Every Secret Agent From The Mission: Impossible Films Ranked
In the decades since Brian De Palma's "Mission: Impossible" (1996), Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has worked with — and against — nearly two dozen CIA, MI6, and IMF field agents. That number will increase with the imminent release of "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One."
If you've unfamiliar with these movies, you might wonder how the International Monetary Fund got wrapped up with the security services and led to Ethan hanging on for dear life from the outside of a cargo plane. Well, Hunt works for a completely different IMF — the Impossible Mission Force. Conceived by Bruce Geller for 1960s television as an extra-governmental agency that plotted against Cold War adversaries and organized crime, the movies reimagined the IMF as a part of the CIA that specializes in very difficult spy stuff. But how do its various experts and opponents in field espionage and deception stack up against each other?
Before we get to the rankings, a note about the rules of this list. Only actual field agents were considered, so IMF bureaucrats like Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins), and Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) didn't make the cut. Small unnamed parts — like the drunk Russians in "Mission: Impossible" or the Record Store Girl in "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" — are excluded too.
Spoilers abound for anyone who hasn't seen the first six "Mission" films. You have been warned!
23. Alexander Golitsyn
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
We're at first led to believe that Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iureș) is an attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Prague — and a traitor. According to the IMF Secretary, Golistyn is about to steal a coveted NOC (Non-Official Cover) list that would reveal every undercover CIA agent in Eastern Europe to the highest bidder, which sets the betrayals and double-crosses of the film's plot in motion.
By the time we find out that he's in fact an IMF "lightning rod" involved in an internal mole hunt, Golitsyn has already been turned into mincemeat by an initially unseen assailant.
Golitsyn does little to impress. He makes an inconspicuous entry to the embassy, puts on a pair of rubber gloves to copy files onto a cutting-edge floppy disc, departs via an elevator service hatch, and he's stabbed to death without putting up a fight. And that's it. Thus his ranking.
22. Agent Pete
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible III"
IMF agent Pete (José Zuñiga) is the only character on this list unrewarded with the dignity of a surname. Having said that, he manages two small moments during his brief screen time that keep the character from ranking dead last.
Number one, Hunt knows Pete by his first name, which invites the possibility they've trained together or even gone on missions side-by-side. It also suggests the possibility that, although they have to bring him in given credible information that he's turned traitor, the IMF shows enough respect for Hunt's service not to send just any faceless agent to arrest him.
Number two, Pete and his team actually nab Hunt, and it doesn't even require a lengthy chase! Sure, Hunt isn't in custody for very long, but it's not Pete's fault! His character isn't around when Hunt fights off three IMF agents and makes his escape from Langley a few minutes later.
21. Billy Baird
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible II"
As conceived, Billy Baird should rank higher on this list. A wisecracking helicopter pilot, he's quick with one-liners and clever improvisations during moments of crisis. Such a character could run away with scenes in a better movie (consider Simon Pegg's later contributions to the franchise). And, as originally cast, with motormouth American actor Steve Zahn in the part, the character might have risen beyond what was on the page.
Unfortunately, a delayed production start saw Zahn replaced by Australian actor John Polson. He doesn't turn in a truly bad performance, but nothing distinguishes him the way you'd expect from someone so high up on the cast list. The material does him no favors. Shortly after his introduction, Baird watches Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) kiss Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton) — who very much does not want the kiss — and says, "Now there's a bloke who knows how to give a proper welcome!" Truly dire stuff.
Although Polson reprised the role in the 2003 video game "Mission: Impossible – Operation Surma," it's no surprise that despite surviving his initial installment, Baird does not return in any subsequent film.
20. Hannah Williams
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
Hannah Williams (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė) is part of Hunt's first IMF team, tasked with finding a high place to track the presumed traitor Golitsyn while he's in the Embassy, and then joining Claire Phelps in case they must chase Golitsyn by car after he's gotten away with the NOC list. She also briefly appears carrying drinks during the film's pre-credits "mousetrap" sequence.
Williams delivers exactly two lines — "No problem" and "He's heading to the denied area" — one of which she mutters under her breath. And unlike the rest of the team, she shares no one-on-one scenes with Hunt, which doesn't help her make much of an impression.
Still, she gets to show off a high-tech pair of shades and meets her end in a very dramatic fashion (a car bomb explosion so striking the movie finds an excuse to replay the moment later on, and, of course, it also features in the film's trailer), and that edges out the characters below her on this list.
