. It’s very unpredictable.”

Cruise says he wanted to give the audience the feeling of flight, so he trained for over three years in several countries, mastering different techniques, terrains, and weather conditions that could potentially stymie the stunt. The final stunt sees Cruise land at a blistering speed of over 80 kilometers per hour.

But devising the stunt was only one technical challenge, McQuarrie says. The other was developing new tech to actually show Cruise performing it: a gimbal rig with cameras hanging from both sides, operated from a helicopter chasing the hero while in flight. While the result is stunning, the process was stressful, to say the least.

“Flying very close to rocks looks quite beautiful,” says McQuarrie. “Behind the scenes, we were all in absolute terror.”

To see just how Cruise, McQuarrie, and co. perfected the thrilling speedflying stunt, check out this revealing behind-the-scenes feature, which Popular Mechanics is proud to exclusively premiere right here:

🎥 Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of Tom Cruise’s Dangerous Speedflying Stunt

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Tom Cruise Pulled Off The Biggest Stunt In Cinema History in ‘Mission: Impossible 7’

"You know the only thing you have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death..."

Image: Paramount Pictures

Tom Cruise’s latest movie Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has received widespread acclaim since it premiered worldwide this week, with Cruise upping the stakes for the seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. But ahead of release to the general public, there’s one unbelievable stunt that has left everybody wondering… ‘How did they do it?!’

One cold September day in 2020, on Norway’s picturesque Helsetkopen mountain range, the ripples of a modified Honda CRF 250 motorbike engine cascaded across the vast glacial scene, as Tom Cruise and a Hollywood film crew put years of preparation into practice, to undertake the biggest stunt in cinema history.

The stunt was filmed on the first day of principal photography, “in classic Mission form,” says director Christopher McQuarrie, in which Cruise would charge a custom-built motorcycle over a sheer mountain edge and freefall almost 4000 feet before deploying a parachute canopy before certain death.

To pull something off of this magnitude required years of meticulous planning and training to achieve perfect execution. “There’s a lot going into this stunt. So Tom put together this master plan to coordinate all of these experts in each of the particular disciplines involved, to make this whole thing happen.”

WATCH Tom Cruise’s biggest stunt ever below.

“Don’t be careful. Be competent.” Tom Cruise

Hollywood’s movie maverick Tom Cruise is well known for his daring on-screen stunts, whether it’s climbing a 2000-foot cliff in the opening scene of  Mission: Impossible II ; hanging onto the edge of a huge Airbus A400M plane as it takes off in  Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation ; or ascending 1700 feet up the tallest building in the world with no more than a harness for  Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol , Cruise is the king of on-camera chaos, bringing the Mission: Impossible story to dizzying new heights with each subsequent flick – literally.

The preparation for such a stunt was immense that Cruise had to master a year of BASE training and advanced skydive training, doing 30 jumps a day and 500 skydives to perfect his canopy skills and spacial awareness, tracking, freefalling and positioning.

This continued with specialised motocross training, carrying out over 13,000 individual jumps to determine the perfect speed, distance and overall trajectory of the final stunt. This is a feat in itself, not considering the fact that Cruise’s bike had no internal speedometer, so with each successive launch, he had to become so perfectly aligned with the determining factors of his jumps, using no more than his body to land effectively and safely.

“The key is me hitting certain speeds and being consistent with that. There’s no speedometer, so I do it by sound and feel of the bike. And then as I depart the bike, I’m using the wind that’s hitting me here and I’m cupping my chest. That will give me lift,” Cruise explains.

In Norway, where the final stunt was to take place for Mission: Impossible 7 , a swarm of helicopters were brought in to expertly assemble the “masterful” track and ramp. Following years of precise preparation, the conditions were right for the real thing.

Defying gravity, fear and limitations require a specific piece of kit. For his death-defying stunt, Tom Cruise’s goggles in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One were Oakley’s one-of-a-kind ECLP23, featuring High-Speed Protection, an expanded field of view and Zero Gravity making sure that the eyewear was a perfect fit for his face, leaving no room for error as Cruise freefalls over a cliff edge with no stunt double in sight.

RELATED :  Tom Cruise Touches Down In Sydney Wearing A Lowkey $200,000 Watch

Cruise would perform the final stunt a total of eight times off the sheer edge of the Helsetkopen mountains, at a height of 4,000 feet into a jagged and unforgiving ravine. “Every time I went off the ramp, it was dangerous,” explained Cruise. “It was risking my life. And we wanted to keep that to a minimum.”

