has tom cruise ever not done a stunt

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12 of tom cruise’s most jaw-dropping stunts.

From scaling a skyscraper to hanging on to the outside of an airplane as it takes off, here are some of the actor's most death-defying stunts.

By Carly Thomas

Carly Thomas

Associate Editor

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Tom Cruise has never steered away from challenging himself in his roles for projects. Especially since 1986’s  Top Gun , he has continued to push the limits of his body and acting, taking on his own stunts in most of his top films, including Mission: Impossible ,  The Last Samurai  and  Jack Reacher .

Most recently, Cruise took on several death-defying stunts in  Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , including speed-flying down a mountainside as well as driving a motorcycle off a cliff and parachuting to safety.

The actor has previously said during an appearance on  The Graham Norton Show  that he has been “doing different stunts” since he was a child and that once he got into acting, he wanted to keep doing it to help with the “storytelling.”

“I feel that [when] acting you’re bringing everything, you know, physically and emotionally, to a character in a story,” he explained at the time. “And I’m able to do it [stunts], and I’ve trained for 30 years doing things like this that it allows us to put cameras in places where you normally are not able to.”

More recently, during a  conversation at Cannes  in 2022, Cruise reiterated that he enjoys performing his own stunts despite the danger, only this time he referenced one of the best athletes of Hollywood’s golden era.

“No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance?’” the actor said. “Why do you do your own dancing?’”

Below, The Hollywood Reporter has compiled a list of some of Cruise’s wildest stunts, some downright death-defying, throughout his decades-long career.

'Mission: Impossible' (Aquarium Scene)

In the first installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise in 1996, Cruise reportedly never swapped out for a stuntman in one particular scene involving an aquarium. In the sequence, Ethan Hunt, who would become one of Cruise’s most well-known characters, intentionally blows up a giant aquarium that stretches the length from the floor to the ceiling to help get away quickly. The explosive was so powerful that another person was sent flying through a glass panel, while Cruise went running with 16 gallons of water following right behind him.

'Mission: Impossible II' (Rock Climbing Scene)

In 2000’s Mission: Impossible II , Cruise showed no signs of plans to stop testing his limits. In the opening scene of the John Woo-directed film, the actor can be seen climbing and hanging off giant rocks on the side of a cliff. During filming, Cruise reportedly had only a safety cable to help soften any impact, which led to Woo actively sweating throughout the entire sequence because of how dangerous it was.

'Top Gun' (Parachute Scene)

In 1986’s  Top Gun , Cruise began seeking the thrill of doing his own stunts. But the scene when Maverick (Cruise) and Goose (Anthony Edwards) are ejected from the jet and parachute into the water (leading to his co-pilot’s death) nearly didn’t go as planned. Top Gun ‘s Barry Tubb told the  New York Post  on the film’s 25th anniversary that “Cruise came as close to dying as anybody on a set I’ve ever seen.” During filming, when Cruise was lifting up Goose’s body from the ocean, Cruise actually began to sink due to water building up in his parachute. According to Tubb, Cruise would have drowned if it was not caught early enough to get him out.

At the time of filming Top Gun , it was also reported that a veteran fighter pilot  died while shooting aerial footage for the movie.

'The Last Samurai' (Samurai Sword Scene)

In 2003’s  The Last Samurai , Cruise once again nearly avoided a tragic accident while doing his own stunts. While filming a fight sequence between Nathan Algren (Cruise) and Ujio (Hiroyuki Sanada), the two were riding on what were actually mechanical horses, in which one was supposed to stop moving before Sanada takes a swing at Cruise with a real samurai sword. But the horse didn’t stop, and Cruise reportedly came within an inch of the sword before Sanada was able to pull back, avoiding contact with Cruise.

“Tom’s neck was right in front of me, and I tried to stop swinging my sword, but it was hard to control with one hand,” Sanada previously told the  Daily Mail .  “The film crew watching from the side all screamed because they thought Tom’s head would fly off.”

'Collateral' (Car Crash Scene)

At this point, on-set accidents are nothing new to Cruise, and the same goes for an incident while filming an action scene with Jamie Foxx for 2004’s  Collateral . During an interview at the time , Foxx thought he nearly killed his co-star when he smashed into Cruise’s Mercedes-Benz during a chase sequence. “I hit the gas, the cab goes straight head on into [Cruise’s] Mercedes, and the Mercedes lifts off the ground and goes off the set,” he explained. Cruise added that although he was OK, he was tossed around the car. “I was hitting the roof,” he said. “I was down on the ground.”

'Edge of Tomorrow' (Another Car Crash Scene)

While filming 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow , Emily Blunt confirmed to Conan O’Brien on  Conan at the time that Cruise “really does everything and wants to do everything” when it comes to doing stunts. But she revealed that during one scene, his luck was tested once again. The actress said in one action sequence when she was driving and Cruise was in the passenger seat, the stunt coordinator tasked her with driving really fast down a road and then taking a sharp turn. She noted that the first take went well, but during the second, she took a turn too late and “drove us into a tree and I almost killed Tom Cruise.” Thankfully, Cruise was OK, and Blunt added that he was actually laughing afterward.

'Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol' (Scaling a Skyscraper Scene)

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird said watching Cruise take on death-defying stunts is “just another day at work” for the film’s crewmembers. Specifically for the 2011 movie, the actor scaled Dubai’s 163-floor Burj Khalifa. In behind-the-scenes footage, Cruise can be seen climbing, swinging and running up and down the building, with only a wire keeping him from falling.

'Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation' (Plane Scene)

In 2015’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , Cruise decided to take his intense stunts to the sky. In the film, the actor can be seen dangling on the outside of an Airbus 400 as it takes off. Robert Elswit, director of photography, told The Hollywood Reporter  at the time what went into making the stunt a reality while keeping Cruise safe.

“Tom was in a full body harness and he’s cabled and wired to the plane through [its] door. Inside the aircraft was an aluminum truss that was carefully bolted to the plane, which held the wires that went through the door, which held Tom,” the cinematographer said of the safety measures. “He was also wearing special contact lenses to protect his eyes. If anything hit him at those speeds, it could be really bad. They were very careful about cleaning the runway so there were no rocks. And we took off in certain weather conditions; there were no birds. And he’s sort of protected by the way the air moves over the wing.”

'Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation' (Underwater Breathing Scene)

In the Christopher McQuarrie-directed film, Cruise went from doing stunts in the sky to doing them underwater. For the said sequence in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation , the actor actually had to undergo training to be able to hold his breath underwater for six minutes. For comparison, professional divers hold their breath for anywhere between four and seven minutes,  according to the American Physiological Society , but even that can be very dangerous and could cause brain damage. Although Cruise scared crewmembers a few times by testing his limits underwater, in the end, he successfully completed the mission.

“It’s something I have always wanted to do,” Cruise said during an interview with USA Today at the time. “We’re underwater and we’re doing breath-holds of 6 to 6-1/2 minutes. So I was doing all my training with the other stuff (on-set). It was very taxing stuff.”

'Mission: Impossible – Fallout' (Building Jump Scene)

While filming a building jump scene in 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout , Cruise actually got hurt, which shut down production for six weeks while he recovered. During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show , the actor not only detailed exactly what went wrong but shared a video of the moment he broke his ankle during the stunt.

In the scene, while attached to two safety wires, Cruise’s character is meant to jump from one high-rise to another when chasing Henry Cavill’s character. Although he was meant to miss the landing and hit the side of the wall, his foot actually slipped and bent upwards on impact. The actor noted that he “knew instantly it was broken.” Cruise also revealed that his ankle was still healing while he was on the press tour for the film.

‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’ (Speed-Flying Scene)

In the seventh film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Tom Cruise shows that he has no plans to stop doing death-defying stunts anytime soon. For Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One , the actor learned how to do what director Christopher McQuarrie called “one of the most dangerous sports in the world.” Speed-flying, which is similar to paragliding, combines elements of parachute swooping to allow people to fly at high speeds down mountainsides while maintaining close to the slope. And Cruise did just that for one of the scenes in the latest installment of the action franchise. McQuarrie even noted that when Cruise was “flying very close to rocks,” the filming crew was in “absolute terror” behind the cameras. 

‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’ (Motorbiking Off a Cliff Scene)

For Mission: Impossible 7 , Tom Cruise said he got to do a stunt that he had wanted to do “since I was a little kid.” And that stunt was riding a motorbike off a cliff and parachuting down to safety. Director Christopher McQuarrie explained that there were many elements needed to actually make it happen, as well as years of different types of training. Once Cruise felt like he was comfortable with each aspect of the stunt, that’s when the crew built the film’s final ramp on a cliff in Norway. A crewmember added that Cruise did a total of six takes of one of the “biggest stunts in cinema history.” 

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How Mission: Impossible Became the Last Great Stunt Franchise

Over the past 27 years, the Mission: Impossible franchise became the final stronghold for “real action.”

It started with Tom Cruise and a rope.

In Mission: Impossible , Cruise’s Ethan Hunt dangles from the ceiling of an extra-secure vault in Langley, the CIA headquarters, to hack a computer protected by state-of-the-art technology. It’s a heist performed on the head of a pin. Any noise louder than a whisper could set off the alarms. Any rogue sweatdrop could be picked up by sensors. Hunt and his team manage to eke out a successful heist, but not before things almost go horribly wrong: Hunt is sent tumbling until he’s inches off the ground, waving his arms wildly to regain his balance. It’s the most enduring image of the movie, and arguably of the entire franchise. But, surprisingly, it wasn’t the stunt that Mission: Impossible stunt coordinator Greg Powell thought would be the film’s big standout moment.

“I thought it would be the train sequence,” Powell tells Inverse , referring to the climactic scene where Cruise fights Jon Voight’s Jim Phelps and Jean Reno’s Franz Krieger atop a moving train (and almost gets skewered by a helicopter rotor blade in the process).

But it didn’t take Powell long to realize which sequence would go on to become an iconic pop culture moment. “It's been copied 1,000 times, commercials, cartoons,” he says. “I wish I'd had pay in that stunt, because it's been shown over and over again.”

Why has the Langley vault stunt endured? It’s probably its deceptive simplicity. All the tension is focused on Tom Cruise and a cable rope. And unlike all the bells and whistles of the train sequence — which Powell describes as the biggest setpiece of the movie, complete with a giant wind machine that could “actually blow you off your feet” — the Langley vault sequence came down to pure human skill.

“That was pretty hard for him ,” Powell says. “That was probably harder in some ways than the train, because he's balanced and hanging there upside down and working.”

“That's why we do Mission movies, because there's no other movies like it.”

It feels fitting, then, that pure human skill — specifically, the pure skill and tenacity of Tom Cruise — has become part of the DNA of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Though the setpieces have gotten significantly bigger and more dangerous, Mission: Impossible is still about Cruise dangling from various heights. The Burj Khalifa sequence in Ghost Protocol ? Dangling Cruise off the tallest building in the world. The famous plane stunt in Rogue Nation ? Dangling Cruise off a real Airbus A400M “Atlas.” The newest Mission: Impossible movie, Dead Reckoning Part One , graduates to simply throwing Cruise off of a cliff in a stunning sequence where the actor does a combined base jump with a motocross.

It’s a long way from dangling from a Langley vault ceiling, but Dead Reckoning stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood tells Inverse it was the only direction the franchise could have gone.

“You are always trying to one-up [the last stunt].”

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation pushed the boundaries for putting Tom Cruise through death-defying stunts.

Eastwood could certainly be credited with bringing Mission: Impossible to new heights. The stunt coordinator and second unit director joined the franchise with director Christopher McQuarrie in 2015’s Rogue Nation , and has become a key part of the crew since, introducing even more death-defying stunts that use as little CGI as possible. Mission: Impossible’s dedication to stunt work has raised the bar for everyone while simultaneously setting it apart from the rest of the blockbuster landscape, namely those green-screen reliant Marvel movies — a comparison made even starker when you consider the steadily declining state of the VFX industry . In the process, the Mission: Impossible movies have become one of the last remaining bastions for “real action,” which only puts more pressure on Eastwood to deliver.