19. Sean Ambrose
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible II"
The first of several former IMF agents turned villains on this rundown, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) is the victim of a movie that only halfway commits to exploring someone who personifies the dark side of Ethan Hunt; later films would do much more with the idea. He evinces none of Hunt's charm, romanticism, or "acrobatic insanity," as Ambrose puts it. This leaves him with unearned confidence and a nasty streak that makes him thoroughly unlikeable.
The movie's storyline, lifted from Hitchcock's "Notorious" with a dash of "North By Northwest," hinges on the IMF convincing a professional thief, Nordoff-Hall, to resume a relationship she had with Ambrose but chose to end. However, the actors share zero chemistry, which makes it easy to understand why she left, but hard to discern what she saw in him in the first place, and even harder to buy Ambrose believing even for a second that her return is genuine.
When the movie devolves into absurd motorcycle jousting and fisticuffs, Ambrose proves himself a physical match for Hunt, but still a hollow character.
18. Frank Barnes
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
Dale Dye broke into the entertainment business as a military technical advisor after serving in the Marines, a role he performed for both director Brian De Palma ("Casualties of War") and actor Tom Cruise ("Born on the Fourth of July"). That led to some small acting roles, usually drawing from his background to play military or authority figures, and the part of Frank Barnes fits perfectly in Dye's wheelhouse.
Barnes is former director Kittridge's loyal lieutenant at the IMF, and he brings a sense of military precision to the role as he picks locks, runs a phone trace, searches a train, and breaks down doors with a machine gun. It's a supporting part and not a flashy one, but Dye moves and speaks in a way that gives the sense that he's both an old soldier and a pro whose decades of experience make what he does look easy.
17. Trevor Hanaway
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol"
Last-minute budget cuts meant an elaborate snowmobile chase written and designed (costumes were even made) to feature IMF agent Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) ended up dropped from the film before it could be shot.
Still, even without his big scene and with only a few minutes of screen time, Hanaway manages to make an impression. He's the first character to appear on screen in the movie, literally running into frame as if the character knows every second is precious.
During his brief appearance, he engages in a foot chase on a rooftop in Budapest, uses a cool gadget to soften his fall when he jumps from a building, and dispatches two bad guys with his sidearm on his way down. Unfortunately, an urgent update on his phone with the identity of assassin Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux) doesn't arrive until after she's already shot him. But his death is not in vain, providing crucial motivation for his lover and fellow IMF agent, Jane Carter (Paula Patton), who later exacts her revenge on Moreau.
16. Declan Gormley
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible III"
Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is, in some ways, a retread of the Bill Baird character. Both are ace helicopter pilots who like to crack wise and are loyal to Hunt. But even with a small part, Gormley gets a lot more to do and makes the most of it.
Rather than ferrying people around on an air taxi for the whole movie, Gormley shows off his skills by engaging in and winning a dangerous dogfight against an enemy helicopter. During the Vatican sequence, he disguises himself as a tourist, a delivery driver, and a guard—showing off both perfect and stilted Italian as required — and uses a variety of IMF gadgetry, too. Later, he races through the streets of Shanghai, at first to catch Hunt as he parachutes out of a building, then to evade bad guys in hot pursuit while trying to hustle Hunt to a spot where he can get a cell phone signal.
In terms of actual characterization, there isn't much beyond a bit of flirting with Zhen Lei (Maggie Q) and loudly opining that he loves that IMF agents can't have real relationships. But Meyers has as much fun with the part as possible.
15. Claire Phelps
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
After the opening scene, which suggests sparks between Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) and Hunt — a problem, since Claire's husband is Hunt's boss and mentor, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) — Claire's biggest contribution to the Prague mission is brewing a pot of mediocre coffee.
When that mission falls apart and most of the team dies, however, her character comes into greater focus. She returns to the safe house (smart enough to wait until the preplanned return window after a mission abort; not smart enough to avoid the shards of glass Hunt sprinkled by the door to alert him to an intruder) and quickly agrees to join him in his quest to clear his name and expose the IMF mole known only as "Job" (as in the biblical Book of Job). Phelps tells Hunt she's doing this because the IMF would assume they were co-conspirators either way, but in truth, she's in league with her husband, who has faked his death and orchestrated the whole thing. Meanwhile, she and Hunt dance around each other's feelings. A sex scene between the two was wisely cut, leaving their relationship more ambiguous, and composer Danny Elfman's theme for their relationship is simply called, "Love Theme?"