The final cut is pure cinematic perfection; an addictive action sequence that raises the stakes in this latest saga of Ethan Hunt’s adrenaline-filled anthology. So there’s no surprise then that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has received a score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and is set to be the highest-rated movie of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

As director, Christopher McQuarrie says: “This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted. The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for Mission 8 …”

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Tom Cruise attempts cinema’s biggest stunt in Mission: Impossible 7 featurette

Tom Cruise thanked fans yesterday for their support of Top Gun: Maverick   after jumping out of a plane and completing a solo freefall dive . Yet, that wasn’t the craziest thing captured on camera as Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One  ( also known as Mission: Impossible 7 or M:I 7 ) released a behind-the-scenes look at the “biggest stunt in cinema history.”

The 9-minute video brings the audience back to the first day of shooting M:I 7  in September 2020 when Cruise prepared to jump a motorcycle off a cliff, complete a base jump, and parachute to safety. While the stunt seems out of this world, Cruise calmly says that he’s wanted to do this since he was a “little kid.”

For a stunt that took seconds to complete, it took well over a year of preparation and training. Cruise had to perfect base jumping, skydiving, canopy control, and motocross before he could even practice the jump. Cruise completed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps in preparation for the stunt. Countless hours of practice on a model ramp were needed to calculate the speed and angles of Cruise’s jump so writer/director Christopher McQuarrie knew where to put each camera. When it came time to complete the stunt in Norway, in true Tom Cruise fashion, he did it not once, but six times.

Dead Reckoning Part One will be the seventh installment in the  Mission: Impossible film franchise. Alongside Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg , Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Czerny will reprise their roles from the previous M:I films.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 14, 2023. 

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Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is an undeniable achievement. Like all of the Mission: Impossible movies before it, the film features more awe-inspiring, death-defying stunts than it rightly should. As a result, while the film’s place on fans’ personal Mission: Impossible rankings remains unclear right now, what’s less uncertain is whether or not Dead Reckoning Part One has managed to maintain its franchise’s track record of blowing moviegoers away. Spoiler alert: It definitely, definitely has.

Now that the film is playing in theaters nationwide, the conversations surrounding its action sequences have only intensified. But which of Dead Reckoning Part One’s stunts, you may be wondering, is its best? And which is its worst? Wonder no more. Here are Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’s stunts, ranked from the most to least thrilling. 5. Ethan’s runaway fistfight

Very few movie stars have been at the center of more well-regarded action movies than Tom Cruise. It’s not hard to see why, either. Over the course of his career, Cruise has developed an obsessive devotion to practical action sequences, the kind that make audiences gasp and cheer when they’re brought to life on the big screen. His desire to wow and thrill has resulted in him putting himself in some serious danger over the years. It’s also led to some of the greatest action movies ever made.

With Cruise’s latest film, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, hitting theaters this week, now seems like as good a time as any to look back at his career and celebrate some of his biggest achievements. So, without any further ado, here are the seven best action movies that Tom Cruise has ever starred in. (Dead Reckoning Part One notwithstanding.) 7. Minority Report (2002)

Everyone loves the Mission: Impossible movies. There are a variety of reasons why: they offer old-fashioned cinematic thrills; they are a form of escapism akin to the James Bond movies, but tougher and more American; they feature one of the last truly great movie stars, Tom Cruise. Ever since the fourth installment, Ghost Protocol, resurrected the genre from pop culture oblivion, the conventional wisdom is that the modern M: I films just keep getting better and better, and are the series' best entries.

Well, nuts to that. I'm not going to defend the much-maligned M: I 2, which doesn't really deserve reconsideration (seriously, what's with all those doves?), but the original Mission: Impossible, in my eyes, is perfection, and hasn't been topped by any other M: I film ... or any action movie, for that matter. The peak of '90s Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, Mission: Impossible delivers two cinematic giants, Cruise and director Brian De Palma, at the height of their powers, and is perhaps the most fun mainstream movie Hollywood ever produced. Here are just a few reasons why the original M: I still holds up today. The opening titles Mission: Impossible (1996) Opening Title Sequence

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The truth behind M:I-2 's most dangerous stunt

Director John Woo says Tom Cruise's life dangled by a thread

Liane Bonin is a senior writer for EW.com

If heights give you the heebie-jeebies, you may want to keep your eyes wide shut during the opening scene of Mission: Impossible 2 (in theaters May 24). Tom Cruise scales a vertigo-inducing cliff with his bare hands, leaps over a deadly drop, then hangs from a rock ledge by his fingertips before pulling himself up to safety. If you can't figure out how the producers found a stunt double who looks so much like the 37-year-old star, that's because they didn't. "It was all Tom up there," says producer Paula Wagner. "So of course, we had some really nail-biting moments."