“It's very stressful because people watch Mission Impossible movies and expect great stunts,” Eastwood says. “I want to deliver great stunts to the audience. Tom definitely wants to deliver great stunts to the audience and a great story. So it's a constant battle and many sleepless nights.”

Making a Mission: Impossible Stunt

Tom Cruise and Esai Morales grapple on top of a moving train in Dead Reckoning Part One .

Planning a Mission: Impossible stunt starts at the drawing board. Eastwood, McQuarrie, and Cruise brainstorm ideas for setpieces that “would be really cool for the story” but also offer the kind of visual spectacle the Mission: Impossible movies have become known for, Eastwood says. “What would the audience want to see? What would be really cool that fits within the character in the story?” Then they factor in prep days, shooting days, and Cruise’s training schedule. They get advice from experts in the field, build a schedule — if it’s for Cruise, it’s a shorter training period because he “learns at a much higher rate than just your average person,” Eastwood says — and get to work.

Cruise, who has already developed a skill set including piloting planes, skydiving, base jumping, motocross riding, and race car driving, sets out to learn whatever new skill he may need for his next great stunt. Eastwood points to the combined base jump with the motocross that Cruise performs in Dead Reckoning Part One as an example of his commitment.

“It was emotional on the day,” Eastwood says, explaining that after “months and months of training … to nail that stunt with such perfection” caused him to almost tear up. It’s that kind of dedication that Cruise has shown that Eastwood thinks is the secret ingredient of the Mission: Impossible movies.

“I think it's just Tom from the very beginning. If Tom wasn't an actor, he would've been one of the top, if not the top, working stuntmen in the world. And the reason is he's very versatile.”

Cruise’s dedication to executing stunts himself has pushed Eastwood’s team to improve the technology that will allow Cruise to hang off the side of a mountain or base jump off a cliff. Eastwood had to develop new rigs or methods to stage the real action, using helicopters to film the sequence or hauling equipment up a mountain and bolting it 3,000 feet high.

“Logistically, it's very challenging,” he says, “but that's why we do Mission movies, because there's no other movies like it.”

How the Mission Impossible: Movies Changed Stunts

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol upped the ante on the franchise’s stunts.

Stunt coordinator Greg Powell, who has over 150 credits to his name including Harry Potter and Skyfall , has watched from afar as the Mission: Impossible franchise evolved in the 27 years since Cruise first rappelled down that Langley vault.

“Stunt work's gotten more technical now from when I was a young man,” he says. “When I was a young mate, it was crash-bang wallop, that sort of thing. These guys today, they've taken it to another level in what they do on motor bikes, and climbing, and parachuting.”

Does he credit the Mission: Impossible franchise for pushing the stunt industry to evolve? Powell wouldn’t say as much, though he’s happy to see how his work in the first Mission: Impossible laid the foundation for Cruise’s future sky-high stunts. “It set the ball running,” Powell says. “He's hanging off the side of planes now, and buildings, and jumping motorbikes with parachutes. It started with a train, and then that became a little bit more complex.”

“It's something that will be part of cinema history.”

The heights that each Mission: Impossible movie has been able to reach make Powell a little nostalgic about what he accomplished, though. Not for the Langley vault scene — no, he wouldn’t change one part of that. But if he could redo the first Mission: Impossible ’s train sequence, he would — with Cruise doing it all for real on top of a moving train, with no CGI. “I think if you should do the same thing today, it would look a lot better. But I think Tom would definitely try on the express train from London to Paris to do it,” Powell jokes.

But Eastwood doesn’t have time to look back — the Mission: Impossible movies have to evolve at such a fast rate to keep up with changing times. “Audiences have changed and techniques of rigging have changed, techniques of shooting it have changed, smaller cameras, easier to move. So we've evolved,” Eastwood says.

Looking Ahead at Dead Reckoning Part Two

Tom Cruise preparing for the combined base jump with a motocross in Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One .

Eastwood’s team is already developing new camera systems and equipment for Dead Reckoning Part Two . “We don't look at what's on the shelf, we never have,” he says. “It's constant R&D, constant. And I think you've got to be on that level to do a Mission film. You've got to be thinking way outside the box in order to evolve.” One major sequence in Dead Reckoning Part Two has already been shot, Eastwood reveals. He can’t say any more about what the sequence was, except that they shot in his home country of South Africa, and that it is “breathtaking.”

But even at the breakneck speed at which Eastwood and McQuarrie’s team are working to make the next ( and potentially last ) Mission: Impossible movie, Eastwood says they still take special care to craft each stunt for more than just spectacle. They want to make something as iconic as Tom Cruise dangling down a vault ceiling. “It's not just a stunt for that moment, a fad that's come and gone,” Eastwood says.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters July 12. Part Two is scheduled to hit theaters June 28, 2024.

Tom Cruise did that motorcycle stunt in ‘Mission: Impossible’ on Day 1 — here’s why

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More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “ Mission: Impossible ” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December , the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

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While answers won’t come until the movie’s theatrical release July 12, we now know that the risky stunt was the first thing Cruise did on Day 1 of filming, which began in 2020. And it was all about risk assessment.

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

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“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight , taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “ Ghost Protocol ,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

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The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby , in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

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The Nine Wildest Mission: Impossible Stunts, Ranked By the Danger They Posed to Tom Cruise

Over the last 27 years, the Mission: Impossible franchise has continued to establish itself from other movies in the spy genre by being synonymous with two things: Tom Cruise and insane stunts. With the subsequent release of each Ethan Hunt adventure comes another behind-the-scenes featurette about how far out there—read: how close to actual death—Cruise went to entertain and enthrall the audience, whether it’s learning how to hold his breath underwater for six minutes, or scaling the exterior of the world’s largest building.

With the release of the seventh installment in the series, Dead Reckoning Part One , Hunt states to a character that their life “will always be more important to me than my own,” which feels like a declaration of Cruise’s guiding philosophy for stunt work. To wit: Matt Damon recently recalled a conversation he had with Cruise about a stunt in Ghost Protocol —which started with Cruise deadpanning that he fired the film's first safety coordinator who deemed the stunt too dangerous.

Cruise fulfills his mission statement in the latest film by driving a motorcycle off a cliff and then parachuting down a ravine—establishing a new landmark in Hollywood stunt work. As the franchise reaches this new height, we’re looking at some of the most dangerous stunts from the Mission series and ranking by degree of danger, from least to most.

Danger Level: Mild

An exploding fish tank feels like small potatoes in the larger scope of the Mission series, but Cruise has said the stunt was indeed “very crazy.” Talking to Graham Norton in 2018, Cruise recalled that he and the stunt coordinator couldn’t get on the same page about the timing of the explosion, resulting in a Who’s On First -like back and forth about whether the go was on the count of three or the count of one. Considering the sequence involved a detonation, glass, and plenty of water, the potential for danger was high, but hardly life-threatening. miscommunication is enough for someone to get seriously injured if it wasn’t timed correctly.

Danger Level: Unnecessarily High

Cruise’s wholehearted approach to dangerous stunt work began in earnest with John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2 . The actor put Alex Honnold to shame with an extensive free solo climbing stunt in the film’s opening . "I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn't," Woo told Entertainment Weekly back in 2000 . "I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn't even watch the monitor when we shot it." Woo’s nervousness stemmed from the fact Cruise was insistent on not only doing the climb himself but only wearing a thin safety wire through the staggering seven different takes it took to get the shot as he climbed over the constructed cliff face. His dedication comes through in the final product and is easily the highlight of an otherwise lackluster installment in the franchise ( despite my editor’s attempts to convince me otherwise ).

Danger Level: Probable Death

After Ghost Protocol —more on that later—the Mission franchise shifted into featuring a signature, outrageous stunt for each of its installments. For his first Mission , Christopher McQuarrie conjured up the idea of Cruise strapped to an A400 cargo plane—an image so memorable it became the central focus of the movie’s marketing. McQuarrie recently stated the fear around A400 stunt wasn’t so much about Cruise falling off (he was strapped into the door through a rigged vest) but external factors beyond their control, like a rock on the runway or a bird strike while the plane was taking off. With so little protection, the timing had to be perfect.

Danger Level: Technically Low, made higher by insane repetitions

While still extremely dangerous, the challenges around the HALO (high altitude, low opening) jump in Fallout were mostly logistical. McQuarrie and crew had to create a new style helmet for the sequence that not only provided oxygen for Cruise (who is the first ever actor to perform the jump typically reserved for military operations) but also had lighting in the interior so audiences could see his face. The timing of the natural lighting made it so the jump could only occur in a three-minute window, so the jump required over 100 attempts to get it right. The real risk came from ensuring Henry Cavill, Cruise, and the cameraman all hit their marks so they wouldn’t collide in midair while falling at 200 miles per hour. In any other movie, this would be the showstopper. And yet, in Fallout , it’s just the aperitif.

Danger Level: Navy Seal levels of difficulty

Much of the pre-release marketing of Mission films in the last decade typically includes Cruise discussing his training to execute on a stunt accordingly. Rogue Nation leaned into the fact he learned how to hold his breath underwater for a staggering six minutes to shoot the underwater vault heist sequence as practically as possible—and all in one long take despite the fact the finished sequence is intertwined with multiple cuts. Legend has it that safety and compliance teams on set were extraordinarily nervous about the whole thing, and it wasn’t until Cruise convinced them otherwise that it was safe and that he could handle it accordingly.

Danger Level: Low, but it’s always the one you least expect

For all the dangerous stunts in Mission movies, it’s odd that something as simple as a broken ankle is the only major injury to befall Cruise. While jumping from one building to another, Cruise sustained that injury and knew immediately he’d messed something up, as the take in which he broke it is the one McQuarrie used in the final cut. Filming on Fallout was subsequently delayed while he recovered, but Cruise seemed to take it in stride; a behind-the-scenes clip shows him shrugging it off like he forgot to grab something at the grocery store.

Danger Level: Extremely High

There are approximately three different “holy shit” moments throughout Fallout ’s third-act helicopter setpiece: Cruise jumping onto the rope as the helicopter takes off, free-falling off the helicopter, and then piloting the chopper himself while performing a 365-degree corkscrew dive. The scariest bit of all included the drop—Rebecca Ferguson declared that she thought Cruise actually fell from the helicopter. If you remember, Cruise falls and hits the accompanying load dangling at the bottom so hard that it knocks the wind out of him each of the several times he performed it. Not to mention, the corkscrew dive was so dangerous that “most pilots wouldn’t attempt it,” per stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood .

Danger Level: Technically Very High…(but less blatantly flirtatious with death than the movies that followed?)

In other movies, a stunt involving scaling the side of the Burj Khalifa would have taken place on a set with a replica or with CGI. Not in the world of Mission . For Ghost Protocol , Cruise climbed the world’s tallest building with only a single safety rope. A single misstep and everything could go south very quickly. The stunt set the tone for everything else that’s followed, as dedicating himself to the reality of it all makes it one of the defining stunts of the Mission franchise.

Danger Level: Trolling death at this point

In comedy, there’s the concept of putting “a hat on a hat,” which means that layering one joke on top of another different joke leads to the whole thing falling flat. In less-skilled hands, the now legendary cliff bike jump in Dead Reckoning could feel like a hat on a hat. It combines elements of previous Mission stunts, notably the HALO jump and the Paris bike chase from Fallout , but it’s accomplished and shot in such a way that it feels breathtaking at every single stage. The fact that Cruise performed the stunt several different times, despite its high risk, is stunt work at its very best.