After her duplicity is exposed, Claire's loyalty to her husband is rewarded with a bullet and her death. "'Though shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,' Ethan," announces Jim Phelps before firing the killshot, taking this biblical business a bit too seriously.
14. Nyah Nordoff-Hall
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible II"
As a professional thief, Nyah Nordoff-Hall's the first person to appear on this list who isn't an IMF veteran. She finds herself drawn into the world of international espionage not for her skills sneaking past security systems or evading police capture, but thanks to a previous romantic relationship with the film's villain, the aforementioned Sean Ambrose.
It's a shame this more action-oriented "Mission" movie doesn't give Nordoff-Hall any real opportunity to showcase her skills beyond some introductory scenes that are more about establishing a romantic relationship with Hunt than with thievery. Since the original television series, which borrowed heavily from the film "Topkapi" (later an inspiration for the first film's CIA vault sequence), "Mission" has been at its core about a professional crew that pulls off heists. You'd think a professional thief would fit right into this premise, but the film makes it very clear that's not Nyah's function.
Still, the third act turns completely on Nordoff-Hall's decision to inject herself with the only remaining Chimera virus. She spends most of the rest of the film as a hostage, but at least she's not completely passive.
13. Zhen Lei
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible III"
As Zhen Lei, Maggie Q engages in what might as well have been a feature-length audition for her title role a few years later on the television series "Nikita." With skill and aplomb, she dispatches numerous bad guys using a variety of explosives, guns, and fists. She also deploys a portable defibrillator, dresses to the nines to go undercover at an exclusive art auction, takes surreptitious photos to help make one of the IMF's signature masks, spills wine on arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and presses the button to blow a Lamborghini to smithereens and cover up her own exit.
The character also survives getting thrown through glass after a grenade explodes, jumping out of a second-story window, hanging off the side of an airborne helicopter, and taking a bullet to the shoulder during a high-speed car chase.
Not every moment is a winner — a brief speech about a lost cat and the resultant Chinese prayer slow the movie down — but it remains a great showcase, It's a shame Zhen Lei hasn't returned for subsequent sequels.
12. Jim Phelps
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
As portrayed in the first movie, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) is an aging cold warrior who decides to betray his country after realizing how little he has to show for all the years of risking his life as part of the IMF. As he puts it to Hunt he's "an obsolete piece of hardware, not worth upgrading."
Though this Phelps is much more ruthless than the fatherly version of the character played by Peter Graves on television, Hunt nonetheless sees him as a father figure, which only makes Phelps' betrayal even harder on his young protegé. And that ruthlessness is on display throughout — though only revealed late in the film — as Phelps sees the lives of his team, the lives endangered by releasing the NOC list, and even the life of his reliable "point man," Hunt, as entirely expendable. And nowhere is Phelps' ruthlessness more on display than in the film's finale, when he quickly decides to execute his co-conspirator and wife, Claire, after she asks him not to murder Hunt. Only escaping with the money seems to matter to him; everyone else is irrelevant.
11. August Walker aka John Lark
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Fallout"
August Walker (Henry Cavill) is introduced as an agent for the CIA, detailed to Hunt's IMF unit to report back to his boss, Erika Sloan (Angela Bassett). She suspects the IMF will go rogue (a valid concern, since it happens in almost every movie!). However, Walker's well-coiffed mustache, complete indifference to procedure during a dangerous HALO drop, and arms that seem to reload in between punches, all point to a character a bit more sinister than a simple company man. This soon bears out in the fakeout Hunt and the rest orchestrate to reveal Walker's true identity as the terrorist John Lark.
In a direct address that might as well be said straight to the camera, Lark asks the captured Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), "Why do you have to make this so f—ing complicated?"
Lark eventually meets his end after tumbling down a mountain and having a metal hook pierce his head, but not before sending Hunt on a frantic run through London, which sent Tom Cruise to the emergency room for a broken ankle after a jump between two buildings went slightly awry, temporarily shutting down production.
10. Lindsey Farris
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible III"
Three movies into the series, Hunt gets his own protegé with Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), who, flashbacks tell us, is skilled in martial arts, but apparently not skilled enough to avoid capture by the arms dealer Owen Davian shortly after being dispatched to fieldwork.