Cruise, who is also a producer on the film, insisted on performing the sequence wearing only a thin safety cable, and he vetoed a small-scale cliff that had been constructed by the set department. Even though Cruise had two rock climbing experts on the set to guide him, his decision didn't sit well with director John Woo ( Face/Off ). "I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn't," Woo says. "I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn't even watch the monitor when we shot it."

Unfortunately for Woo, it took seven takes under the blazing Moab, Utah, sun to get the scene right. "We had five cameras on the cliff, including a helicopter camera, a camera on a crane, and cameramen hanging from safety cables, but we had focus problems, so we had to do it again and again," he says. "But Tom would say, 'I'm okay, John, don't worry, I want to do it one more time."'

Though Cruise's decision to perform his own stunts, including dangling from a helicopter six stories above the ground, didn't carry over to the rest of the crew (a lighting double refused to step in for one of Cruise's costars during a helicopter stunt), everyone seems to agree that his derring-do made a difference in the finished product. "The opening sequence just wouldn't have been the same if he hadn't done it himself," says costar John Polson. "No amount of special effects can make you feel like that, because you can tell that it's really just him."

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Tom Cruise's 'Mission: Impossible' Stunts Are a Bone-Breaking Ode to Old School Hollywood

The actor has always tried to act out his own action scenes whenever possible, however dangerous they might be. In doing so, he pays tribute to a lost age of filmmaking

In a time of maximal CGI and green screen backdrops, completely practical stunt work has become a relative rarity in film production. Tech wizardry is generally considered preferable to the dangerous and time-consuming task of hiring an entire team of coordinators, and while stuntmen and women clearly do still play a role, the most audacious action we see in major blockbusters tends to be computer-generated. (That often also means: lacking genuine jeopardy.) But nobody has ever made the mistake of accusing Tom Cruise of such malarkey.

Requiring a unique combination of athleticism, careful preparation to avoid injury, and cinematic nous – where to look, how to fall, and where the camera will best be placed to catch the action – practical stunt work is beginning to receive more appreciation by the wider public. News stories circulate about Cruise or Daniel Craig injuring themselves and holding up production, adding to the sense of jeopardy and good old-fashioned filmmaking. The Daily Beast recently published a piece with the headline: ‘Tom Cruise Keeps Risking Death For Our Entertainment. Thank God’. By its nature designed to fool the audience with an illusion of danger – that their favourite film stars are at risk – it makes sense that even the most garlanded and respected of stunt coordinators are often in the shadows. But as Marvel fatigue sets in and cinemas pin more hope on the kind of bruised and battered actioners that Tom Cruise specialises in, these professional daredevils are getting their due once again.

Filmmaker and former stuntman Chad Stahelski, with his specialism in martial arts choreography, has been one of the figures at the forefront of that visibility, with the hugely popular John Wick series and its bone-crunching practical effects. Whether spinning through Paris streets or endlessly, comically fighting up and then falling down the Sacre Coeur steps, Keanu Reeves’ willingness to put his body on the line – with the support of his experienced stunt team – resembles Tom Cruise’s, to some extent. Interestingly, in interviews, both Chad Stahelski and Wade Eastwood pay their dues to the older generation of stunt performers, understanding the difficulties of safely achieving the extraordinary. Both have mentioned the great Buster Keaton as a huge influence on their work.

Of course, for a large chunk of the early history of moving pictures, stunt work was by its nature practical: there was no other choice. The early slapstick comedians had the injuries to prove it, too – Harold Lloyd blew off a few fingers with dynamite onset. The death-defying stunts pulled off in the days before ‘health and safety’ was even a phrase, never mind an entire department, were positively toe-curling: stuntmen died or were maimed being attacked by ‘trained’ animals, drowning in river rapids, impaled by their own swords in battle sequences or falling from great heights.

The visual results were nonetheless often remarkable: live auto crashes, thousands of charging soldiers, people tip-toeing along the wings of biplanes. Suffice it to say, some things can only ever be seen in cinema of this vintage, given the insane level of risk involved. But even as late as the 70s, stunt people were at great risk. As Greg Powell, veteran British stuntman late of Bond and Bourne, recalls, ‘I used to use copies of The Daily Mirror as elbow padding in the early days’.