Watch CBS News

Tom Cruise just performed his most dangerous stunt yet – riding a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumping

By Caitlin O'Kane

December 21, 2022 / 10:00 AM EST / CBS News

Tom Cruise has performed another daring stunt for the "Mission: Impossible" film series. 

He called this one the most dangerous thing he's ever attempted. Shot in Norway, the stunt required Cruise to ride a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jump — something he said he's wanted to do since he was a kid. 

Cruise, 60, is currently working on the two-part "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning" film. He's known for performing his own stunts, but this one took years to plan, he said in a video shared on Twitter. 

So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

In the video, writer and director Christopher McQuarrie said Cruise put together a "master plan" using experts to help execute the stunt.

He had a year of sky diving training, during which he was doing 30 jumps a day – more than 500 skydives, said Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator. He also had motocross training, doing over 13,000 motocross jumps. Once he got those skills down, the production team created 3D models to try and predict how Cruise would fly through the air during the stunt so they could film it.

Then, it came time for Cruise to execute the stunt — driving a motorcycle up a long ramp, which lead to a cliff, launching off of it and BASE jumping to the bottom. Cruise first jumped out of a helicopter over the cliff to practice, before attempting the full stunt for the cameras.

"The only things you have to avoid while doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death," BASE jumping coach Miles Daisher said. "You're riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that's elevated off the ground, so if you fall off the ramp, that's pretty bad. You're falling, so if you don't get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, or if you don't open your parachute, you're not going to make it."

The behind-the-scenes video show Cruise not only execute the stunt once, but six times in one day. 

"Pretty much the biggest stunt in cinematic history," said BASE jumping coach John DeVore. Viewers can see the final product when part one of the film premieres July 2023. The "Mission: Impossible" series is from Paramount Pictures. (Paramount is also the parent company of CBS.)

Cruise has performed countless hair-raising stunts, including jumping off of scaffolding while filming "Mission: Impossible 6" in —  a stunt that left him injured and limping. 

Cruise has been in Europe filming the seventh and eight "Mission: Impossible" films for several years. The seventh movie was scheduled to premiere in November 2021, but the COVD-19 pandemic shut down production and was pushed to May 27, 2022,  according to Variety . The date was pushed several time after that, and the film will now premier next year. 

While shooting in the U.K. last year, Cruise, who was traveling by helicopter, needed a place to land,  BBC News reports.  He ended up landing in a family's backyard, and then let their kids go for a ride in the helicopter, making headlines.

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

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Is Tom Cruise performing a stunt at the Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony?

The "mission impossible" star may be taking on his most high-profile feat yet — if rumors are true., by danielle abreu • published august 9, 2024 • updated on august 11, 2024 at 4:41 am.

From scaling a skyscraper to hanging on to the side of an airplane taking off, actor Tom Cruise is no stranger to death-defying stunts.

And the "Mission Impossible" star may be taking on his most high-profile feat yet — if rumors are true.

Back in March, Cruise was spotted with a film crew at the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, scaling the famous landmark, People reported at the time . He was also captured on video appearing to pass a flag to someone. A spokesperson for Cruise did not respond to the outlet's requests for comment on what the actor was filming.

24/7 New York news stream: Watch NBC 4 free wherever you are

In late April, he was also spotted on the streets of Paris riding a motorcycle at night, before official filming for his latest "Mission Impossible" movie began. At the time, he was spotted with a film crew and carrying a white flag near the Saint-Georges metro station, the Pont de Bir-Hakeim and around the Arc de Triomphe.

Tom Cruise était à Paris cette nuit pour le tournage de Mission Impossible 8 🎬 pic.twitter.com/vHgBNXF34l — Cine Phil 🎬 (@cinephiloff) April 26, 2024

This week, French media reported that Cruise, who is currently in Europe filming “Mission: Impossible 8” and has been spotted in the stands at several Paris Olympic events, including artistic gymnastics, swimming and track & field, will perform a stunt at the Closing Ceremony, which is set to take place at the Stade de France. Part of his performance will include pre-taped scenes.

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With the next Summer Games set to take place in Los Angeles in 2028, a Hollywood connection seems fitting for an Olympic handoff from Paris.

However, organizers in Paris are tight-lipped on confirming any names, only saying it will feature “world-famous performers” along with “acrobats, dancers and circus artists.”

"An original soundtrack, new interpretations, musical performances and the participation of world-renowned singers will complete the picture," Paris organizers said in a statement. "Part of the show will take place in the air, while the giant sets, costumes and spectacular lighting effects will take spectators on a journey through time, both past and future." 

One performer that has been announced is H.E.R. The five-time Grammy winner is expected to sing the U.S. national anthem live at the Stade de France as part of the handover for the Los Angeles Summer Games.

We'll have to wait until Sunday, Aug. 11 to see who's-who among the star-studded celebrity spectacles. The Closing Ceremony will start at 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT at the Stade de France.

Katie Ledecky and Nick Mead named Team USA flag bearers for Closing Ceremony

What is the last event of the 2024 Paris Olympics?

This article tagged under:.

Continuing Coverage

Is Tom Cruise performing a stunt at the Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony?

The "mission impossible" star may be taking on his most high-profile feat yet — if rumors are true., by danielle abreu • published august 9, 2024 • updated on august 11, 2024 at 1:41 am.

From scaling a skyscraper to hanging on to the side of an airplane taking off, actor Tom Cruise is no stranger to death-defying stunts.

And the "Mission Impossible" star may be taking on his most high-profile feat yet — if rumors are true.

📺 Los Angeles news 24/7: Watch NBC4 free wherever you are

Back in March, Cruise was spotted with a film crew at the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, scaling the famous landmark, People reported at the time . He was also captured on video appearing to pass a flag to someone. A spokesperson for Cruise did not respond to the outlet's requests for comment on what the actor was filming.

In late April, he was also spotted on the streets of Paris riding a motorcycle at night, before official filming for his latest "Mission Impossible" movie began. At the time, he was spotted with a film crew and carrying a white flag near the Saint-Georges metro station, the Pont de Bir-Hakeim and around the Arc de Triomphe.

Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning . Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.

Tom Cruise était à Paris cette nuit pour le tournage de Mission Impossible 8 🎬 pic.twitter.com/vHgBNXF34l — Cine Phil 🎬 (@cinephiloff) April 26, 2024

This week, French media reported that Cruise, who is currently in Europe filming “Mission: Impossible 8” and has been spotted in the stands at several Paris Olympic events, including artistic gymnastics, swimming and track & field, will perform a stunt at the Closing Ceremony, which is set to take place at the Stade de France. Part of his performance will include pre-taped scenes.

With the next Summer Games set to take place in Los Angeles in 2028, a Hollywood connection seems fitting for an Olympic handoff from Paris.

However, organizers in Paris are tight-lipped on confirming any names, only saying it will feature “world-famous performers” along with “acrobats, dancers and circus artists.”

"An original soundtrack, new interpretations, musical performances and the participation of world-renowned singers will complete the picture," Paris organizers said in a statement. "Part of the show will take place in the air, while the giant sets, costumes and spectacular lighting effects will take spectators on a journey through time, both past and future." 

One performer that has been announced is H.E.R. The five-time Grammy winner is expected to sing the U.S. national anthem live at the Stade de France as part of the handover for the Los Angeles Summer Games.

We'll have to wait until Sunday, Aug. 11 to see who's-who among the star-studded celebrity spectacles. The Closing Ceremony will start at 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT at the Stade de France.

Katie Ledecky and Nick Mead named Team USA flag bearers for Closing Ceremony

What is the last event of the 2024 Paris Olympics?

This article tagged under:.

From 'Mission Impossible' to 'Top Gun': Tom Cruise's 14 Best Stunts, Ranked

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Tom Cruise is one of the great movie stars of modern times and is undoubtedly the biggest action hero of the 21st century so far. He has built a reputation for exhilarating thrills thanks to his willingness to tackle death-defying stunts on a regular basis. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will only further that legacy as it bursts into cinemas on July 12.

Tom Cruise is a man of many talents, and he has made a name for himself in the action genre. Other franchises come to mind like James Bond , Die Hard , and Fast and Furious , but they don't live up to the work that Cruise has put into his action films. Unlike the other actors, Cruise performs all of his stunts and the majority are in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

He is known for going above and beyond and making the impossible, possible. One could say he's a real-life Ethan Hunt. Cruise has impressed his fans time and time again because each action movie of his offers even higher stakes and more dangerous stunts. Cruise has gotten himself in some pretty sticky situations, but he was able to get the shot and make a very memorable action sequence.

Updated on July 10, 2023, by Ryan Heffernan:

14 infiltrating the cia vault, 'mission: impossible' (1996).

The first installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise set the tone for the high-stakes action fans would be blown away by in the upcoming sequels. Director Brian De Palma added his style to the franchise and created such great tension through his visuals.

When Ethan Hunt has to break into the CIA for the disk, De Palma played into the silence of the room. The audience could hear a pin drop and see the beads of sweat forming on Hunt's brow. Cruise did this on his own, and it is easily the most memorable scene in the franchise.

13 Zero Gravity Plane Crash

'the mummy' (2017).

While it didn’t quite become a cinematic sensation like some of Cruise’s other projects, The Mummy did still boast the actor at his death-defying best. There is a scene in the monster movie where the plane carrying the mummy’s sarcophagus is hit by a flock of kamikaze birds, seeing the plane enter a free fall in one of the film’s most chaotic sequences.

In typical Cruise fashion, the scene was a demanding shoot for the cast and crew, being filmed on the “vomit comet”, a zero-gravity aircraft used to train NASA astronauts. The scene required 64 takes across two days of filming consisting of four separate trips up in the plane.

12 The Train Chase

The Mission: Impossible train chase in the wild final action sequence brought the whole movie together. This one felt so long because it came after some important information. The twists in the first installment were perfectly placed and kept the story going.

The bullet train chase had Cruise hopping over latches, hanging on the side of the train, and lastly trying to dodge a helicopter in a tunnel. Does it seem far-fetched? Sure. De Palma made it work and Cruise doing the stunts, made it even more believable.

11 Knife to the Eye

'mission: impossible 2' (2000).

As something of an anomaly for a Tom Cruise stunt, the knife scene in Mission: Impossible 2 didn’t contain a hell of a lot in the way of breathtaking spectacle, but whatever it lacked in grandiosity it more than made up for with heart-pounding intensity. The idea reportedly came from Cruise himself, who felt the drama could be elevated if the attackers tried to shove a knife in Ethan Hunt’s eye.

The scene was achieved by attaching the knife to a steel cable with Cruise measuring the knife’s reach and then positioning himself accordingly. The end result is probably one of the most squeamish stunts Cruise has performed in his career.

10 Cliff Climb

It's difficult to top a first installment, especially one directed by such a legendary director as De Palma. However, John Woo stepped in for Mission: Impossible and brought his style to the franchise. This movie was a bit more flashy and campy than the first one, but it worked for those wicked action sequences.

From Cruise scaling a mountain and climbing up to the top in the opening sequence to a very engaging final action set piece, Mission: Impossible 2 is underrated . The motorcycle chase and the hand-to-hand combat, in the end, helped bookend the quality of stunts in this installment. Cruise of course topped himself in the next sequels, but watching this cliff scene for the first time was jaw-dropping.

9 Underwater Vault Mission

'mission: impossible - rogue nation' (2015).

The underwater vault scene in Rogue Nation is probably the most intricate stunt that Cruise had to perform for the Impossible series. He trained himself before shooting to hold his breath for almost six minutes underwater. There were components to this entire scene.

The scene feels like it goes on for so long, but that's just because of the stress director Christopher McQuarrie puts the audience under with Cruise doing something this impossible. He trained himself to get to the point where he would be safe to do this stunt, but it did not stop fans from squirming in their seats while watching.

8 Motorcycle Jump to Car

'knight and day' (2010).

