History YMMV / MissionImpossibleFilmSeries

* EvenBetterSequel: An unusual case where each film generally has (bar Creator/JohnWoo's entry, see below) received better critical reviews than the last one, with many now calling ''Fallout'' the best installment. The Website/RottenTomatoes ratings for the first six are, from one to seven: 63%, 57%, 70%, 93%, 93%, and '''97%''', while the Metacritic scores are, from one to seven: 59, 59, 66, 73, 75, and '''86'''. The series seems to have reached a ceiling with ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne Dead Reckoning Part One]]'' having a still impressive 96% and 81 respectively.

* ''YMMV/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne''

*** [[TerroristsWithoutACause Owen Davian]] is a sociopathic, powerful international ArmsDealer who is notorious for selling to different terrorists. Davian wants to find the Rabbit's Foot, a highly dangerous weapon which Davian is going to give to John Musgrave and start a [[WarForFunAndProfit war in the Middle East which would kill many people]]. When he captures an agent who is spying on him, he brutally tortures her and plants a bomb inside of her head, detonating the bomb when she is finally rescued. When Davian is interrogated by Ethan Hunt, he gloats about killing the agent, saying that the only real reason he did it was [[ForTheEvulz because it was fun]], before threatening to do the same to Ethan and his wife, no matter what, which he attempts to do multiple times, even going as far as to disguise his own security chief as Ethan's wife, and then killing her, just to torture Ethan. In his final moments, he keeps his promise, and decides to kill Ethan's wife, with Ethan ForcedToWatch.

** ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII'': [[TerroristsWithoutACause Owen Davian]] is a sociopathic, powerful international ArmsDealer who is notorious for selling to different terrorists. Davian wants to find the Rabbit's Foot, a highly dangerous weapon which Davian is going to give to John Musgrave and start a [[WarForFunAndProfit war in the Middle East which would kill many people]]. When he captures an agent who is spying on him, he brutally tortures her and plants a bomb inside of her head, detonating the bomb when she is finally rescued. When Davian is interrogated by Ethan Hunt, he gloats about killing the agent, saying that the only real reason he did it was [[ForTheEvulz because it was fun]], before threatening to do the same to Ethan and his wife, no matter what, which he attempts to do multiple times, even going as far as to disguise his own security chief as Ethan's wife, and then killing her, just to torture Ethan. In his final moments, he keeps his promise, and decides to kill Ethan's wife, with Ethan ForcedToWatch.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Fans of the original series like to pretend the films never existed mainly due to [[spoiler: Phelps turning out to be a villain]] and Creator/TomCruise stealing the spotlight.

* EvenBetterSequel: An unusual case where each film generally has (bar Creator/JohnWoo's entry, see below) received better critical reviews than the last one, with many now calling ''Fallout'' the best installment. The Website/RottenTomatoes ratings for the first six are, from one to seven: 63%, 57%, 70%, 93%, 93%, and '''97%''', while the Metacritic scores are, from one to seven: 59, 59, 66, 73, 75, and '''86'''. The series seems to have reached a ceiling with ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne Dead Reckoning Part I]]'' having a still impressive 96% and 81 respectively.

** ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol Ghost Protocol]]'': [[PsychoForHire Sabine Moreau]] is a cruel [[ProfessionalKiller contract killer]] who [[EstablishingCharacterMoment introduces herself]] by shooting Agent Hathaway to swipe his briefcase, leaving him on the cusp of death so he'll die in his lover's arms. The contents of the briefcase are nuclear launch codes that Moreau plans to sell to [[WellIntentionedExtremist Kurt "Cobalt" Hendricks]], so he can use them to kickstart a nuclear holocaust. When she meets who she believes to be Cobalt, Moreau tries to have his henchman executed to prove she's serious about the deal. Moreau doesn't care about Cobalt's cause or the billions who will die from the nuclear codes, [[OnlyInItForTheMoney simply wanting diamonds for her services]].