Finding the sweet spot between the excitement of capturing physical jeopardy and avoiding actual danger is thus the responsibility of modern filmmakers and stunt coordinators. Safety measures have increased greatly over the intervening years: soft-build sets to bounce off in fight scenes, airbags rather than nets to break falls, ex-military trainers brought in for stars, and extensive rehearsal and physical conditioning.

CGI may still be considered preferable by some – the argument can be made that the risks of practical stunt work are still there, regardless of safety measures. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (or bones, maybe), and the gasp-inducing marvel of the sequences in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning are proof positive of that. Whether it's fighting on a replica 60-ton antique train at high speed or a motorbike jump that rates among the most elaborate and risky in Cruise’s career, practical stunts continue to push the envelope for what can be done onscreen.

The work that qualified and specialist professionals like Wade Eastwood are capable of belongs to the same tactile joy as that of an old-school film projectionist. Out with the old and in with the new is fine, but as Tom Cruise himself would be likely to tell you, there’s nothing like the real thing.

'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' is in cinemas now.

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Tom Cruise Is Remaking A Wild Clint Eastwood Action Thriller | GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT

A few months ago the trades announced that Tom Cruise signed a strategic partnership with Warner Bros. to develop and produce original and franchise theatricals for Cruise to star in. At the time, what exactly he was planning to develop remained unknown.

Now GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT can exclusively report that one of those movies will be a remake of the 1977 Clint Eastwood action thriller The Gauntlet . Tom Cruise will take over the role originally played by Eastwood in the movie, that of alcoholic Detective Ben Shockley.

The original version of The Gauntlet was also directed by Clint Eastwood, but our source tells us Christopher McQuarrie will direct the Tom Cruise version. Tom Cruise will, of course, produce as part of his new deal with Warners.

McQuarrie has become Tom Cruise's go-to director over the years. He directed Tom Cruise on movies like Jack Reacher and three Mission: Impossible (soon four) movies. Now Christopher McQuarrie is working with Cruise on The Gauntlet .

This information comes from the same proven source that has broken several other, now confirmed , WB-related stories for us. GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT ‘s editorial policy prohibits me from printing stories submitted by sources without a proven track record.

The Gauntlet is not one of Eastwood's better-known projects. It received mixed to favorable reviews on its release. The story involves a detective ordered to escort a prostitute to a trial, where she's expected to testify against the mob.

As you'd expect, things don't go well, and Detective Shockley ends up under attack and on the run. The movie's filled with some pretty big action set pieces, including high-speed pursuits with helicopters and motorcycles. There's even a road warrior-style chase in a hastily armored bus. It's easy to imagine Tom Cruise turning that into one of his stunt-laden action flicks, only with perhaps a grittier twist than what we've come to expect from him in the Mission: Impossible films.

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Screen Rant

This 20-year-old tom cruise movie can lay the blueprint for his future after mission: impossible.

Tom Cruise won’t be able to do Mission: Impossible movies forever, but one of his old movies may have paved the way for his acting future.

• Tom Cruise's action star status faces a challenge as he ages, so exploring villain roles could be the key to his future success after Mission: Impossible .
• A return to the character depth of his role in Collateral could provide Cruise with exciting new opportunities in his career.
• Practical stunt work sets Cruise apart in action films, but taking on antagonistic roles could help him stay relevant in the industry.

Tom Cruise has been a movie star for over forty years, and one of his most underrated films could be the key to the next phase of his career after Mission: Impossible . Cruise, in his most recent star era, has become synonymous with daring stunt work and large action set pieces in his blockbuster films. The two most notable examples are his long-running Mission: Impossible franchise, which is currently filming its eighth installment, and Top Gun: Maverick , which was the highest-grossing film of 2022 .

In many ways, Cruise is as popular as he's ever been and remains one of the last examples of a true movie star. There's just one issue he faces, and it's one that will only get worse with time: he's now in his 60s. He's still in amazing shape for his age and can still perform all the stunts his action roles require of him. Yet, at a certain point, Cruise just won't be able to physically accomplish these feats anymore , and the question will arise of what he will do to define the next era of his career.

10 Movies That Defined Tom Cruise's Career

Tom cruise should follow collateral's blueprint after mission: impossible.