Cruise has done many action films, so when he signs on to do anything other than Mission: Impossible he comes up with his ideas. In Knight and Day , Cruise and Cameron Diaz do their stunts. There is an entire motorcycle chase with both of them that Cruise came up with the choreography for.

While performing this stunt there was no wirework and Cruise managed to leap from the motorcycle to the car without much of a struggle. While watching this scene you could tell that he was doing it on his own, and it is probably one of the coolest sequences in an action film.

7 Almost Getting Decapitated

'the last samurai' (2003).

The Last Samurai is a film that would be reserved for stunt doubles because of the sword action, but Cruise just got right in the action. He underwent some intense samurai and martial arts training for about a year before filming this, which paid off as it's now known as one of the best samurai movies of the 21st century .

In one scene, Cruise was riding a mechanical horse toward his co-star Hiroyki Sanada , then Sanada's horse traveled an extra step past his mark, causing his sword to almost slice the side of Cruise's neck. Knowing how much Cruise prepared for his role in this film, that little mishap didn't affect him at all.

6 The Helicopter Chase

'mission: impossible – fallout' (2018).

Mission: Impossible – Fallout has come to be received as one of the most thrilling action films ever made. A major reason for that was its many astonishing stunts which, in true Tom Cruise fashion, were largely handled by the actor himself.

This included the awe-inspiring final act in which Hunt pursues the film’s antagonist as he makes his getaway in a helicopter. Including a thrilling hijacking of a second helicopter as it flies and a chase sequence through difficult terrain, the entire sequence was a relentless spectacle of deadly stunts which defied belief.

5 Hanging Off a Plane

When Cruise gets to Rogue Nation he has already performed some death-defying stunts, but that doesn't stop him. This installment begins with Cruise hanging on the side of an airplane as it takes off. This is incredibly dangerous because of the speed and the air pressure, but Cruise looks like he's having fun.

Right from the opening, fans are locked in for the ride with Cruise because he understands how to build these small moments throughout the film. There are small, high-stakes action scenes that eventually build up into a larger, more elaborate one later on in the film.

4 Low Flying Flyby

'top gun: maverick' (2022).

In Cruise's latest action film, he gets back into the cockpit as Maverick and actually flies an F-14 under dangerous circumstances. In the first Top Gun , Cruise learned how to pilot the planes, but didn't do the majority of the stunts. In Top Gun: Maverick , the action star took it upon himself to teach the rest of the cast how to fly. He took them all to school and everyone learned how to pilot an F-14. In order to up the stakes, both visually and from an action standpoint, there are cameras placed in the cockpit with the actors to authentically capture their reactions.

Tom Cruise has been around for decades, and he is showing no sign of stopping. As he has gotten older, he has been able to create such incredible action set pieces that make him one of the most memorable movie stars to date. For an actor to be that dedicated to his craft and meticulous in performing these stunts is impressive. No matter what action film fans have watched Cruise in, he always delivers and that's why he is so fun to watch.

3 The Halo Jump

'mission: impossible - fallout' (2018).

With every Mission: Impossible film that comes out, fans wonder who Cruise will ever top the stunts in the previous installments. So with Fallout , which is the sixth movie in the long-running action franchise , Cruise upped the ante and did something he has always wanted to try... free-falling out of a plane.

The reason why the Halo jump in Fallout worked is that the camera was right on Cruise's face and not a wide shot of a stunt double. The audience could see his emotions as he tried to gather everyone else, during a thunderstorm. Only Cruise would be calm enough as an actor to perform this stunt and make it look effortless.

2 Burj Khalifa Climb

'mission: impossible - ghost protocol' (2011).

Cruise can climb a mountain, scale the side of a train, and of course, climb an entire building. The Burj Khalifa wall crawl is one of the most intense moments in the Mission: Impossible franchise – and among the best action scenes of the 2010s – because of the way it was filmed. Director Brad Bird focused on aerial shots to look down on Ethan Hunt as he scales the walls.

His partner Benji ( Simon Pegg ) gives him these sticky gloves that help him attach to the exterior walls. Even though it was heavily edited in post, Cruise was attached to several harnesses, but he was still climbing the side of the building on his own. The idea of those sticky gloves turning red and not being able to stick, upped the stakes in this timed mission.

1 Motorbike Jump

'mission: impossible – dead reckoning part one' (2023).

The release of Dead Reckoning Part One has long been awaited by fans of action blockbusters, with the film’s marketing campaign showcasing the behind-the-scenes approach to one of the most astonishing stunts ever filmed. Described as the most dangerous stunt of Cruise’s career , it featured a motorbike jump off a cliff that saw Cruise in free fall before opening a parachute and sailing to safety.

Director Christopher McQuarie confirmed the stunt was filmed on day one of production. In addition to being able to use it as a major marketing tool, another reason for it being scheduled so early in the production was so the filmmakers and crew had as much time and money as was possible to re-consider the filming process if the stunt went bad.

NEXT: Every 'Mission: Impossible' Movie Ranked From Worst to Best

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Tom cruise reveals ‘the most dangerous stunt’ he has ever done.

So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

He showed us how he made the mission possible.

Tom Cruise revealed his “most dangerous stunt” ever in a behind-the-scenes feature for his upcoming film, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” in a clip posted Wednesday on Twitter .

Days after posting a video jumping out of a plane , the “Top Gun” actor shared a 9½-minute-long clip showing him driving a motorcycle off of a cliff.

“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” said the 60-year-old actor. “We’re going to shoot it in Norway and it will be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a base jump.”

According to Cruise, he has wanted to engage in the risky business since a young age.

Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the film, said that Cruise, who insists on doing all his own stunt work , put everything from the plan to the stunt team together.

Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood revealed that Cruise went through “a year of base training , advanced sky-dive training, a lot of canopy skills, a lot of tracking.”

Base jumping coach Miles Daisher described Cruise as an “amazing individual.”

“You tell him something, and he just locks it in,” Daisher added. “His sense of spatial awareness, he’s the most aware person I’ve ever met.”

“I have to get so good at this that there’s just no way that I miss my marks,” joked Cruise.

The “Jerry Maguire” star said that he did 30 jumps a day to perfect every aspect of the stunt. The video said that he has performed over 13,000 in total.

“Coming up with the stunt is only one of the technical challenges,” said McQuarrie. “The other is putting a camera in place that you can see where Tom is doing it.”

“Finding the right lens, the right platform, the right medium. Even two years ago, the cameras didn’t exist that would allow us to do what we are trying to do today,” McQuarrie added.

Cruise explained that the key to getting the shot is consistency as well as hitting the right speed.

“We have to be able to consistently predict where Tom will be in three-dimensional space,” McQuarrie noted.

According to the video, Cruise performed the stunt six times a day.

“This is far and away the most dangerous stunt we have ever attempted,” McQuarrie said. “The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for ‘Mission 8.'”

Cruise recently wished his fans happy holidays and thanked them for their support — and then jumped out of a helicopter.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is set to be released in theaters on July 13, 2023.

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Mission: Impossible 7 features Tom Cruise's 'most dangerous stunt' yet

Ethan Hunt is back, and he's still defying gravity.

The veil is slowly being lifted on Ethan Hunt's new mission.

Not much is known about Mission: Impossible 7 , including a title, but Tom Cruise 's heart-stopping new stunt was unveiled during Paramount's presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday, and it left the audience screaming.

Footage showed Cruise working with stuntmen to prepare to ride a motorbike off of a massive ramp on an also massive cliff, fly off the bike, and parachute to the ground. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie called it not only the biggest stunt in the movie, but "by far the most dangerous stunt we've ever done."

Getting the stunt right involved 500 hours of skydiving training; 13,000 motorbike jumps (yes, you read that right); and months and months building the ramp in Norway. Footage ends with Cruise doing the final stunt himself in true Cruise fashion, which got a huge reaction from the CinemaCon crowd. "Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today," a stunt coordinator said.

"The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for MI8 ," McQuarrie exclaimed.

In addition to Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Henry Czerny also star.

The film, like so many others, suffered numerous COVID-related delays on its way to theaters. Earlier this summer, filming was put on pause after an unknown number of positive coronavirus test results popped up during regular testing. That delay famously came months after the film's star made headlines after a leaked audio clip seemingly featured him berating crew members for breaking COVID-19 safety protocols on the set. In the audio snippet, Cruise can be heard yelling, "I see you do it again, you're f---ing gone!

Before that, filming in Italy shuttered in Feb. 2020 when the country became the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.

Ethan Hunt's latest impossible mission is now scheduled for release on May 27, 2022.

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Why Tom Cruise Insists On Doing Many Of His Own Stunts

Tom Cruise has an impressive body of work that spans four decades. Throughout his career, Cruise has taken on many different roles that showcase his ability to create diverse characters and bring their stories to life. One of the most interesting things about him is the dedication and enthusiasm he brings to every project he accepts. 

Over the last two decades, Cruise has become known for performing death-defying stunts in many of his films, most notably the "Mission Impossible" franchise. Cruise has climbed the world's tallest building, dangled in the air from helicopters, and clung on to mountain sides hundreds of feet in the air. Not bad for a guy who began his career gliding across a wooden floor in his underwear. 

When he visited "The Graham Norton Show" in 2014, the actor gave two main reasons he prefers to do his own stunt work.

He's Always Loved Danger

When Norton asked why he prefers to put his own life at risk for film stunts, Cruise explained he has always enjoyed testing his physicality. Even before he was starring in incredibly expensive projects  and making millions of dollars, Cruise loved to push the envelope. He told Norton stories about how he spent his childhood doing "flips off of [his] house into the snow" and performing precarious bicycle jumps over ditches. With these stories in mind, it's clear Cruise was destined for roles like Ethan Hunt and Jack Reacher, and he spent his entire childhood training for them. The actor enjoys the stunt work he performs on sets and he also explores riskier extracurriculars outside of his work. 

Cruise explained in this same interview that he has "always loved fast cars, motorcycles, hiking, and climbing." In short, Tom Cruise enjoys danger, and there's no reason he wouldn't explore it within his career.

It's About Storytelling

It's no secret Tom Cruise is an intense guy, whether he's jumping on couches to express love or prepping to hold his breath for an absurd amount of time for a scene, he commits himself 100 percent. When Cruise accepts a role, he throws everything he has into it. This intensity and his desire to perform stunt work directly relates to his philosophy on acting and good storytelling. "I feel that [when acting] you're bringing everything, you know, physically and emotionally, to a character in a story," he told Graham Norton. "I've trained for 30 years doing [stunts] and it allows us to put cameras where you are normally not able to."

Cruise believes his ability to perform his own stunts makes his films more engaging and believable. To his point, there are very few things more frustrating than watching an action film and suddenly noticing that the most exhilarating sequences were shot in a lackluster way to hide the switching of the actor with their stunt performer. Cruise is aware of this pitfall and uses his ability to perform death-defying feats to put the audience right into the action with him. While some may criticize Cruise's need to double dip as an actor and a stuntman, it's an irrefutable fact that his stunts draw audiences to his films, and they're always fun to watch.

Watch Tom Cruise Rehearse and Perform the 'Biggest Stunt in Cinema History'

Here's how the movie star prepared for his most ambitious action sequence yet in 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning.'

Tom Cruise is known for committing fully to the part in each of his movies, including doing much of his own flying in Top Gun: Maverick and throwing himself into doing his own stunt work on the increasingly explosive action sequences in the Mission: Impossible franchise. The latest installment in the spy thriller series, due to be released on July 12, features the actor's most ambitious stunt yet, and has been dubbed the "biggest stunt in cinema history."

A mini-documentary released on YouTube by Paramount Pictures follows the months of preparation that went into planning and executing a heart-stopping chase scene in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One , in which Cruise's character, secret agent Ethan Hunt, rides a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and goes into a base jump, free-falling towards the earth before pulling his parachute cord.