Hunt risks everything to retrieve Farris, and after eliminating quite a few nameless baddies and injecting her with adrenaline, the two fight their way out of the building where she's been held. The whole time, Farris tries to tell Hunt about a new mole in the IMF (seems like they run the same rigorous background checks that CTU does on "24"), but before she can tell him what she knows, they discover she has an explosive charge implanted in her brain that's about to go boom. Hunt hatches a plan to use a defibrillator to disarm it, but the machine doesn't charge fast enough and the explosive detonates, killing Farris instantly. During their brief screen time together, however, Hunt and Farris form one heck of a team.
9. Franz Krieger
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) is resourceful, able to locate and acquire the newest computer equipment the team needs within just 24 hours. He's an expert pilot too, who could, in his words, "fly a helicopter right in through the lobby [of Fort Knox] and set it down in the vault." And he's physically fit, carefully raising and lowering Hunt into the CIA data vault at Langley with the help of only a small portable pulley system (give or take a serious rat allergy). He's also fast with a knife; Hunt stops him from murdering a curious guard at Langley, but the aforementioned rat? Not so lucky.
Sure, it turns out Krieger is also a homicidal maniac for hire with a temper problem, but how could Hunt know that when Claire Phelps plucked him off the disavowed list (turns out she was a traitor too — oops)? Nobody's perfect.
As it turns out, though, all the helicopter skills in the world are no match for a stick of explosive gum ("red light, green light"). Hasta lasagna, don't get any on ya, Franz.
8. Sarah Davies
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
Kristin Scott Thomas appeared briefly as IMF agent Sarah Davies the same year she co-starred in "The English Patient," for which she received an Oscar nomination. Suffice it to say, she was a good get for a small part (the character is among the doomed IMF team).
And because director Brian De Palma opted to shoot a portion of the Prague Embassy scene from Hunt's point of view, Thomas as Davies ends up front and center, putting on a performance for the other guests ("I bet you don't remember me, do you?") and communicating to Hunt more surreptitiously through gritted teeth ("He's in pocket, on the stairway").
Davies is the last member of the team killed, and though there's a complete sense of doom as she walks towards Golitsyn in the fog, one can't help but hold out hope until the very end that somehow she'll find a way to avoid Krieger's knife. Alas. That said, if you crave a Kristin Scott Thomas spy fix, she's very good right now in "Slow Horses."
7. Solomon Lane
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation"
From the moment we meet Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), a former MI6 agent turned terrorist, he is in control, always one step ahead of Hunt and his IMF team. Well, almost always.
Another riff on "the dark side of Ethan Hunt," Lane more successfully embodies the concept than Sean Ambrose from "Mission: Impossible II." Where Hunt runs (see: Tom Cruise running), Lane walks with deliberation. Where Hunt values innocent lives and the lives of his team above all else, Lane treats every henchman and civilian alike in his path as completely expendable. Where Hunt seeks to protect his friends and family at all costs, Lane has no one. In the end, Lane is even willing to give up his own life to realize his perverse plans for global peace. Hint: It begins with a massive nuclear explosion and the deaths of a lot of innocents.
6. Jane Carter
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol"
Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Zhen Lei are both ass-kicking heroines called upon to use their feminine charms to entrap a male protagonist, but Carter ranks higher on this list because "Ghost Protocol" offers the character space for more complex characterization. And, sure, the engine driving Carter in the story is the early death of her lover, Hanaway, but at least this serves as a gender reversal from the typical "fridged lover" trope.
Carter proves herself skilled at gunplay and hand-to-hand combat, but she's not invincible or without weakness. In a fistfight with the assassin Moreau, Carter ends up booting her out the window of the Burj Khalifa rather than attempting to capture her. This gives her the revenge she seeks but is a major setback for the team, who could have interrogated her. And in the climax, Carter is wounded in a gunfight but manages, at the last minute, to reset the hard drives needed to deactivate a nuclear missile aimed at San Francisco.
5. William Brandt
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol"
Jeremy Renner had the unfortunate distinction of being the actor Paramount chose to succeed Tom Cruise as the star of the "Mission" franchise ... until the studio changed its mind and opted to continue with Cruise as the lead after all. (The poor guy met the same fate after being picked by Universal to replace Matt Damon in the Bourne series, only to have the studio opt for another Damon-led sequel after Renner's only outing.) Still, Renner made a decent impression in his two outings ("Ghost Protocol" and "Rogue Nation") as field agent turned analyst turned field agent William Brandt.