The answer regarding a future after Mission: Impossible lies with one of Cruise's most memorable roles as the cold-blooded hitman Vincent in Michael Mann's Collateral . Collateral follows a single night in the life of cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx), who is forced to transport Vincent around L.A. as he crosses off targets on his hit list. The film doesn't just feature excellent action scenes but also a fascinating back-and-forth between the two leads. Many long exchanges of dialogue happen within Max's cab, and the audience sees him and Vincent argue philosophically about the value of human life and their differing ideologies.

Cruise's movie star charisma brought layers of charm to Vincent's sociopathic demeanor

Cruise had to train for Collateral since it was an unexpected role, as the actor had never played the main villain of a film before, and to this day hasn't done it again since. The uniqueness of this notion paid off, as Collateral proved to be a healthy hit. It grossed $220 million worldwide from an estimated $65 million budget (via Box Office Mojo ). Cruise's movie star charisma brought layers of charm to Vincent's sociopathic demeanor, and it is still widely considered one of the best performances of Cruise's long and illustrious career. A return to this type of role would be an exciting prospect for the actor.

Every Michael Mann Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

Villain roles can help tom cruise stay relevant.

As Cruise gets older, it'll become more challenging for him to remain at the center of these action franchises. Unlike films like Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny , which heavily relied on CGI to assist 81-year-old Harrison Ford with the action scenes, Cruise's movies use their practical stunt work as a selling point. Top Gun: Maverick had Cruise flying real jets , and Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One had him jumping off a massive cliff on a motorcycle. Too much CGI would cheapen the impact of these stunts, which have become a big part of Cruise's brand.

However, if Cruise takes on more antagonistic parts in movies like Collateral going forward, h e could not only avoid putting his body at risk in as many huge stunts but also access an untapped well of potential film roles . Cruise would still be a selling point in whatever franchise he chooses to be a part of, and he'd be able to explore the darkness he displayed as Vincent all those years ago. It'd be an exciting development for fans to witness, full of possibilities, and could prove to be the key to Tom Cruise staying relevant through the 2020s and beyond.

Source: Box Office Mojo

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What Would a Best Stunt Oscar Category Look Like?

Chris o'falt, vp, features strategy.

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“We’ve always been in the shadows, [but] that’s not the problem,” Leitch said when he was a guest on an upcoming episode of the Toolkit podcast to discuss “ The Fall Guy .” “That was maybe the misconception for the Academy, ‘Well, these guys want awards because they want recognition for these one-off stunts.’ That’s not it. The recognition that we want is [our] artistic contribution to the movie. So if you look at ‘Ben Hur,’ what is ‘Ben Hur’ without the chariot [races]? It’s not anything.”

Leitch, who started his career as a stunt performer, worked on all types of movies, and with a stunt award, both Leitch and McCormick believe this variety will be reflected in awards campaigns and nominations.

“Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, cinema’s great first directors all were stunt performers and told stories through action,” said Leitch. “And that’s what the stunt department does on your Adam Sandler comedy, as well as your Paul Thomas Anderson [or] A24 [films]. We amplify drama, comedy, stakes, relationships, and in ‘The Fall Guy,’ we amplify a love story.”

To Leitch’s point, awards season helps frame the conversation about the contribution of different crafts to the artistic process of the best films of the year. His example of “Ben Hur,” which won 11 Oscars in 1960, along with other multi-award-winning dramas that had vital stunt contributions, like “Titanic” and “Saving Private Ryan,” is purposeful.

McCormick sees the Oscars expansion to 10 Best Picture nominations as having already opened the door to the Academy recognizing more genre films, but she also points to how other craft categories often feature match-ups between prestige dramas and genre films. For example, the Best Sound category last year matched “Zone of Interest,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Maestro” against “The Creator” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” This is exactly why “The Fall Guy” producer is looking forward to the potential conversations that a Stunt Award and subsequent race will generate.

“I’m thinking about other departments and what ends up winning versus what doesn’t end up winning, and it’s always questionable, right? It’s always kind of like whatever connects with the voting population,” said McCormick. “I think it’ll be really interesting to watch. Would ‘Everything, Everywhere All at Once’ have won the Stunt Award last year? It won everything else, so probably, right? And was it the biggest action of the year? Not at all, ‘Maverick’ probably was, or even ‘Avatar.’”

“Fall Guy” stunt designer Chris O’Hara sees a potential Stunt Award shining a light on stunt performance, which is already its own specific Emmy category, separate from stunt coordination. This would include, but extend far beyond stars like Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Michelle Yeoh, and Charlize Theron, who put the hard prep work into incorporating stunts into their performances.