"There's a lot going into this stunt," says director Christopher McQuarrie. "So Tom put together this master plan to coordinate all of these experts in each of the particular disciplines involved, to make this whole thing happen.

Prior to the shoot in Hellesylt, Norway in 2020, Cruise undertook a year of training to master motocross, base jumping and advanced skydiving, including working on his strength and stability to ensure he can control his own position mid-air, and manoeuver the parachute canopy in the right way.

"You train and drill every little aspect over and over and over and over again," says Cruise.

When the prep for the shoot was at its most intense, Cruise was doing 30 jumps per day, and he racked up more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps over the course of rehearsal. Throughout this entire process, Cruise also wore a GPS chip so that they were able to track his speed and location in three-dimensional space at every stage of the stunt, which then enabled them to plan exactly where the drone cameras needed to be for the shoot.

"The key is me hitting certain speeds and being consistent with that," says Cruise. "There's no speedometer, so I do it by sound and feel of the bike. And then as I depart the bike, I'm using the wind that's hitting me, I'm pumping my chest, that will give me lift."

On the day of the shoot, all conditions have to be perfect for Cruise to pull off the staggering feat, and things are tense behind the camera as the actor shoots off the edge of the precipice and plummets into the valley below... a total of six times.

"We've been working on this for years," says Cruise. "I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid."

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Tom Cruise's Wildest Stunts in His Movies, from 'Top Gun: Maverick' to 'Mission: Impossible'

Stunt double, who? Tom Cruise has become synonymous with the dangerous stunts seen in his action-packed movies because he performs all of them himself. Between running down the world's tallest building in Mission: Impossible  to flying a jet in Top Gun: Maverick , here's a roundup of the adrenaline junky's most intense scenes

Tom Cruise's Cliff Jump in Mission: Impossible II

There's nothing that amps Tom Cruise up more than doing his own dangerous stunts , which he has done numerous times throughout the Mission: Impossible franchise.

In the second installment, one memorable and nail-biting scene involved a 2,000-foot cliff in Moab, Utah.

Not only did Cruise scale the cliff with his bare hands, but he jumped a 15-foot gap from one side of the cliff to another with nothing but a thin rope holding him for safety. (Oh, he also hung onto the cliff's side by only his fingertips before pulling himself up.)

"I was really mad that he wanted to do [the stunt], but I tried to stop him and I couldn't," director John Woo told Entertainment Weekly . "I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn't even watch the monitor when we shot it."

Tom Cruise's Knife to the Eye in Mission: Impossible II

Cliff climbs and frightening jumps weren't the only hard-to-watch stunts in the second installment of Mission: Impossible . While our eyes were nearly shut watching this next stunt, Cruise insisted his be wide open.

The infamous "knife-to-eye" scene involved a real knife being propelled full force at his eye, stopping precisely one quarter-inch away from his eyeball, as opposed to somewhere vaguely near his eye like director Woo had suggested, per the Mission: Impossible II Blu-Ray behind-the-scenes clip.

Tom Cruise's Skyscraper Run in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol

One of Cruise's most famous stunts took place in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol when he scaled down the side of a building. But not just any building! He scaled the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, located in Dubai.

To complete this daunting task, Cruise's character Tom Hunt sported special suction gloves in order to reach the 130th floor of the 2,722-foot skyscraper before rappelling down and concluding with a giant leap of faith.

"One night, after one of the earliest shooting days, I bolted up in bed realizing that we had our star dangling about a mile up in the air on a thin wire and my brain was screaming, 'What the hell are we doing?' " director Brad Bird told the New York Daily News .

Tom Cruise's Exoskeleton Armor in Edge of Tomorrow

While the stunts in Edge of Tomorrow were nonetheless next-level, it was the costume that posed even more of a challenge ! Cruise sported metal exoskeleton armor, a detail that's typically added via CGI in post production.

But naturally, the daredevil actor opted to wear the heavy suit — with one version weighing roughly 85 pounds, costume designer Pierre Bohanna told Entertainment Weekly .

"They're brash, quickly-made pieces of equipment. So you've got to see the guys struggling in them," Bohanna said. "But it's a massive worry when you take something like this and put someone like Tom in there. It's a massive ask for anyone to put up with, let alone somebody that important."

Tom Cruise's Plane Hang in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation

The Top Gun alumnus is no stranger to action-packed air travel, but his stunt in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is incomparable to say the least.

While Top Gun had Cruise daringly fly and pilot fighter planes, Rogue Nation saw the actor cling onto one from the outside!

Using only his fingertips, he dangled 1,000 feet in the air from the side of an Airbus A400M at a speed of 100 knots for six to eight minutes, the film's photography director, Robert Elswit, told The Hollywood Reporter .

In order to safely accomplish the stunt, Cruise was attached via a wire that was later erased in post production. He also wore protective contacts to shield his eyes from flying debris and intense gusts of wind, per CNN.

Tom Cruise's Zero-Gravity Stunt in The Mummy

Ever wonder how actors recreate a cargo plane plummeting to the ground? Ask Cruise, who did just that during the infamous plane crash sequence in The Mummy .

In true Cruise fashion, the actor opted for 64 takes in zero gravity, as opposed to the suggested sound stage alternative, per Variety .

Tom Cruise's Helicopter Hang in Mission: Impossible Fall Out

Cruise was offered to shoot this daunting Mission: Impossible Fall Out scene on a backlot with a green screen, but that's just so out of character.

To complete the stunt, the actor endured 16 hours of intensive helicopter training every day for more than a month in order to pull off the scene's difficult maneuvers and climactic downward spiral, per the Los Angeles Times .

"It's all Tom flying, 100 percent of it. There's a lot of jeopardy," the film's stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, told the outlet.

As for the crash sequence, "It's kind of like being in a theme park ride but really dangerous because your limbs are flying everywhere and all you need to do is catch your wrist in the wrong place and that's a permanent injury," costar Henry Cavill added.

Tom Cruise's Building Jump in Mission: Impossible Fall Out

Did you really think hanging off the side of a helicopter, plummeting 40 feet to the ground , and doing a downward spiral were the only missions accomplished by Cruise i n Fall Out ? In the film, he also had to leap from one building's rooftop to another.

To film the chase scene, Cruise was attached to two safety harnesses as he sprinted off one building, leaped off, and crashed against the side of the other before hoisting himself up (only to then keep running again).

Unfortunately for Cruise, the "easy" stunt did go wrong, resulting in a broken ankle for the actor, he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show .

Tom Cruise's Cockpit Scene in Top Gun: Maverick

In the blockbuster sequel to Cruise's 1986 Top Gun , the cockpit scene in Top Gun: Maverick was — you guessed it — extremely dangerous.

All of the actors were professionally trained to pilot their individual fighter planes themselves.

"We worked with the Navy and the Top Gun School to formulate how to shoot it practically because if we're going to do it, we're going to fly in the F-18s," said Cruise in a behind-the-scenes Paramount Pictures video clip.

Tom Cruise's Motorcycle Jump in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning

The seventh installment of the Mission: Impossibl e franchise, Dead Reckoning Part One , which is set to release in 2023, will see Cruise take on one of his most daring duties to date .

In the film, he rides a motorcycle off a massive ramp, flies into the sky, and parachutes his way down to safety — all while cameras are rolling and helicopters are following him to get the shot, per Today .

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Tom Cruise's 'Mission: Impossible' Stunts Are a Bone-Breaking Ode to Old School Hollywood

The actor has always tried to act out his own action scenes whenever possible, however dangerous they might be. In doing so, he pays tribute to a lost age of filmmaking

In a time of maximal CGI and green screen backdrops, completely practical stunt work has become a relative rarity in film production. Tech wizardry is generally considered preferable to the dangerous and time-consuming task of hiring an entire team of coordinators, and while stuntmen and women clearly do still play a role, the most audacious action we see in major blockbusters tends to be computer-generated. (That often also means: lacking genuine jeopardy.) But nobody has ever made the mistake of accusing Tom Cruise of such malarkey.

Cruise’s famously anti-CG stunts in the Mission Impossibl e films (the seventh installment, Dead Reckoning Part One , hit cinemas this week to avid enthusiasm from critics) are the gold standard for what can be done with elbow grease and derring-do. That Cruise so often does them himself is nothing short of remarkable, given the kind of insurance hoops he’s likely to have to jump through. With the help of Mission: Impossible stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood, who also served as a stunt driver for Daniel Craig’s 007, Cruise’s work on the franchise has seen him repeatedly risk life and limb for the sake of a breathtaking sequence, be it close hand-to-hand combat on an aeroplane or scaling the world’s tallest building. As Cruise has it: "I want to give everything. To have that experience, to see that it communicates to an audience when it’s real. It’s different. There’s stakes, there’s real stakes".

Requiring a unique combination of athleticism, careful preparation to avoid injury, and cinematic nous – where to look, how to fall, and where the camera will best be placed to catch the action – practical stunt work is beginning to receive more appreciation by the wider public. News stories circulate about Cruise or Daniel Craig injuring themselves and holding up production, adding to the sense of jeopardy and good old-fashioned filmmaking. The Daily Beast recently published a piece with the headline: ‘Tom Cruise Keeps Risking Death For Our Entertainment. Thank God’. By its nature designed to fool the audience with an illusion of danger – that their favourite film stars are at risk – it makes sense that even the most garlanded and respected of stunt coordinators are often in the shadows. But as Marvel fatigue sets in and cinemas pin more hope on the kind of bruised and battered actioners that Tom Cruise specialises in, these professional daredevils are getting their due once again.

Filmmaker and former stuntman Chad Stahelski, with his specialism in martial arts choreography, has been one of the figures at the forefront of that visibility, with the hugely popular John Wick series and its bone-crunching practical effects. Whether spinning through Paris streets or endlessly, comically fighting up and then falling down the Sacre Coeur steps, Keanu Reeves’ willingness to put his body on the line – with the support of his experienced stunt team – resembles Tom Cruise’s, to some extent. Interestingly, in interviews, both Chad Stahelski and Wade Eastwood pay their dues to the older generation of stunt performers, understanding the difficulties of safely achieving the extraordinary. Both have mentioned the great Buster Keaton as a huge influence on their work.

Of course, for a large chunk of the early history of moving pictures, stunt work was by its nature practical: there was no other choice. The early slapstick comedians had the injuries to prove it, too – Harold Lloyd blew off a few fingers with dynamite onset. The death-defying stunts pulled off in the days before ‘health and safety’ was even a phrase, never mind an entire department, were positively toe-curling: stuntmen died or were maimed being attacked by ‘trained’ animals, drowning in river rapids, impaled by their own swords in battle sequences or falling from great heights.

The visual results were nonetheless often remarkable: live auto crashes, thousands of charging soldiers, people tip-toeing along the wings of biplanes. Suffice it to say, some things can only ever be seen in cinema of this vintage, given the insane level of risk involved. But even as late as the 70s, stunt people were at great risk. As Greg Powell, veteran British stuntman late of Bond and Bourne, recalls, ‘I used to use copies of The Daily Mirror as elbow padding in the early days’.

Finding the sweet spot between the excitement of capturing physical jeopardy and avoiding actual danger is thus the responsibility of modern filmmakers and stunt coordinators. Safety measures have increased greatly over the intervening years: soft-build sets to bounce off in fight scenes, airbags rather than nets to break falls, ex-military trainers brought in for stars, and extensive rehearsal and physical conditioning.

CGI may still be considered preferable by some – the argument can be made that the risks of practical stunt work are still there, regardless of safety measures. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (or bones, maybe), and the gasp-inducing marvel of the sequences in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning are proof positive of that. Whether it's fighting on a replica 60-ton antique train at high speed or a motorbike jump that rates among the most elaborate and risky in Cruise’s career, practical stunts continue to push the envelope for what can be done onscreen.

