Tom Cruise's first Mission: Impossible is having a little comeback moment. Per FlixPatrol, the 1996 Brian De Palma film has crept back into the Paramount+ Top 10. Almost 30 years later and it still finds a way to cause trouble.
Streaming bump on Paramount+
As of right now, the original Mission: Impossible is sitting at No. 7 on Paramount+. Two other franchise entries are crowding the chart too: something labeled as Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is in the top spot, and Mission: Impossible 2 is holding at No. 3. Yes, that title is an eyebrow-raiser — the platform is listing it as a 2025 entry.
- No. 1: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (listed as 2025)
- No. 3: Mission: Impossible 2
- No. 7: Mission: Impossible (1996, De Palma)
Why the 1996 original still hits different
The franchise has become one of the most consistent spectacle machines in modern action movies, but the first film is the one that actually plays like a mystery. De Palma leans hard into paranoia, misdirection, and that icy noir mood: the conspiracy around Ethan Hunt's team getting wiped out, the cat-and-mouse "who can I trust" energy, and of course the Langley heist — still a masterclass in silent tension and precision. Later movies got louder and bigger; the first one stays sharper.
Quick numbers for the curious: IMDb has it at 7.2, Rotten Tomatoes sits at 67% from critics and 71% from audiences, and the runtime is a breezy 110 minutes.
And yes, Mission: Impossible has always been a director-first series. The debut entry is basically a De Palma movie that happens to launch a franchise, not the other way around.
Why De Palma never came back
After the first film took off, Tom Cruise did reach out to De Palma about continuing. De Palma passed, and John Woo stepped in for Mission: Impossible 2 — a stylish, very Woo sequel that also became the saga's most divisive entry.
"I said: 'Are you kidding?' One of these is enough. Why would anybody want to make another one? Of course the reason they make another one is to make money. I was never a movie director to make money, which is the big problem of Hollywood."
The secret sauce that kept MI alive
De Palma is not wrong about Hollywood's sequel addiction. Still, Mission: Impossible has dodged a lot of the bloat that eats other long-running brands (looking at you, Fast and Furious). The big reason: Cruise and company keep handing the keys to strong directors and letting them put their stamp on it — the same way De Palma stamped the original.
Where to watch
Mission: Impossible (1996) is streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S. If you revisit it this week, tell me if the Langley scene still makes your palms sweat. Mine did.