After a rocky few years in the middle there, the Mission: Impossible series has done something incredible: pulled a Fast & Furious. Meaning, of course, that it's actually peaked in its fifth and sixth entries. Also, like Fast & Furious, the Mission films have picked up an impressive cast of supporting characters as well.
Who among them though, are the coolest? The toughest? The smartest? Scroll on for a ranked list of the very best. Spoilers for all of the Mission: Impossible films below.
Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames)
Ving Rhames has made a career out of playing heavies, but his best roles play against that image. Pulp Fiction breaks down his tough guy exterior into a horrific but humane vulnerability, and Rhames is doing a similar thing in the Mission: Impossible films.
Luther Stickell will pick up a gun once in a while, but his best moments are not violent. Whether helping Julia through a complex bomb disposal or meeting up with Ethan for drinks after a mission, Luther's strength comes in his deep well of empathy. This turns him into the toughest kind of tough guy—one who never has to throw a punch.
Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg)
While typically a hacker, and by default, comic relief, Benji's tangle with Solomon Lane in Fallout ranks among the most brutal in the entire series. While he typically leaves most of the fighting to Ethan, Benji breaks out some unexpected martial arts moves in this brawl.
He also, disturbingly, gets as close to death as almost any other Mission character, as Lane attempts to hang him. Though he rarely tussles with anyone in his previous adventures, jumping up from literal death more than qualifies Benji for this list.
Solomon Lane (Sean Harris)
Speaking of, Solomon Lane is not a really physically imposing villain, but he is extremely unnerving. Kind of a non-entity in Rogue Nation, Lane makes much more of an impression in Fallout.
Spending much of the movie as a glutton for punishment, Lane is impressive in how much abuse he is willing to take in service of his revenge. After taking on two spies at once, however, Lane quickly becomes Hall of Fame material.
Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman)
The best part of the scatterbrained Misson: Impossible 3, Owen Davian may not be the strongest character on the list, but he's the one you'd least like to run into in a dark alley. While his motivations and evil plan are boilerplate, Hoffman makes this character work through sheer force of will. It's a performance for the ages, and it makes Davian one of the scariest blockbuster villains in recent memory.
Davian's misdeeds are undertaken with a complete lack of passion, even boredom, that makes them all the more terrifying. Hoffman's dry, mumbled delivery is one of the most famous things about the film ("I'm gonna hurt her"), and he occasionally takes this mediocre popcorn movie into Oscar-caliber dramatic territory. He is greatly missed.
August Walker (Henry Cavill)
At the beginning of Mission: Impossible Fallout, Erica Sloane (Angela Basset) makes a simple metaphor. She compares Ethan to a scalpel, and her best agent, August Walker, to a hammer. She means that Ethan is a precise instrument, and Walker is decidedly not.
This is demonstrated as Walker blunders his way through several missions and Ethan is forced to save him. Still, a broken clock is right twice a day, and a hammer swung by an idiot is still dangerous. He may lack Ethan's intelligence, but Walker is similarly motivated, and almost as unkillable. Enough that when his inevitable heel-turn comes in the third act, we know Ethan and company are in real trouble.
White Widow (Vanessa Kirby)
It's easy to just fill this list with Fallout characters, but the White Widow would stick out in any film. As played by Vanessa Kirby, the Widow isn't just skilled with a knife—she's a stabbing enthusiast.
Like her mother from the first film, Widow is a power player, and the joy with which she wields that power is both infectious and intimidating. Lots of characters kill each other in these movies, but Widow is the only one to do it with a smile on her face.
Franz Krieger (Jean Reno)
Krieger, a villainous henchman from the first Mission: Impossible film, may not be the most complex or interesting character, but to balance that out, he is played by Jean Reno. Hot off the success of La Femme Nikita and The Professional, Mission: Impossible was the first time many American audiences saw Reno, and his cold, European cool was undeniable.
Krieger carries around a massive knife for most of the movie, and when that isn't enough to kill Ethan, he attempts to behead him with a helicopter blade. This is the kind of outside the box thinking you want from a henchman.
Jane Carter (Paula Patton)
Jane is a fine character, but like many who populate the Mission-verse, she is completely made by the actor. In what really should have been a star-making performance, Paula Patton punches, kicks, and quips her way through the series' fourth adventure, stealing the entire film in the process.
Though her entire performance is great, what sets Patton apart is her physicality. Navigating every fight scene like a natural born action star, Patton kicks Lea Seydoux out of a window like it's nothing. Still, Hollywood at large failed to take notice, and for some reason, Patton passed on returning for Rogue Nation. Hopefully, Jane can still return.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise)
What is there that needs to be said about Ethan Hunt? He's tangled with helicopters, buildings, airplanes, sandstorms, and mediocre sequels. As the series continues to progress, he's also tangled with the public image of Tom Cruise. Slowly melting into one person, Ethan and Tom are both obsessed with their work and will do almost anything to complete it.
With Cruise's major stunts front and center in Mission's marketing, the line between fiction and reality start to blur, and even as public favor has turned against him, we can't help but look on and be amazed. Still, Ethan as a character is just starting to hit his stride, and there was someone else who came in fully formed from the very beginning...
Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson)
Ilsa is not only the coolest character in the Mission films, but she's also probably the best written. A spy trapped in deep cover, Ilsa spends Rogue Nation searching for a way back home, only to discover that she has found a new family in the sequel. Ilsa can be distant and elusive, but Ferguson grounds us in the emotion behind the mask. Ilsa is truly a person who doesn't think she deserves love, and like Ethan, she thinks she has to run from it. Watching her figure out that isn't the case is the best character work the series has ever done.
She is also really good at shooting and stabbing people, which is important, too. The best Mission films borrow heavily from old Hollywood, and Ilsa is their quintessential femme fatale. She's motivated, glamorous, deadly, and vulnerable. At two movies, Ilsa has already lasted longer than most of the female characters in the series. From what it looks like, she's poised to continue that streak.