The work that qualified and specialist professionals like Wade Eastwood are capable of belongs to the same tactile joy as that of an old-school film projectionist. Out with the old and in with the new is fine, but as Tom Cruise himself would be likely to tell you, there’s nothing like the real thing.

'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' is in cinemas now.

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Tom cruise's 14 mission: impossible stunts ranked by most dangerous.

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Both the Mission: Impossible franchise and its lead actor and producer Tom Cruise have become synonymous with blood-curdling, dangerous stunts. With each new film, Cruise insists on doing his own stunts , taking it upon himself to risk his life in increasingly, treacherous sequences for the quality of the finished product. At this point, Cruise is a bona fide stunt performer whose bravery in dangerous stunts allows the capture of unique moments not seen in other movies.

Luckily, Cruise's training, dedication, and ambition, coupled with experts' guidance, film direction, and stunt coordination make these sequences as safe as possible so that Cruise's stunts can get even bigger. Nonetheless, unpredictable elements and variables and there being nothing Cruise won't do for a Mission: Impossible stunt make them life-threatening. Here are 14 of the most dangerous times Tom Cruise has risked everything to make Mission: Impossible's audience's pulse race.

14 Helicopter-Train Jump in Mission: Impossible

Seemingly shot before Cruise had a death wish, the stunts in Mission: Impossible seem tame compared to that of the franchise's later entries. However, that's not to say there weren't a few perilous moments, and one that stands out is during the film's climax. After tussling with Jon Voight's villain Jim Phelps on top of a TGV bullet train and jumping onto a helicopter that soon explodes, Cruise's Ethan Hunt then jumps back onto the train.

This stunt was filmed on a sound stage in Pinewood Studios using a wind generator firing dangerous winds of 140 mph to emulate the blast. Considering his stunt career trajectory, Cruise was initially reluctant to include the stunt. Therefore, this stunt could be the origin story of his passion for doing his own Mission: Impossible stunts. After completing the jump four times, Cruise was bleeding, bruised, and cut; however, it was a sign of even more danger to come.

13 Cable Drop in Mission: Impossible

One of the most iconic scenes, not only in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but in spy movies, sees Hunt rappel down from the ceiling into a locked-down room. Breaking into Langley, the CIA's headquarters, Hunt is lowered into the room to avoid triggering alarms. As if this weren't dangerous enough, Hunt's wire lifeline is also let go by Franz Kreiger, causing him to plummet to the ground and stop just inches from the floor.

The stunt was all about balance, as Cruise discovered quickly, repeatedly overbalancing and thwacking his head on the floor. Brian De Palma was about to shoot the scene differently when Cruise filled his shoes with pound coins for counterbalance and got the shot. Though this sequence is not one of Cruise's most dangerous stunts, hanging and falling 40 feet from the ceiling for days and repeatedly enduring blows to the head isn't exactly health and safety conscious.

12 Aquarium Explosion in Mission: Impossible

Another entry from the movie that started it all, this stunt involves Cruise outrunning 16 tons of water bursting out of an exploding aquarium. After learning that he's been double-crossed, Hunt makes his escape from his untenable position by throwing a piece of exploding gum at a fish tank in a Prague restaurant. After stunt specialists delivered underwhelming attempts, de Palma grudgingly let Cruise undertake the sequence.

It says something about Cruise's body of stunt work that this one is low down the list. The aquarium sequence was incredibly dangerous when taking into account the water, shattering glass, and miscommunication regarding the exact timing of the stunt. Although Cruise limped away with a hurt ankle (not for the last time), the stunt made for a spectacular scene.

Related: Mission: Impossible Movies Ranked - From The 1996 Original to Fallout

11 Casablanca Bike Chase in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

In a movie with such iconic stunts, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation's bike chase is somewhat eclipsed. The thrilling sequence sees Hunt racing after Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust, first by car and then on a BMW S1000RR motorcycle. Although Hunt's chase is unsuccessful and Faust escapes, this sizzling pursuit around the extreme turns of the Casablanca highway put Cruise's life firmly in danger.

Having started riding motorcycles at the age of 10, it is no surprise that Cruise is keen to use them in his stunts. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie even wrote the script around this motorcycle chase, and it pays off as it injects a high-octane punch brimming with raw danger. Cruise rides up to 130 mph and leans over sometimes just inches from the ground, and all without a helmet.

10 Paris Bike Chase in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Mission: Impossible - Fallout somehow managed to outdo its predecessor's motorcycle chase, but this time Hunt becomes the hunted. For this sequence, Cruise and his fellow biker stunt performers abandoned their safety rigs, meaning that did the whole chase by free riding. All the turns weaving in and out of oncoming traffic and going well above the Parisian speed limits executed by Cruise, were all as dangerous as they look.

Hurtling through the streets at over 100 mph with cars and bikes pursuing and coming at him head-on sounds like enough to deal with, but McQuarrie revealed Mission: Impossible - Fallout's motorcycle chase was more perilous than it seemed. Between numerous automotive variables, slippery wet cobblestones, and cameras seeking close-ups at stomach-turning speeds just inches away from his head, it's amazing Cruise escaped from shooting this sequence without a scratch. Further, a miscommunication problem with the local stunt drivers meant they sometimes failed to hit their mark.

9 Free Climbing Cliffhanger in Mission: Impossible 2

The opening of the franchise's second film establishes that even in Hunt's time off between missions he enjoys getting his heart pumping. It is during some R&R mountain free climbing at Dead Horse Point in Utah that Hunt gets his mission that sets up M ission: Impossible 2 . Despite safety precautions taken by the film's production, it shows what Cruise is made of.

Unlike his adrenaline junkie character, Cruise wore a safety rope throughout the sequence, however, the margin of error was so chillingly slim that even director John Woo had to look away. The only scene where the free climber in the shot isn't Cruise is when Hunt almost slips and tumbles between two cliffs. Other than that, it's really him hanging off the red rocks, 600 feet above a talus slope and a further 2000 feet from the ground. It's a precarious, impressive feat and a great opening sequence.

Related: Every Time Tom Cruise's Hunt "Died" In The Mission: Impossible Series

8 Roof Jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

One of the most famous stunt accidents in recent years, Cruise's ankle break occurred while filming a relatively straightforward stunt in London for Mission: Impossible - Fallout . As he leaps from one building to another, misjudging it horribly, Cruise clatters into the building's side and bends his foot nine ways to Sunday.

Though it might not seem as dangerous as the other stunts on this list, as anyone who has seen the nauseating footage of the injury can attest, this jump looked very painful. It was also an expensive injury, as Cruise was unable to continue filming it halted production for seven weeks and cost the studio $80 million. This was of the few times a Mission: Impossible stunt has gone wrong, and it shows how real the stakes are and that Cruise is, in fact, human.

7 Eye-Watering Knife Fight in Mission: Impossible 2

A similarly disturbing stunt that features in Mission: Impossible 2, and the risk was even higher. During the third-act battle, Dougray Scott's villain Sean Ambrose tries to sink his very sharp knife into Hunt's eye. To ensure maximum realism, Woo wanted Scott to genuinely push down with all of his force onto Cruise's eye. During the stunt, the blade gets as close as a quarter-inch away, Cruise being protected only by a steel cable attached to an overhead rig. Needless to say, if these cables malfunctioned, the consequences could be at the very least life-changing and at the very most life-ending.

6 HALO Jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

The mission in Paris in Mission: Impossible - Fallout begins with a high-altitude low-open jump that goes awry when Henry Cavill's character August Walker's oxygen supply malfunctions. The sequence is breathtaking and its realism is palpable with Cruise's face alight as he exhibits both expert skydiving and high-caliber acting. It's the fruit borne by hard work and sheer nerve in the face of danger, and not just from Cruise.

Falling from 25,000 feet, Cruise, Cavill's stunt double, and a videographer jumped 106 times (including rehearsals) and shot the sequence in three-minute takes, once per day, to ensure the dusk lighting was perfect. The scene is three takes stitched together, each more dangerous than the last. Jumping out of the plane is hazardous enough, and there was a serious risk of colliding with Cavill's double when filming Hunt plummeting to Walker's aid. Finally, during the take in which Hunt saves Walker, Cruise had to judge the height at which to stop providing him oxygen and deploy his parachute.

5 The Airbus Scene In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

During the comic opening scene and plane stunt of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Benji Dunn fails to remotely open the door to let Hunt onto a plane in Minsk, Belarus. This gave Cruise the opportunity to perform a stunt in which he clings to the side of an Airbus A400M plane as it takes off. The scene follows Hunt ascending thousands of feet into the air; as the seconds elapse the danger proliferates.

Considering Cruise was bolted to the plane via a harness, at speeds of 260 mph, birds and debris became the biggest dangers. Indeed, the actor was actually injured by a pebble at high speed. The stunt is even more terrifying considering that, according to McQuarrie, Cruise was wearing earplugs and contact lenses, meaning he couldn't see or hear. Further, the toxic fumes from the engine added potential long-term effects to the mix.

Related: Tom Cruise’s New Cliff Stunt Creates A Big Mission: Impossible 8 Challenge

4 Helicopter Chase in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

During the Mission: Impossible - Fallout helicopter chase stunt , Hunt finds himself on a rope hanging from a moving helicopter, eventually crawling up the rope to fly it and chase Cavill's character. Again, all that stands between Cruise and certain death, as he hangs out of the side of the helicopter, is a harness. That said, what makes this sequence especially dangerous is the proximity to which the two helicopters come to each other.

Cruise piloted the helicopter himself after becoming certified in an unusually accelerated timeframe and training hard for 16 hours per day. Moreover, flying in dim seasonal light Cruise got as close as a few feet from the other helicopter's rotor blades. It was so dangerous that director McQuarrie has said that he wouldn't have begun filming the sequence had he known beforehand what it took to capture.

3 Underwater Heist in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

In Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Hunt and his team are tasked with swapping a file in an underwater database. When he fails to open the escape hatch, Faust must come and save him to prevent him from drowning. This extremely dangerous stunt had real stakes; both Cruise and Ferguson risked their lives holding their breaths while exerting themselves, burning through oxygen at a rapid rate.

Cruise's underwater Rogue Nation heist stunt was filmed in a succession of continuous shots, meaning the actors had to train to hold their breath for over six minutes. According to McQuarrie, by the end of the stunt's 10-day shooting schedule, Cruise was spent, with nitrogen in his blood and brain fog so bad that he couldn't memorize his lines. As if this life-threatening sequence weren't enough, Cruise also had to perform a jump off of a 120-foot ledge to get Hunt into the subaqueous security system.

2 Climbing the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

The franchise's most memorable stunt saw Cruise climbing the side of the Burj Khalifa , the tallest building in the world. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Hunt had to 11 floors of the 2,722-foot skyscraper to get to the 130th floor with only adhesive gloves, one of which fails. Though secured with a harness, Cruise actually performed this climb almost half a mile in the air, including the part where he plummeted when the glove failed.

Both the scene and the shoot itself were a race against the clock. It was time sensitive to film, as Cruise's harness was at risk of cutting off the actor's circulation, and it doesn't tend to be easy to breathe at that height. This stunt is the epitome of danger, a truly petrifying feat; nevertheless, the sensational scene speaks for itself.

1 ​​ Motorcycle Jump in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Cruise himself has labeled the marquee motorcycle cliff stunt Mission: Impossible 7 as the greatest in cinema history. It's a stunt he's wanted to perform since he was a child, and is the most dangerous yet. It certainly delivers the wow factor in the film's trailers.

Shot in Norway, the stunt involves Cruise riding his motorcycle off of a cliff, propelling into a nosedive, and deploying a parachute. Cruise performed 13,000 training jumps for the sequence to ensure he could execute it with the precision required. This Evel Knievel-like jump that's been all over the marketing campaign has unquestionably piqued fans' interest in the eagerly anticipated next Mission: Impossible installment.

