12 Best Movies Like Mission: Impossible

There is something immensely satisfying about watching Tom Cruise perform death-defying stunts and impressive fight choreography. Whether he's jumping out of a plain or climbing the tallest building in the world, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is always stone-faced and hyper-focused on his mission (though he occasionally leaves room to make a wry comment or two to whoever is in his ear). It's Tom Cruise's intensity and star-power that have made the whole franchise (one that includes eight films as of the release of 2025's "Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning") as notable and successful as it is today. Action, as a genre, can take many forms, but by far one its most popular sub-genres is the spy movie, and "Mission: Impossible" has become one of the most recognizable and imitated franchises of its ilk.

Not every film on this list will immediately seem like "Mission: Impossible," but they all share at least one major similarity that might interest a fan who wants to broaden their horizons. There are spy movies, but also movies about betrayal and ragtag teams. There are films from Tom Cruise's oeuvre that capture the same spark he uses to make Ethan Hunt compelling as well as some genre-twisting features whose similarities to "Mission: Impossible" are a little more subtle than others. With all of this variety, there's bound to be at least one film that will appeal to any "Mission: Impossible" fan.

As far as secret agent movies go, "The Bourne Identity" is one of the best, both as an individual film and as the start of a franchise nearly as ubiquitous as that of "Mission: Impossible." Matt Damon stars as the titular Jason Bourne, a man who finds himself lost in Europe with no idea who he is or why he can't remember his life. His secret agent skills don't require his conscious memory to function, and this is quite a boon considering the many deadly forces that are out to kill him before he can figure out who he is and why they're after him. 

More so than "Mission: Impossible," "The Bourne Idenity" is about a lone agent attempting to stay alive in the face of an enormous, top-secret ecosystem. Both films take a fairly serious approach to storytelling, but there is a grittier, less-fanciful tone in the Bourne franchise. With a desaturated palette and frantic cinematography (to match Jason's frantic search for answers and attempts to dodge bullets), "The Bourne Identity" moves as far as it can from the unreality of secret agents, whereas "Mission: Impossible" makes a point of embracing outlandish tropes and fanciful plot devices. "The Bourne Identity" is a great film to watch when "Mission: Impossible" and its sequels feel a bit too over-the-top. Of course, the stairwell scene toward the end of the film, which was only added to "The Bourne Identity" after test screenings, is proof that the production didn't phone it in when it came to action set-pieces. 

Unfortunately for audiences, there are not nearly as many spy thrillers and action films that center around female characters as there are that center around men. While actresses like Sigourney Weaver, Angelina Jolie, Michelle Rodriguez, and others have built significant careers on their work in the action film genre, none of them have ever developed the kind of profile that Tom Cruise uses to continue making high-action films even into his 60s. Even so, there are still some great films out there about female secret agents, and one of the more interesting (and less acknowledged) ones is "Atomic Blonde."

"Atomic Blonde" is based on a graphic novel of the same name published by Oni Press in 2012. The film adaptation, which came out in theaters in 2017, stars Charlize Theron, an actress who arguably has just as much on-camera charisma as Tom Cruise himself, as a secret agent named Lorraine Broughton. Broughton is an MI6 agent who is sent into East Berlin (in the year 1989, right before the fall of the Berlin Wall) on an urgent, dangerous mission, one that involves many twists and turns and unexpected alliances and betrayals. The film is shot with beautiful colors and backed by a raucous 1980s soundtrack, making it far more stylistic than "Mission: Impossible." The action sequences and fight choreography are what make the film worth watching, as they include a 10-minute-long stairwell fight scene. 

Ethan Hunt is never so compelling and bold as when he's on the run as a result of some giant misunderstanding, and that's regularly the case when it comes to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. Tom Cruise seems to be more comfortable when he's playing a guy on the outs, because it's a character state that he inhabits on more than a few occasions. Cruise's character in "Minority Report," for example, becomes a fugitive to the institution he's served for a large part of his life — the film just so happens to be more of a sci-fi flick than "Mission: Impossible." 

In "Minority Report," Tom Cruise plays a police officer named John Anderton who is part of a special program known as Precrime. The program involves the cultivation of three humans with precognitive abilities who receive visions of future homicides, and is about to be taken national when it is predicted that John will commit a murder in the near-future, prompting him to go on the run. John learns that sometimes the most powerful of the precognitive humans, Agatha (Samantha Morton), receives a vision called a "minority report," which shows an alternative future. John uncovers a massive conspiracy and attempts to prove his innocence and find justice, proving that lone cowboys never go out of style.