The server room sequence in "Ghost Protocol," during which Brandt wears a magnetic suit to levitate through an oversized and increasingly overheated computer mainframe in order to deactivate a weapons satellite, rates as a particular highlight. The capper, highlighting the aggressive heteronormativity of the franchise to date? Brandt tells the team over the radio, "Next time, I get to seduce the rich guy."
4. Jack Harmon
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
Given the limited size of the role, placing Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez, appearing without screen credit) so high on this list might be a controversial decision. But Estevez makes a complete meal out of the part, with perfectly delivered one-liners ("Just don't chew it") and a natural camaraderie with his teammates that elevates the role beyond its screen time.
Not only does Harmon's playful banter with Hunt and Sarah Davies suggest a whole series of adventures that took place before the events of the first movie, it also demonstrates how much of a well-oiled espionage machine the team is. Which only amplifies the grisly fates of the team, beginning with Harmon's brutal demise in an elevator shaft. They're that much more of a gut punch for both Hunt and the audience.
It's no wonder that Tom Cruise had second thoughts about killing Harmon when he was working on the second movie. It's a shame Harmon had to die, but his death establishes the movie's stakes and sets the tone for what's to come.
3. Ilsa Faust
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation"
"Rogue Nation" created a new chapter for Ethan Hunt, and one key to this is Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). With her, the franchise finally introduces a female super-spy who can go toe-to-toe with Hunt in each and every way. This includes long-term underwater diving, high-velocity motorcycling, brutal hand-to-hand combat, sharpshooting, and just plain old-fashioned deception. And deceive she does, again and again, with expert skill. Ilsa's true allegiances and motivations remain shrouded in secrecy for much of the two films she's appeared in to date.
The character who emerges at the end of those two adventures is idealistic and brave against all odds. Thankfully, the filmmakers have resisted the temptation to set up Faust and Hunt as a conventional romantic couple, shooting and then cutting scenes where the characters kissed from both "Rogue Nation" and "Fallout." Really, has a major action character's love life been the victim of more editorial intervention than Ethan Hunt's?
2. Benji Dunn
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible III"
Introduced as an IMF office technician in the third movie, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) becomes a full-fledged field agent beginning with "Ghost Protocol." At first nervous and a bit bumbling due to his inexperience, Dunn gradually comes into his own, managing to hold his own in a fight in "Rogue Nation" and to convincingly impersonate both Solomon Lane and CNN host Wolf Blitzer by the time of "Fallout" (with the help of the IMF's signature masks, of course).
Dunn is also incredibly loyal to his teammates, especially Hunt, whom he helps save Meade-Hunt even after Hunt has been disavowed during the climax of "Mission: Impossible III." In "Rogue Nation," after assisting Hunt in the Vienna Opera House, Dunn refuses to leave despite the risk to his life (a risk that is warranted; later in the movie, he ends up with a bomb strapped to his chest).
So, while Simon Pegg is grateful his character stays behind the computer instead of pulling Hunt stunts, we're grateful that he's increasingly part of the action.
1. Luther Stickle
First Appears: "Mission: Impossible"
From the moment Luther Stickle (Ving Rhames) arrives on the scene, dressed in a white suit and wearing sunglasses, he immediately establishes himself as the coolest person in the room (no small feat considering his company includes mid-1990s Tom Cruise and Jean Reno).
As the movie, and later, the franchise progresses, Stickle becomes something more important: Hunt's closest friend and a moral compass he can rely on. In the first film, it's Stickle who Hunt trusts to keep the NOC list from getting out in the open, having (wisely, it turns out) decided Krieger and Claire Phelps cannot be trusted. It's Stickle who counsels Ethan in the third film against marrying Julia when she's unaware of her husband's espionage work. "A normal relationship is not viable for people like us," he says (Gormley agrees, but only after Stickle says it first). And it's Stickle, in the fourth film, who can call out Hunt for being "corny" for saying "Mission accomplished!" when he averts a nuclear holocaust with only seconds remaining.
Hunt's romantic relationships with Nordoff-Hall, Meade-Hunt (Michelle Monaghan), and Faust are important, but it is notably Stickle's life he's unwilling to sacrifice in "Fallout" to prevent a terrorist group from attaining dangerous plutonium, despite Stickle's pleas, "Don't you do it, Ethan! Not for me!"
After nearly 30 years it seems the "Mission: Impossible" series will continue forever. If so, let's hope Stickle survives through all of it.