* CompleteMonster: [[TheHero Ethan Hunt]] and company have faced numerous terrorists and other criminals. Owen Davian and Soloman Lane, however, are the worst of the worst.
** In [[Film/MissionImpossibleIII the third film]], [[TerroristsWithoutACause Owen Davian]] is a sociopathic, powerful international ArmsDealer who is notorious for selling to different terrorists. Davian wants to find the Rabbit's Foot, a highly dangerous weapon which Davian is going to give to [[spoiler:John Musgrave]] and start a [[WarForFunAndProfit war in the Middle East which would kill many people]]. When he captures an agent who is spying on him, he brutally tortures her and plants a bomb inside of her head, detonating the bomb when she is finally rescued. When Davian is interrogated by Ethan Hunt, he gloats about killing the agent, saying that the only real reason he did it was [[ForTheEvulz because it was fun]], before threatening to do the same to Ethan and his wife, no matter what, which he attempts to do multiple times, even going as far as to disguise his own security chief as Ethan's wife, and then killing her, just to torture Ethan. In his final moments, he keeps his promise, and decides to kill Ethan's wife, with Ethan ForcedToWatch.
** In ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation Rogue Nation]]'', [[AnarchyIsChaos Solomon Lane]] is a former [=MI6=] operative who, after realizing his own sociopathic nature, became enraged and went rogue with [[Characters/MissionImpossibleFilmSeriesTheSyndicate the Syndicate]] to cover up his own deficiencies. Using the Syndicate to carry out devastating terrorist attacks while committing murders himself, Lane was defeated and arrested by Ethan Hunt and his team. Two years later in ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleFallout Fallout]]'', [[spoiler:Lane uses his ally John Lark--aka August Walker--to get free, now [[RevengeBeforeReason hell-bent on revenge]] against Ethan. To that end, he uses stolen plutonium to rig two nuclear bombs to go off in Kashmir, at a medical site where Ethan's ex-wife Julia is working just out of spite. The nukes will irradiate the water supplies of China, India and Pakistan, affecting a third of the Earth's population while Lane is fine dying in the blast so long as he knows Ethan is framed for being Lark and will rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life haunted by the guilt of Julia's death. [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Abandoning all pretense of good intentions]], Lane shows that he is a [[EvilCounterpart dark mirror]] to Hunt himself, stopping at nothing to achieve his ends, no matter how many have to die.]]

* MyRealDaddy: Creator/JJAbrams, who directed and wrote the third film and has remained onboard the series as producer for all subsequent installments, and Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie, who contributed to the fourth film and wrote and directed the fifth and sixth. Under their involvement, the films have been seen blending a strong mix of the more cerebral mind game aspects of the original movie and the more over-the-top action set pieces of the second, as well as [[IconicSequelCharacter introducing mainstays]] in the series like Benji Dunn and Ilsa Faust, with the more consistent cast allowing a greater focus on the whole team ensemble that some detractors of the first two films felt were missing. Since the two have gotten involved the series has been [[EvenBetterSequel getting better reviews]] with each film, with the sixth getting the strongest yet. This also extends to Ethan's characterization in the movies beginning with ''M:I 3'', combining his personality as TheChessmaster who outsmarted his enemies and never fired a gun or threw a punch in the first movie, with his gun-toting action hero portrayal in the second, and having them complement each other, so that while he is adept in a fight and can hold his own well, he primarily prefers out-thinking his opponents and only relies on direct combat if he's left with no other recourse. It's this characterization that stuck, and has continued through all the sequels after the third.

* EvenBetterSequel: An unusual case where each film has (bar Creator/JohnWoo's entry, see below) received better critical reviews than the last one, with many now calling ''Fallout'' the best installment. The Website/RottenTomatoes ratings for all six are, from one to six: 63%, 57%, 70%, 93%, 93% and '''97%''', while the Metacritic scores are: 59, 59, 66, 73, 75, and '''86'''.

** In ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation Rogue Nation]]'', [[AnarchyIsChaos Solomon Lane]] is a former [=MI6=] operative who, after realizing his own sociopathic nature, became enraged and went rogue with [[Characters/MissionImpossibleTheSyndicate the Syndicate]] to cover up his own deficiencies. Using the Syndicate to carry out devastating terrorist attacks while committing murders himself, Lane was defeated and arrested by Ethan Hunt and his team. Two years later in ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleFallout Fallout]]'', [[spoiler:Lane uses his ally John Lark--aka August Walker--to get free, now [[RevengeBeforeReason hell-bent on revenge]] against Ethan. To that end, he uses stolen plutonium to rig two nuclear bombs to go off in Kashmir, at a medical site where Ethan's ex-wife Julia is working just out of spite. The nukes will irradiate the water supplies of China, India and Pakistan, affecting a third of the Earth's population while Lane is fine dying in the blast so long as he knows Ethan is framed for being Lark and will rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life haunted by the guilt of Julia's death. [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Abandoning all pretense of good intentions]], Lane shows that he is a [[EvilCounterpart dark mirror]] to Hunt himself, stopping at nothing to achieve his ends, no matter how many have to die.]]

* DieForOurShip: Averted with Ilsa, whose almost universally-beloved status among the fandom means that fans don't like to kill her off or demean her in order so that they can pair Ethan off with Benji. Instead, they'll just depict Ilsa and Ethan's relationship as being platonic (the fact that they canonically don't get together for two movies and that their RelationshipUpgrade is very subtle largely works out in their favor) and have her be a ShipperOnDeck for Ethan/Benji. It's also common for fans to depict Ilsa as being a lesbian so that there's no chances of her getting together with Ethan.

** Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn get the most traction when paired up by the fan base. It is easily more popular than Ethan with either his former wife Julia Meade or his new canon LoveInterest Ilsa Faust.
** Julia herself (as was previously stated) was married to Ethan before eventually getting remarried to Erik. Despite this, pairing Ethan and Julia also remains very popular among fans today.

** In [[Film/MissionImpossibleIII the third film]], Owen Davian is a sociopathic, powerful international ArmsDealer who is notorious for selling to different terrorists. Davian wants to find the Rabbit's Foot, a highly dangerous weapon which Davian is going to give to [[spoiler:John Musgrave]] and start a [[WarForFunAndProfit war in the Middle East which would kill many people]]. When he captures an agent who is spying on him, he brutally tortures her and plants a bomb inside of her head, detonating the bomb when she is finally rescued. When Davian is interrogated by Ethan Hunt, he gloats about killing the agent, saying that the only real reason he did it was [[ForTheEvulz because it was fun]], before threatening to do the same to Ethan and his wife, no matter what, which he attempts to do multiple times, even going as far as to disguise his own security chief as Ethan's wife, and then killing her, just to torture Ethan. In his final moments, he keeps his promise, and decides to kill Ethan's wife, with Ethan ForcedToWatch.

** In ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation Rogue Nation]]'', [[AnarchyIsChaos Solomon Lane]] is a former [=MI6=] operative who, after realizing his own sociopathic nature, became enraged and went rogue with the Syndicate to cover up his own deficiencies. Using the Syndicate to carry out devastating terrorist attacks while committing murders himself, Lane was defeated and arrested by Ethan Hunt and his team. Two years later in ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleFallout Fallout]]'', [[spoiler:Lane uses his ally John Lark--aka August Walker--to get free, now [[RevengeBeforeReason hell-bent on revenge]] against Ethan. To that end, he uses stolen plutonium to rig two nuclear bombs to go off in Kashmir, at a medical site where Ethan's ex-wife Julia is working just out of spite. The nukes will irradiate the water supplies of China, India and Pakistan, affecting a third of the Earth's population while Lane is fine dying in the blast so long as he knows Ethan is framed for being Lark and will rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life haunted by the guilt of Julia's death. [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Abandoning all pretense of good intentions]], Lane shows that he is a [[EvilCounterpart dark mirror]] to Hunt himself, stopping at nothing to achieve his ends, no matter how many have to die.]]

* MagnificentBastard: [[YMMV/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol Kurt "Cobalt" Hendricks.]] See his page for details.

** In ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation Rogue Nation]]'', [[AnarchyIsChaos Solomon Lane]] is a former [=MI6=] operative who, after realizing his own sociopathic nature, became enraged and went rogue with the Syndicate to cover up his own deficiencies. Using the Syndicate to carry out devastating terrorist attacks while committing murders himself, Lane was defeated and arrested by Ethan Hunt and his team. Two years later in ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleFallout Fallout]]'', [[spoiler:Lane uses his ally John Lark--aka August Walker--to get free, now [[RevengeBeforeReason hell-bent on revenge]] against Ethan. To that end, he uses stolen plutonium to rig two nuclear bombs to go off in Kashmir, at a medical site where Ethan's ex-wife Julia is working just out of spite. The nukes will irradiate the water supplies of China, India and Pakistan, affecting a third of the earth's population while Lane is fine dying in the blast so long as he knows Ethan is framed for being Lark and will rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life haunted by the guilt of Julia's death. [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Abandoning all pretense of good intentions]], Lane shows that he is a [[EvilCounterpart dark mirror]] to Hunt himself, stopping at nothing to achieve his ends, no matter how many have to die.]]

* SophomoreSlump: While some moviegoers appreciated the easier-to-follow storyline, ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' is considered inferior despite (or ''because of'') the flashy action. The third film was seen as much better and getting things back on track. The fourth, fifth and sixth are the best reviewed films in the series.

* MyRealDaddy: Creator/JJAbrams, who directed and wrote the third film and has remained onboard the series as producer for all subsequent installments, and Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie, who contributed to the fourth film and wrote and directed the fifth and sixth. Under their involvement, the films have been seen blending a strong mix of the more cerebral mind game aspects of the original movie and the more over-the-top action set pieces of the second, as well as [[IconicSequelCharacter introducing mainstays]] in the series like Benji Dunn and Ilsa Faust, with the more consistent cast allowing a greater focus on the whole team ensemble that some detractors of the first two films felt were missing. Since the two have gotten involved the series has been [[EvenBetterSequel getting better reviews]] with each film, with the sixth getting the strongest yet.

* EarWorm: You're now hearing the theme song in your head, and it will be stuck there for quite some time.