Sources: The New York Times , The Independent

Key Release Dates

Mission: impossible - dead reckoning part one, mission: impossible - dead reckoning part two.

• Mission: Impossible

Apparently Before Tom Cruise Agreed To His Olympics Stunt, He Had One Demand

This is so on brand for him.

Ahead of the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, it was rumored that a Tom Cruise stunt would take place during the event. That ultimately came to pass, as the actor jumped from the top of the Stade du France and into the stadium while attached to a rope. He then proceeded to take the Olympic flag, transport it via motorcycle to a plane headed for Los Angeles (the location of the 2028 games) and skydive into LA. The wild sequence of events made for a true spectacle and, apparently, Cruise had one demand.

Casey Wasserman serves as the LA28 president and chairperson and was instrumental in orchestrating Tom Cruise ’s big moment. While speaking at a CNBC x Boardroom: Game Plan Summit, the Olympics official recalled just how the big show came together. Per THR , Wasserman explained that he and his team had to pitch the event to Cruise, who ultimately liked the idea. What the A-lister wasn’t on board for, however, one was one of the original plans that Wasserman and co. had for the stunts:

The best part of the story is we pitched on a Zoom and the original idea was a person in the stadium as a stunt double. We’re like, well, there’s no way we’re getting this. We’re going to get four hours of filming time. We’ll do the thing that the L.A. with the Hollywood sign, he’ll hand the thing off and he’s done. Maybe we’ll get the other stuff and the rest will be just a stunt double. About five minutes into the presentation [Tom Cruise] goes, ‘I’m in. But I’m only doing it if I get to do everything.'

So it would seem that the Edge of Tomorrow star didn’t want a stunt double to be used and requested that he be allowed to do everything. Honestly, this probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the planning committee. If there’s anything fans know about the Oscar nominee, it’s that whenever he entertains the masses, he fully commits. This is, after all, the same man who jumped off a cliff with a motorcycle for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning . Check out the Olympics stunt below:

I’d argue that Tom Cruise’s commitment to the Olympics gig is a major reason why the stunt worked so well. The sequence was a year in the making and involved the work of an incredibly talented crew of planners. Cruise wasn’t the only draw of the major moment, though. While he thrilled the masses, Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. was on stage performing a wicked guitar solo. Some fans subsequently made the good point that H.E.R. was pivotal to injecting the stunt with the necessary energy that needed to resonate with viewers.

Aside from performing at the closing ceremony, Tom Cruise also soaked in the Olympic festivities. He was photographed hanging out with M:I director Christopher McQuarrie as well as Margot Robbie , Greta Gerwig and more. The Today Show ’s Hoda Kotb also went viral alongside Cruise after they snapped a photo together. It proved to be a surreal experience for Kotb, who joked that she was so overwhelmed that she “blacked out” when rubbing elbows with Cruise.

Now that Casey Wasserman and his committee have established a working relationship with the Top Gun legend, one has to wonder if they might call upon him again for the 2028 Olympic games in LA. I think there’s certainly a chance but, I’m not sure how the actor would possibly top his stadium drop. We’ll have to wait a few years to see if something else comes to fruition and, if it does, we should probably expect the star to request the ability to do his own stunts.

You can relive the greatest moments from the 2024 Summer Olympics now using a Peacock subscription . Any adrenaline junkies out there who are currently looked for quality scripted content can look over the 2024 TV schedule for some sweet titles.

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Erik Swann is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He began working with the publication in 2020 when he was hired as Weekend Editor. Today, he continues to write, edit and handle social media responsibilities over the weekend. On weekdays, he also writes TV and movie-related news and helps out with editing and social media as needed. He graduated from the University of Maryland, where he received a degree in Broadcast Journalism. After shifting into multi-platform journalism, he started working as a freelance writer and editor before joining CB. Covers superheroes, sci-fi, comedy, and almost anything else in film and TV. He eats more pizza than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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Tom Cruise didn't get paid for his showstopping roof jump at the Paris Olympics

• Tom Cruise jumped off the roof of the Stade de France in Paris to close out the Olympics.
• It was part of the ceremony that passed the games over to Los Angeles for 2028.
• LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said Cruise did the stunt for free.

Tom Cruise jumped from the Stade de France in Paris during the 2024 Olympics closing ceremony — for free.

The actor leaped from the roof into the stadium, was given the Olympic flag by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and gymnast Simone Biles , then drove it out of the stadium on a motorbike.

For audiences at home, the ceremony then showed Cruise driving through the streets of Paris, boarding a military plane, and doing a solo skydive to the Hollywood sign.

The sequence, which riffed on Cruise's stunt-based acting career , was part of handing over the Olympics to Los Angeles for the 2028 games and honored the Hollywood side of the city.

LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman revealed how the team pulled the sequence off at Game Plan 2024, an event hosted by CNBC and the business-services company Boardroom.

Wasserman explained that they originally planned to have a stuntman do most of the sequence in a balaclava, but the actor wanted to do it himself.

"About five minutes into the presentation [Tom Cruise] goes, 'I'm in. But I'm only doing it if I get to do everything,'" Wasserman said.

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Cruise has famously done all of his own stunts in recent years, including the exhilarating mountain jump in 2023's " Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One ," so it's unsurprising that he wanted to do the sequence. But the LA28 chief said he did the whole thing for free, according to The Hollywood Reporter .

That is a little surprising given the logistics of filming the separate jumps in Paris and Los Angeles. Wasserman explained that the star was filming the next "Mission: Impossible" movie at the time, but managed to squeeze in the Olympics jump.

"He finished filming Mission: Impossible at 6 p.m. in London, got right on a plane. He landed in L.A. at 4 a.m., and filmed the scene where he pulls onto a military plane," Wasserman explained.

"In L.A., he does two jumps out of the thing. He didn't like the first one, so he did a second jump. Then he helicoptered from Palmdale to the Hollywood sign, filmed from 1 until 5, helicoptered to Burbank Airport and flew back to London."

Considering Cruise's role in the 2024 closing ceremony, it's possible he'll be involved in the opening ceremony in 2028. But there's plenty of time to figure out how he'll top the stadium jump.

When speaking to Business Insider in 2023, Cruise said he tries to outdo himself on every project.

"I'm always pushing. I just remember, every time they say, 'Can you top it? Can you not top it?' we're always pushing. Every film I do, whatever genre it's in, I want to make it as entertaining as possible for that audience. I know I can do things better," he said.

Watch: Behind the scenes on Tom Cruise's most daring 'Mission: Impossible' stunts

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The Signs Tom Cruise's Reputation In Hollywood Has Soured

Tom Cruise has been a bona fide heartthrob since sliding onto screens in a pink shirt and tighty whities in the 1983 comedy-drama "Risky Business." Since then, he's delivered box office smash hit after smash hit, making him one of the biggest stars in the world. However, Cruise's reputation has soured over time, and he's no longer the Hollywood darling he once was.

With the rise of the tabloids, actors became equally well-known for their off-screen antics as their on-screen abilities. For some, that added to their allure. Cruise? Not so much. He unwittingly found himself an object of ridicule and a Late Night punchline, providing a never-ending supply of gossip, front-page headlines, and alleged scandals.

If you had a dollar for every time Cruise has been controversial , you'd be able to dine out at Nobu every night for a year. Then, there are all the crazy rumors and his slew of wild interviews. Lock up your couches, people. And, of course, there's Cruise's involvement in Scientology that's caused ripples throughout the entertainment world and impacted his dating and personal life. Still, Cruise remains a firm fan favorite and box office draw as each new "Mission Impossible" installment continues to bank hundreds of millions of dollars. So, have industry insiders really turned their backs on him? From a luxury car ban to a dwindling list of willing directors to an ever-increasing number of celeb haters, we're looking at the signs that Cruise's reputation in Hollywood has soured.

Cruise's Bugatti ban

One of the many perks of A-lister life is the wildly lavish freebies thrown the stars' way. Elite brands fall over themselves to be associated with the Hollywood jet set, hoping the chosen few will be snapped flaunting one of their overpriced watches on the red carpet or zipping down Rodeo Drive in their latest fancy motor.

So, it's a telling sign that Tom Cruise has purportedly made it onto Bugatti's ban list. The French luxury car manufacturer is a longtime celeb favorite. Jay Leno, Kylie Jenner, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tom Brady, and Jay-Z are just a few of the faces that can be spotted behind a steering wheel. And Cruise is one of the most famous of them all. However, he's now been permanently prohibited from ever purchasing another one of its cars, which, according to Motor Trend , range in price from 3 to 12.5 million dollars. So, how did Cruise land himself in the Bugatti black book? Well, the company holds a grudge because it's down to a flubbed entrance at the "Mission Impossible 3" premiere in 2005.

Cruise pulled up to the red carpet in his Bugatti Veyron and struggled to open the door for 40 seconds. Lookers on were amused, but Bugatti was mortally offended, believing it damaged its image as a feat of engineering. Still, Cruise is in esteemed company. According to Modern Car Collector , Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber have also copped luxury car bans for perceived wrongdoings.

Cruise's outspoken celeb haters

Tom Cruise is adored by his fans, and there's a reason for it. The superstar is one of the red carpet's hardest workers. He's famed for arriving early, sometimes up to two hours before role call, to mingle with the crowds. Cruise ensures he's on his charming game, flashing his megawatt smile, chatting, and never refusing selfies.

However, it's a different matter regarding his fellow A-listers. An inordinate number of celebs can't stand Cruise and are unusually willing to talk about it. Leah Remini is top of the list. Since leaving Scientology, she's been outspoken about her disdain for Cruise. Then, there is Brooke Shields. After writing a memoir about her struggle with postpartum depression, Shields, understandably, took offense at Cruise mansplaining psychiatry and pushing Scientology as a cure in a heated interview with "Today" in June 2005. "If any good can come of Mr. Cruise's ridiculous rant, let's hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease," she wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

Meanwhile, Mickey Rourk called Cruise "irrelevant" in a July 2022 "Talk TV" interview. Oh, the irony. Thandie Newton said it was awful working with him. "He was a very dominant individual. He tries super hard to be a nice person. But the pressure," she told Vulture in July 2020. "He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done."

Cruise's shrinking pool of directors

During his 40-year career, Tom Cruise hasn't had a lot of flops. So, given his track record, you'd think filmmakers would be scrambling to sign up Cruise — and at one time, they were — he's worked with all the greats, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Stephen Spielberg, Oliver Stone, and Stanley Kubrick, among others.

However, the pool of directors seeking him out has drastically shrunk. Some claim it's because he developed a bad rep. Spielberg was apparently furious with the actor over his behavior in the run-up to the 2005 release of "War of the Worlds." Kim Masters reported on her KRCW-FM radio show, "The Business," that sources told her Speilberg estimated Cruise's Oprah couch-jumping fiasco, non-stop Katie Holmes fangirling, and Brooke Shields' psychiatry attack cost the movie $30 million in box office takings. The two have apparently kissed and made up, but there's still no collaboration on the horizon.

Meanwhile, Kubrick reportedly hated working with Cruise, claiming he ruined "Eyes Wide Shut" by bullying and strongarming him into changing direction. "[Kubrick] was kind of a shy little timid guy. He wasn't real forceful. That's why he didn't appreciate working with big, high-powered actors," the auteur's friend, R Lee Ermey, told Radar in October 2006 (via The Guardian ). "They would have their way with him, he would lose control, and his movie would turn to s**t."

Cruise's action movie relegation

Some industry insiders believe that his never-ending stream of action movies is a clear sign that Tom Cruise's reputation in Hollywood has soured. At one time, he flexed his acting muscles in films like "Vanilla Sky" and "Jerry Maguire." But these days, Cruise appears to only flex his physical muscles, jumping from helicopters and leaping from burning buildings in one death-defying stunt after another. The last non-action flick Cruise made was 2012's "Rock of Ages." Since then, it's been pretty much a never-ending stream of "Jack Reacher" and "Mission Impossible," with a bit of "Top Gun" thrown in for good measure.

