Mission Impossible: 5 coolest stunts of all time and how they were filmed

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part I, releases worldwide on July 12. This will be Tom Cruise’s seventh outing as Ethan Hunt since 1996 when the first Mission Impossible was released.

Over the course of nearly three decades, Mission: Impossible movies have pushed the limits of what is possible in an action film. As the missions got less plausible, the stunts got more audacious, and the action scenes continued to draw audiences young and old alike.

With Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part I all set to release, it seems apt to look back at some of the most iconic action scenes from the movies and the backbreaking work that went behind filming each of them.

ALSO READ: Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Should you watch the new Tom Cruise movie in 4DX or IMAX?

The motorcycle jump (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning)

The scene that is described as Tom Cruise’s deadliest yet – of course, the 61-year-old does most of his action scenes himself – involves the actor riding a motorcycle, eventually accelerating up a cliff and jumping off. Why he seems to be doing something like that remains to be seen in the movie itself but the good folks at Paramount have offered a sneak peek into how the scene was shot.

As Cruise rides at breakneck speed on a specially prepared ramp that will be made to look like a cliff thanks to some nifty CGI, a helicopter and drone flying overhead, captures the footage.

Cruise then proceeds to abandon the bike and hangs mid-air before releasing his parachute to land safely. Being part of the most recent film, the making of this scene has been meticulously documented.

Free climbing the Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

Perhaps one of the most memorable scenes from Mission Impossible was Cruise free climbing the Burj Khalifa with a pair of gecko gloves (that fail mid-scene). To help him scale the 2,716 feet tall skyscraper, the production equipped Cruise with harnesses that were carefully fixed to strategic points in the building, for which the studio had to get permission from the building’s owners. More particularly, to drill the floors and walls of the building, and break some 26 windows.

The harness used to secure him was supposedly so tight, that his lower body would begin to feel numb after a point, making it harder for him to climb and get back to safety, meaning the sequence had to be shot at great speed. Add to it the fact that the scene was shot on IMAX cameras atop the building, which meant that film would be consumed extremely fast, as well helicopters on which more cameras were mounted, which had a limit of only about 30 minutes of flying time in a go.

Before the actual shoot too, the crew built a glass wall to simulate the exterior of building and had Cruise climb up and down it several times to help familiarise himself with the sheer toll the climb would take on his body, going so far as to even heat it up using studio lights, to simulate the temperature of the windows of the Burj Khalifa, on a hot summer day in the desert.

The underwater heist (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)

In Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Cruise’s character was required to access a secure vault to swap out personnel data to help his crew get access to the main facility.

What was supposed a quick in-and-out job though, turns very complicated very fast. If you remember the movie, you’d likely remember that the vault was only accessible through a vertical tunnel and was submerged underwater.

Add to it, the security alarms which would go off if any metal was detected in the vault meant oxygen tanks were out of the question. As a result, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt would be for over six minutes, thrown around by a violent current in the vault.

We are told that the entire scene was shot in a single take, with Cruise actually having held his breath for about six-and-a-half minutes. For this, he had supposedly trained for about two months to learn holding his breath for extended periods of time.

For the actual stunt itself, Cruise first jumped off a 120-foot ledge to mimic diving into the tunnel, The actual tunnel in the movie was a CGI. Another one was the giant arm in the underwater cooling system, which he had to dodge while replacing the chip. However, everything else was Cruise’s own work, which was shot in a tank about 20 feet deep.

Hanging off an aircraft (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)

The opening sequence of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, features Tom Cruise hanging off an Airbus A400M, one of the largest turboprop military aircraft in the world, just shy of the Boeing C17 Globemaster III.

For the scene, the aircraft took off at about 100 knots, or 185 km/h, circled the base at about 1000 feet for 6-8 minutes, and then landed again. All of this, while Cruise was in a full body harness, attached securely to the aircraft through its door. On the inside, was an aluminum truss bolted to the door of the aircraft, which held the wires that held him, securely fastened to the aircraft.

To get the front-facing shot of him, a truss was built to attach an ARRI 35mm film camera to the aircraft, with Panavision anamorphic zoom, placed in an aerodynamic Nettmann system’s stabilised head. Crew members could watch the footage being captured inside the aircraft and remotely pan and tilt the camera. If that wasn’t enough, there was a helicopter flying next to the aircraft, filming aerial shots of Cruise attached to the door using wires, which were later erased in the post-production stages.

The halo jump (Mission: Impossible - Fallout)

This scene where Tom Cruise and Henry Cavil jump out of a Boeing C17 Globemaster III flying over Paris, which takes up barely three minutes of screentime, took over a 100 skydives to shoot. Primarily because, the divers had to qualify to jump from a number of different altitudes. Numerous jumps were also done at lower altitudes for rehearsal, as the crew tried to learn what was required from them.

Due to the sheer altitude of the final jump, the Cavil and Cruise required supplemental oxygen, which was provided through the helmet they wore. Furthermore, it was also lit on the inside to highlight the actors’ faces, as the scene was shot in the night.  So as to ensure that the helmet could function under such extreme conditions and also be used safely, it had to be certified by the Royal Air Force.

The sequence was shot in three parts, which took three dives.

Part one is Tom Cruise jumping out of the aircraft and falling, at over 300 km/h, while a camera operator, who had never filmed anything like this before, followed him trying to handle the camera and focus on the actor’s face.

The second jump was for the sequence where Henry Cavil’s character loses consciousness mid-air, with Cruise having to rescue him.

The third sequence was with the one where Cruise’s character gave oxygen to Cavil’s, meaning the crew had to create an oxygen tank that could be removed and transferred from one person to another, from scratch. The tank was connected to Cavil using powerful magnets.

Over the years, Mission Impossible has set an extremely high standard for stunts, with each installment topping the previous one. While we have a sense of what to expect from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, the full extent of Ethan Hunt’s daredevilry will only be revealed on July 12. Of course, we can’t wait. Can you?