Bruce Willis was 55 years old when "RED" — a film inspired by the DC Comics graphic novel of the same name that follows a group of retired special agents — hit movie theaters. That means that Willis was seven years younger when he made a movie about being an over-the-hill ex-spy than Tom Cruise is now. Cruise is just now releasing his eighth "Mission: Impossible" movie and is showing no signs of slowing down (sure, this new installment is called "Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning," but that's certainly not a legal obligation), so it's unlikely he'd ever star in a comedically self-aware, age-appropriate film like "RED" any time soon.

"RED" follows retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) as he is forced to return to the world of special ops when he is attacked in his home by a black ops strike team (which he completely demolishes single-handedly). Moses rescues the call center employee, Sarah (Mary Louise Parker), with whom he has fallen in love through phone conversations, when she is targeted because of his crush and enlists the help of fellow former operatives. The cast is stacked, with Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, and a token young guy Karl Urban all kicking ass and cracking jokes with joy and solid acting. 

Pierce Brosnan's first James Bond film, "GoldenEye," premiered in 1995, a year before "Mission: Impossible," and while there are plenty of tonal differences between the two films, the technology, fashion, and many other elements determined by era feel very similiar. "Mission: Impossible" is based on a 1966 TV show of the same name, but didn't have nearly the cultural cachet of the James Bond franchise. The "Mission: Impossible" franchise still doesn't touch Bond in that area even all these years later. Because of this, Pierce Brosnan's Bond takes a much more fun approach to depicting secret agent milieu than Cruise's Ethan Hunt, and overall, "GoldenEye" is a more over-the-top film. 

Brosnan's Bond is pitted against former ally Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), who fakes his own death on a mission to infiltrate a soviet nuclear facility. Bean is fun as "GoldenEye's" Bond villain, lending the role both enough gravitas and enough room to surprise the audience with his performance. Brosnan may not be everyone's favorite Bond, but he defined the turn of the century for the franchise with his confidence and swagger in the role. Plus, Robbie Coltrane's memorable turn as a Russian gangster who helps Bond find "Goldeneye" really holds up.

If someone told us about an upcoming action flick starring the likes of Idris Elba, Zoe Saldaña, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Chris Evans (as the computer geek in the group, no less), we'd be pretty excited. The bad news is that a movie like that isn't coming to theaters anytime soon. But the good news is that it already exists, and it's called "The Losers." Also known as the Chris Evans action flick that took over the Netflix Top 10 a few years ago, "The Losers" follows a group of black ops agents who are betrayed and left for dead by a corrupt government official, and is based on a graphic novel of the same name, but finds balance between its edgier elements and realism. "The Losers" is a little bit like if Ethan Hunt's team members had also survived the attempt on their life at the beginning of "Mission: Impossible." 

"The Losers" puts a large emphasis on weapons and explosives, so don't come in expecting a lot of particularly covert action, but Elba, Saldaña, and Morgan are all accomplished action stars and their experience with the genre and fight choreography comes through. It's a little bit mind-boggling to watch a film with a star like Chris Evans in such a supporting role, and even more so to see him play the tech nerd of the group (and prove that terrible hair styling can drop a certified 10 down to a Jacksonville seven). Despite a vague cliffhanger, there has never been a sequel to "The Losers," so it definitely falls short of "Mission: Impossible" there, but it's still well worth the watch.

While still loyal in depicting certain tropes standard to an action movie, "John Wick" did, in many ways, mark a new era in the genre. Where "Mission: Impossible" is easy to follow, accessible, and relatively bloodless, "John Wick" is byzantine and just as violent as a Quentin Tarantino film. Keanu Reeves as John Wick is Tom Cruise/Ethan Hunt's crooked, alternate universe self: competent but tortured, stoic but charismatic. That said, Reeves is a more honest actor than Cruise, more willing to see and respond to the dark side of the story "John Wick" tells. 

"John Wick" has spawned three sequels and a spin-off miniseries since it hit theaters in 2014. It has the advantage of following a character who belongs to a fictional hit man club, which also seems to function in accordance with a secret group of powerful criminals. The filmmakers get to do whatever they want with that kind of institutional lore. While there is some room for the outlandish in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, Ethan Hunt does ultimately serve the U.S. Government, which already has a very well-established presence in modern minds. Be warned, as soon as someone watches "John Wick," they can't help but watch the rest of the series shortly thereafter. 

