7 Death-Defying Stunts Tom Cruise Has Done In 'Mission: Impossible' Saga

There is no impossible mission for Tom Cruise — especially if it is for his movies.

Cruise is known for doing his own stunts and has performed many death-defying ones for his long-running action spy franchise, "Mission: Impossible." In the franchise, which is based on the TV series of the same name created by Bruce Geller, Cruise stars as Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt.

So far, the actor has played Ethan in six films: "Mission: Impossible" (1996), "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006), "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" (2011), "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" (2015) and "Mission: Impossible – Fallout" (2018).

At 60 years old, Cruise continues to perform his own stunts as he films two more movies in the franchise: "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1" and "Dead Reckoning Part 2," which are set to be released in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Ahead of the release of his next movie, here are some of the most impressive "Mission: Impossible" stunts Cruise has performed so far.

1. Climbing on top of a moving train - "Mission: Impossible"

In the first "Mission: Impossible" movie, Ethan finds himself fighting the bad guys on top of a high-speed train as it moves through the Channel Tunnel, even jumping between the train and a helicopter.

During the film's 25th anniversary celebration, Cruise revealed that director Brian de Palma suggested the idea of doing a sequence on a train before they even put together the plot of the film.

"I remember the train. He was like 'I wanna do a train,'" he said. "I was like 'That's fantastic.' And so how do we do it? How are we going to shoot this thing? We would sit there with train cars, and we didn't have the story. Surprise, there was no story. But we were like this is a cool idea."

2. Getting a knife extremely close to the eyeball - "Mission: Impossible 2"

One wrong move would have left Cruise's eye injured during the filming of "Mission: Impossible 2." In the movie, a knife was propelled at Cruise's character's open eye less than an inch away during a fight.

A cable was used to balance the knife above the actor's eyeball for the stunt, according to Collider.

3. Running through a bridge - "Mission: Impossible 3"

In the J.J. Abrams-directed installment, Ethan's car rolls over, and he ends up running through a bridge and gets slammed into a vehicle as missiles hit the bridge.

While the missiles were CGI, Cruise actually got slammed into the car multiple times during the filming of the sequence, according to Esquire.

4. Climbing a skyscraper - "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol"

One of the most famous stunts in the "Mission: Impossible" saga was filmed on the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

For the scene, Cruise climbed on the side of the 2,722-foot skyscraper to reach the 130th-floor using special suction gloves before rappelling down on his own and concluding with a giant leap of faith.

5. Hanging on the side of a plane - "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation"

In an action-packed plane scene in "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation," Cruise seemingly unleashed his inner Spider-Man and dangled 1,000 feet in the air from the side of an Airbus A400M traveling at a speed of 100 knots for six to eight minutes.

The film's photography director, Robert Elswit, told The Hollywood Reporter that Cruise was attached via a wire and had on protective contact lenses to film the scene amid the intense wind.

6. Hanging on a cliff - "Mission: Impossible – Fallout"

In "Fallout," Cruise's Hunt and the film's villain fight it out on a deadly cliff after crashing their helicopters. For the scene, Cruise had to hang on Norway's Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) and its cliff that drops almost 2,000 feet into a fjord.

"It was so remote. We had to walk halfway up one day because the weather was so bad. At times I had Tom and Henry [Cavill] down on the rock face, and I was leaning over the edge, talking to them, and they would disappear into the clouds completely. We'd have freezing rain. It was so bitterly cold. We were up against every element you can imagine on that movie, as well as time, and schedule, as well as all the other things that go into making a big movie," Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator and a longtime Cruise collaborator, told The Credits of filming the scene.

Despite preparing his finger and grip strength, Cruise had frozen hands after filming the scene.

7. Riding a motorcycle off a cliff - "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1"

For the upcoming "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1," Cruise rode a motorcycle off a cliff, before transitioning into a free fall and base jumping with a parachute.

Before filming the scene, the actor trained heavily to prepare for the jump, including doing over 13,000 motocross jumps and over 500 skydives, according to ScreenRant.

Bonus: Skydiving in South Africa

Cruise recently thanked fans for making "Top Gun: Maverick" a hit and wished them happy holidays in the middle of shooting a "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Parts 1 and 2" skydiving stunt in South Africa.

In the video, which was released via Twitter Sunday, Cruise shared his message to fans after jumping off a helicopter.

"Thank you for supporting 'Top Gun: Maverick,' and thank you for allowing us to entertain you. It truly is the honor of a lifetime," he said while free-falling. "I'm running out of altitude, so I have to get back to work. We have to get this shot. You have a very safe and happy holiday, we'll see you at the movies."