It's likely no coincidence that Cruise's pool of award-winning movie opportunities started drying up following his 2005 Oprah couch-jumping incident, which made him a subject of ridicule. That was followed by TomKat mania, subsequent divorce fallout, Scientology reveals, and a split from his longtime producing partner, Paula Wagner. Still, it didn't damage Cruise's box office takings. According to MovieWeb , 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick" grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.

However, Cruise may attempt to dip his toes back into the non-action movie world. In January 2024, Warner Bros. Discovery  announced a new deal with the actor to "Jointly develop and produce original and franchise theatrical films starring Cruise."

Cruise's TV battle

Paramount learned the hard way that nobody puts Tom Cruise in the corner. The film giant's streaming service was hit big time, hemorrhaging money due to mass service outages and causing layoffs across the board. Film Take reported that Paramount Global suffered an astounding $5.4 billion loss in the second quarter of 2022, leaving it scrambling to make up revenue.

With that in mind, execs came up with the genius idea to remove "Mission Impossible" from cinemas after just 45 days and switch it to the small screen, streaming on its beleaguered Paramount+ — which was a guaranteed way to recoup a considerable chunk of change. The actor was having none of it, though, and immediately called in the lawyers. 

The two agreed to a ceasefire until "MI:7" was in the can. But, given the level of Cruise control at play, it was pretty much a given he'd win the war. The actor and studio also battled it out over a plan to develop a "Days of Thunder" series to stream on Paramount+. Oh, and a "Mission Impossible." Oh no, they didn't! Yep, correct, they didn't. As for proposed budget cuts? Cruise inevitably won that war, too.

15 Times Tom Cruise Got Hurt (or Almost Died) Doing His Own Stunts

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Tom Cruise is most well known for his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Throughout his lengthy career —he has played over 40 roles — Cruise has made a name for himself as an action star. He is also known for doing many of his own stunts , sometimes at great risk to himself. Indeed, there have been stunts in which the actor has significantly damaged himself and even placed his life in danger. The presence of skilled stunt coordinators does not guarantee that the stunts he is performing are completely safe.

With six Mission: Impossible films to his credit, as well as the Jack Reacher films, Oblivion , Edge of Tomorrow , The Last Samurai , and Top Gun , Cruise doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. He has scaled the outside of the world's tallest skyscraper, dangled from the side of an aircraft in mid-flight, and fallen multiple feet from a soaring chopper. The actor is well into his 50s, yet the daring thrill-seeker still craves the intensity of being in action. Remarkably, none of Cruise's injuries were fatal.

Update July 24, 2023: This article has been updated following the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One .

To celebrate his latest, jumping off a precipice in a motorcycle to parachute down into a moving train for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , below are a few Tom Cruise stunts that could have gone tragically wrong and resulted in disaster.

15 Knife to the Eye - Mission: Impossible II

Close to death? Close to being hurt? How about just "close"? John Woo's Mission Impossible II is the weakest of the bunch. It's got a dull storyline, not the best stunts, and Cruise sporting a look that makes him apt for shooting a shampoo commercial. However, one of its scenes will make you squirm because it involves eyes.

As Ethan Hunt fights one of the bad guys, a knife is drawn, and Hunt begins to lose the fight. When he falls, the other guy tries to stab him and directs the knife toward Hunt's right eye. Painfully, dangerously, and unbelievably close. The stunt was shot using a device that made everything safe, but think, would you get your eyes so close to the tip of a knife?

14 Wind and Skyscraper — Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

In the fourth installment, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol , Cruise's Ethan Hunt must ascend to the 130th story of a building. From the outside. Hunt uses a single suction glove to achieve the ascent. Cruise was attached to the structure by a cord, the equivalent of a piano wire. The action sequence was staged in Dubai at the world's highest tower, the Burj Khalifa. In addition, Cruise had to rappel back down from the structure after finishing the scene.

Related: 10 Motorcycles Tom Cruise Has Ridden in Movies, Explained

Reporters at the Dubai Film Festival questioned Cruise on what went through his head when he initially ventured out of the windows and into the fierce windy conditions that smashed him into the side of the skyscraper on the first day of filming the sequence. His words were: "I hope I don't fall."

13 Falling From a Helicopter — Mission: Impossible - Fallout

While filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout , Cruise completed one of the riskiest feats in the whole espionage franchise. At the conclusion of the film, Ethan Hunt hangs from a flying helicopter. He loses his grasp and falls several feet, but he manages to seize a netting freight load being hanging from the helicopter. Cruise had to reshoot the scene 5 times even though each impact knocked the wind out of him.

12 Driving Scene — Edge of Tomorrow

Emily Blunt, who co-starred with Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow , told Conan O'Brien on his talk show that she caused a stunt accident on set. The actress recalled during the shooting of a driving scene, "I hear him [Cruise] under his breath as I approach the right-hand turn, going 'Brake, brake, brake. Brake. Brake, brake, brake... Oh, God. Brake, brake, brake. Brake it hard! Brake hard!' I left it too late, and so drove us into a tree… I almost killed Tom Cruise". Blunt also admits she was foolish to ignore what she thought was merely unpleasant advice at the time, but she is delighted she and her co-star were able to laugh about it later.

11 Sword Fight — The Last Samurai

Cruise's eight months of rigorous samurai training proved insufficient to adequately prepare him for a battle sequence that almost resulted in his decapitation when filming his 2003 action epic The Last Samurai . Cruise and Japanese martial arts star Hiroyuki Sanada were riding robotic horses gearing up to face off during one of the film's combat sequences.

Sanada's horse had a mechanical failure and did not halt precisely where it was meant to. "We were filming one day, and I was on a mechanical horse, and Hiro was on one as well," Cruise recounted. "He was approaching me when his horse suddenly struck me, and his sword was exactly here (points an inch from his neck)."

10 Climbing - Mission Impossible II

As the Mission: Impossible movies got released, the stunts became more related to the story. In the beginning, they didn't necessarily represent something crucial. In Mission: Impossible II , this would be proven as the film's introduction shows us Ethan Hunt solo climbing for a reason that's completely irrelevant to the plot, if there was actually a reason. In any case, it showed Cruise doing his thing at the very top of a rocky mountain.

No wires are visible, but tricks were already good enough to hide the only things that made Hollywood's greatest asset safe from certain death. If you don't consider this being close to dying, you're probably one of those climbers that defies death constantly.

9 Car Crash — Days of Thunder

In Tony Scott 's 1990 action thriller Days of Thunder , Cruise played hotshot racer Cole Trickle. The actor discovered the hard way that stock vehicles are expressly engineered to turn left. Hut Sticklin, a real life NASCAR racer, joined the team as an advisor and cautioned Cruise about the hazards of going right, per USA Today. "He didn't really know what I was talking about," Stricklin stated.

When Cruise climbed into one of the stock cars and drove out on the track at Volusia County Speedway outside of Daytona Beach, FL, he attempted to emulate what he had seen racers do on television. It could have ended in catastrophe. "He turned to the left, the car turned left. But when he goes back to the right..." Stricklin continued. Cruise swerved around and hit the wall. The sole casualty was a $100,000 new camera that did not survive the brief collision.

8 Underwater Scene — Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Cruise underwent intense training for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation to be able to hold his breath underwater for a longer period of time. Ethan Hunt jumps into the tank from a 120-foot cliff in the action-packed underwater sequence.

Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator, verified that the whole sequence was shot without the use of a stunt double, stating that, "The difference between Tom and a stuntman is he acts the character after hearing ‘action.’ A stunt person just does the stunt to double the character." Eastwood said that Cruise had multiple blackouts during training, but they finally found that he was able to hold his breath for approximately six and a half minutes. The scene turned out to be memorable, and among the best of the franchise.

7 Another Driving Scene — Collateral

Cruise went against type as a salt-and-pepper hitman in Michael Mann's 2004 neo-noir Collateral . In the film, Cruise plays Vincent, a contract assassin who kidnaps a Los Angeles taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) to help him complete a hit. Foxx admitted that he feared he murdered Cruise when a car accident stunt went wrong. "I hit the gas, the cab goes straight head-on into [Cruise's] Mercedes, and the Mercedes lifts off the ground and goes off the set," Foxx said. Fortunately, everyone was OK, and Cruise went on to continue a career full of stunts.

6 Trying to Save Goose - Top Gun

Cruise portrayed reckless jet pilot Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Tony Scott's Top Gun . Nobody can forget the heartbreaking scene in which Maverick's co-pilot and best buddy Goose (Anthony Edwards) is killed after ejecting from the plane and slams his head into the canopy. Maverick jumps into the water and drags Goose's lifeless body. One of the actors, Barry Tubb (Wolfman), told the New York Post in 2011, "They were refilling the camera or something, and luckily one of the frogmen in the chopper saw Cruise's chute ballooning out. He jumped in and cut Cruise loose right before he sank. They would have never found him. He would have been found at the bottom of the ocean." he went on to say.

5 Flying Stones — Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Another one in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation . Cruise hangs onto a flying jet during takeoff and no straps can be seen. There is no professional stuntman in the daredevil action sequence, nor is there a single frame of CGI. And he performed eight different takes of the crazy scene.

Related: Tom Cruise's Best Running Scenes in Movies, Ranked

If anything (even the smallest stone) had hit Cruise when he was flying high in the air, it might have caused significant harm or perhaps death. One stone was on its way to become a fatal weapon."I remember I got hit by a stone that was so tiny, you cannot believe," Cruise told Forbes. "I thought it broke my rib. Luckily it went to my vest and not my hands or my face - it would have penetrated me and gone right through."

4 Jumping Buildings — Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Cruise did not emerge unharmed from the 2018 blockbuster action thriller Mission: Impossible - Fallout . According to People, he injured his ankle while jumping from one building to another.“I was chasing Henry [Cavill] and was meant to hit the side of the wall and pull myself over, but the mistake was my foot hitting the wall,” he explained. “I knew instantly my ankle was broken, and I really didn’t want to do it again so I just got up and carried on with the take. I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital’ and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangements.” Luckily, the injury healed well with intensive rehab, and he was back filming a few months later.

3 Busting - Jack Reacher

A funny one. Sort of. When filming Jack Reacher , Cruise had to fight the bad guys as usual. Only this time, he didn't have so many resources at hand. In one scene, he's required to kick someone's privates. Repeatedly. Cruise revealed in a talk show soon after the release of the film that he got injured when shooting the scene. He had to do it so many times his ankle was swollen. Now, did anyone think about the other guy actually receiving the kicks?

2 A Motorcycle Crash - Oblivion

In Oblivion , Cruise's Jack Harper rides a futuristic motorcycle through the wasteland. Anyone could say there was no chance an accident could happen. Unfortunately, it did happen, and Cruise was unharmed due to sheer luck. As much as he likes to ride bikes in his movies, it doesn't mean he can't make mistakes and that they can't malfunction, being that usually they're custom-made for the film. Add to that the fact that he's not wearing a helmet for the scene.

1 Exploding Fish Tank — Mission: Impossible

The Mission: Impossible film franchise began with the 1996 movie aptly titled Mission: Impossible . There is an outstanding action scene in the film that sees Ethan Hunt blowing up a massive aquarium in order to make a hasty getaway. The action takes place at a restaurant with glass walls. Huge amounts of water and pieces of broken glass are discharged as the fish tank bursts. There was absolutely no way the stunt crew could have predicted where each pointy shard of glass might land. Furthermore, with millions of gallons of flowing water, the actor may easily have been carried away and perished. Fortunately enough, Cruise walked away with only a bruised ankle.

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