Ethan Hunt Loves Everybody and Has No One

Thoughts on the 'Mission: Impossible' movies, Tom Cruise, and the loneliness of the long-distance runner.

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning | Image via Paramount Pictures and Skydance

[Spoilers ahead for all movies in the Mission: Impossible series]

Tom Cruise has never “directed” a film, but he doesn’t need that credit when you see the level of control he exercises over his movies. As one of Hollywood’s biggest stars for the past four decades, he has positioned himself not merely as a gun-for-hire but as a key collaborator, choosing to reteam with particular directors to pursue a vision for the finished feature. There was a Tom Cruise who used to work with auteurs to achieve their vision (e.g. Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut, Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia), but the Cruise we’ve seen for over a decade is a key author of his movies, and nowhere is that more evident than the Mission: Impossible series.

The first Mission: Impossible movie was a major turning point in Cruise’s career as he chose to produce the film with Paula Wagner, and reportedly sparred with director Brian De Palma over the look and feel of the film. Since then, Cruise has made Mission: Impossible a focal point of his career, a franchise he can return to and expand as he sees fit. He is, for lack of a better word, the true auteur of the series, and through that lens we can see it as a personal expression of how Cruise views the world and himself. Ethan Hunt is not a complicated character, but he does illuminate how Cruise envisions heroism and human connection.

A key turning point in the Mission: Impossible series comes between the third and fourth features. 2006’s Mission: Impossible III is about Ethan Hunt craving a domestic life, and the tension from hiding his work as a secret agent from his girlfriend Julia (Michelle Monaghan). The movie ends with Ethan able to reconcile his two worlds as Julia learns the true nature of Ethan’s work and accepts him. The two run off, hand-in-hand, as the screen fades to black. Cruise married fellow actor Katie Holmes in 2005, and while the public was taken aback at his display of adoration, it appeared genuine, or at the very least, the kind of all-out display that Cruise has made a centerpiece of his persona. Cruise and Holmes later divorced in 2012, the year after the fourth film in the series, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

Ghost Protocol is a mini-reboot of the series, not only upping the spectacular stunts Cruise would perform, but also the tone of the franchise. When the movie opens, Ethan is in a Russian prison, and we’re led to believe that he was incarcerated after an unsanctioned hit he performed as revenge for Julia’s death. It’s only at the end that we learn that while Ethan and Julia did split up, she’s still alive and living a new life. To keep her “safe,” Ethan had to break off the relationship. His work demanded that he leave the domestic realm, and his new family would be built around his Impossible Mission Force (IMF) team.

The next two movies, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible - Fallout, define Ethan as a noble gambler, someone who will risk millions of lives in the name of saving just one. His superiors initially see this as a weakness, only to come to value his relentless nature. As CIA Director Erika Sloan (Angela Bassett) says, “We need people like you, who care about the one life as much as they care about the millions. That way I never have to.” Ethan doesn’t interact with the public. He has his small IMF team, and they work behind the scenes to make everyone else happy.