“It’s the action actors, like, ‘There’s bad guy number two,’ and you know from being in the stunt business, that’s a stunt guy,” said O’Hara. “It’s time we brought light to it so other people see the same thing we do.”

One potential fun complications for Oscar prognosticators and awards strategists will be how multifaceted the stunt department has become. It oversees fight choreography (with a variety of fight styles), wire work, vehicle and aerial stunts, and all the rigging and safety precautions involved with big falls, fire, jumps, and swings through the air.

“That’s the thing that we’re trying to figure out,” said O’Hara. “There are movies that are very vehicle-based, or there’s movies that are very fight-based, or there’s movies that are very rigging-based. And so all these different nuances to the stunt industry make that a very broad [category].”

“In production design there’s construction, painters, greenery, there’s any number of things,” said McCormick. “If we’re talking about the Academy, I go back to the [stunt] coordinator who’s decided which members of the team to bring together to achieve the things the director wants.”

That sense of a Head of Department, may it be the stunt coordinator, or if stunt designer is adopted as a more widely accepted credit, being the point person who would win the award, or be the name at the top of the list of nominees, will be key to the conversation of uniting the different stunt disciplines.

“It’s not about individual’s work,” said O’Hara. “It’s not the guy who designed that set, it’s about the whole big picture of what the production designer has created in the world of the movie. That’s the idea for the Stunt Design category in the Academy: ‘Did the action fit the story? What’s the whole package of the movie?'”

One of the things top stunt coordinators, like O’Hara, also do is serve as the second unit director. They not only design the action in front of the camera, but they also design how it is shot (working within the overall vision and visual grammar of the director). This is why the future of a potential Best Stunt Award very well might be interpreted through an even broader and all-encompassing lens of best action design.

It’s a term that was used a few different times in these interviews and speaks to the larger, multi-faceted, and more holistic contribution of the Stunt Department that “The Fall Guy” team sees is what will ultimately be what wins the prospective award.

Below are five films “The Fall Guy” team believes could and should have won a Best Stunt Design award. 

‘Titanic’ (1997)

Director: James Cameron Stunt Coordinator: Simon Crane

“Titanic” was nominated for 14 Oscars and won 11, including Best Picture.

Leitch: “‘Titanic’ could have won for best action design. There’s probably like 300 stunt performers credited on that movie. The amount of rigs they’re being thrown from, the water that they had to consume, to make those sequences as dynamic and dramatic as possible.”

‘Saving Private Ryan ‘ (1998)

“Saving Private Ryan” was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five, including Best Director.

Leitch: “The storming the beach in Normandy scene is one of the most dramatic moments in cinema history. It probably involves 200 stunt performers hitting air rams, dodging explosions, and getting hit by squibs and falling — it’s incredible choreography. It’s not one thing. Is it gratuitous action? No, we don’t want that. We like how it blends with the other department.”

O’Hara: “It’s a war movie, but they’re all stunt performers, and the action fits the story. That’s what we’re trying to do with this whole stunt design [award], is really show people as a stunt coordinator, he coordinates the stunts with the story.”

‘Mission Impossible’ Films

Director (last three films): Christopher McQuarrie Stunt Coordinator (last film films): Wade Eastwood

Tom Cruise has starred in and produced seven “Mission Impossible” films; only the most recent, “Dead Reckoning Part I,” has been nominated for an Oscar (Best Sound and Visual Effects).

‘The Matrix’ (1999)

Director: Lana & Lilly Wachowski Stunt Coordinator: Glenn Boswell

The first “Matrix” film was nominated for and won four Oscars: Best Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.

O’Hara: “Those movies changed the film industry, especially the first one; I worked on ‘Matrix’ Two and Three. For filmmaking, everybody wanted ‘The Matrix’-type of action, the bullet cam, the visual effects became a really big part of that movie and it transitioned the film business and stunts into something new.”

Leitch [a martial arts stunt performer on the film]: “My generation came in, and ‘The Matrix’ was a big influential time in my career as a stunt performer. I learned and became heavily exposed to wire work, martial arts, and how that all works. And hopefully, we took that to the next level during our 20 years in the stunt world.”

The ‘Bourne’ Films

There have been five films starring Matt Damon at Jason Bourne. The franchise has won three Oscars: Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing.

Look out for IndieWire’s “Toolkit” episode with David Leitch on podcast platforms May 2. “The Fall Guy” opens in the theaters May 3.

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