Suggesting a movie like "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" on the basis that it is similar to "Mission: Impossible" might seem like quite a stretch at first thought. For one thing, "Dungeons & Dragons" takes place in a made-up fantasy world based on a popular table-top RPG that's been around for decades, and for another, "Mission: Impossible" would not be described by many fans as light-hearted. That said, both movies are action films, feature a team-up of expertly talented eccentrics, and have plots that are primarily driven by an immense betrayal from someone close to the film's protagonists. Sometimes people like their action to be painted with a more fantastical brush, and this suggestions is with that in mind. 

It can be hard to keep track of every so-called blockbuster that comes to theaters these days, so its likely that a lot of people missed "Dungeons & Dragons" when it first premiered. Whats more, it's easy to look at the film's poster and promotional materials and come away with the impression that it may not be as enjoyable to watch as it actually is. Chris Pine, who plays the film's main character Edgin Darvis, is a joy to watch as the offbeat, comedic leader with a heart of gold, and Michelle Rodriguez gets to have a lot of fun as a heavy weapon-laden barbarian named Holga.

Only 11 years after Pierce Brosnan's turn as the famous British spy known as James Bond first began, actor Daniel Craig took over the mantle in 2006. Many fans of the franchise actually hated the idea of Craig's Bond, believing that Craig was too blonde and not conventionally attractive enough to fill the shoes of prior Bonds like Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Of course, that argument was put to bed by this particular scene from "Casino Royale" that encapsulates why we love Daniel Craig's Bond, and so this list would be incomplete without a film from the James Bond iteration that has run most concurrently with the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. 

"Casino Royale" seems to embrace some cinematic and tonal elements that had been more associated with franchises like "Mission: Impossible" and the Bourne saga before Craig's Bond came to theaters. While "Casino Royale" still features a cheeky Bond who knows how to have fun, it also serves as a more nuanced character study of James Bond than ever before seen on screen. Craig's Bond had seen and done many bad things even before the events of his first film, and something about the stature of the character and Craig's acting conveys that very well to the audience. "Casino Royale" also has one of the most heartbreaking endings in all of action cinema, which is both terrifying and exciting.

"Top Gun," an iconic 1980s Tom Cruise flick about naval aviation flight school, offers another glimpse into an alternate universe's Ethan Hunt, one where he decided to join the navy and become a pilot. Okay, so a lot of things would have had to change in Ethan's life for him to end up in the same place as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise), but the spark of daring youth that drove Cruise's early film career is exactly what got him the role of Ethan Hunt. Cruise never lost the spark, per se, but it's more like a steady hearth flame now, stronger and more dependable but less exciting. 

"Top Gun" is a movie that has always been associated with the idea of cool. Sure, it's a bit of 1980s cringe nowadays, but pilots never stopped being appealing, and neither did Tom Cruise in sunglasses. There are a lot of plot-related things in "Top Gun" that actually make no sense, but the flight scenes are fun to watch and the air battles feel truly harrowing. It's important to note that there is, of course, a much darker and sadder tone struck in the last third of the film, which can be tonally jarring after watching Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise puff out their chests at each other for so long beforehand. 

Matthew Vaughn's directorial style is sort of like if Guy Ritchie had Quentin Tarantino's sense of humor. His films feel like they contain as many undecipherable private jokes as they do referential public ones. When his movies strike a harmonious balance between the two, they are runaway hits, like "Kingsman: Secret Service." Other times, Vaughn is self-indulgent to a point where there are dozens of critical reviews, as we saw with "Argylle," Vaughn's recent flop starring Henry Cavill. The good ones are great, though, and "Kingsman: Secret Service" is an awesome choice for someone looking to watch a good secret agent film.

"Kingsman: Secret Service" is about a young man who finds himself recruited to train for a spot in a private intelligence agency formed by Britain's wealthy elite following the mass casualties of their sons in World War I. Eggsy (Taron Egerton), faces many challenges throughout his training and learns more about his father's secret life as a Kingsman agent before he died. He's at an earlier place in his life than Ethan Hunt in "Mission: Impossible," but a character like that can often be just as compelling as a seasoned pro, especially when played by a charming actor like Egerton. Mark Strong's Merlin, the man responsible for all of the technical and logistical needs of the Kingsmen agents, is a highlight of the film, as is its main organization's lore.