Mission: Impossible
“Expect the impossible.”
When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.
How Mission: Impossible compares
Every figure below is calculated across the whole of Mission: Impossible, not taken from this film’s own record.
- #6 of 8
- Rank in the series by rating
- The first film
- Where it sits in the series
- 16%
- Share of the series audience
Mission: Impossible (1996) ranks 6th of the 8 rated films in the Mission: Impossible series, at 7.0/10 on TMDB against a series average of 7.1/10.
It is the film that started the series, 29 years before the most recent entry, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025).
Its 10,256 TMDB ratings are 16% of the 64,718 cast across the series.
Computed by Movies in Order from The Movie Database (TMDB) collection data for Mission: Impossible, comparing all 8 released films in the series. Last recalculated September 2026.
Mission: Impossible
More from Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is film 1 of 8. See the complete watch order.