Okay, this is where this list really starts to get into Sophie’s Choice territory. From here on, all of these movies could be number one. But we’re gonna go with our gut. So…Rogue Nation. When producer-star Cruise began the M:I series he’d always envisioned each new chapter having a different director so that each film would have its own idiosyncratic stamp. It was a great instinct, not to mention an auteur-theory idea that was more experimental than a guy like Cruise is often given credit for. But in Rogue Nation, the star found himself to be so simpatico with Christopher McQuarrie that the director has remained at the tiller for 2018’s Mission: Impossible—Fallout and the currently-in-the-works Mission: Impossible 7. McQuarrie, who first made his name as the writer of the twisty, ur-‘90s indie puzzle-box caper The Usual Suspects, began working with Cruise on 2008’s disappointingly mediocre Valkyrie. And they’ve been almost inseparable ever since. Things get off to the races right away in Rogue Nation (with Cruise dangling from the side of a cargo plane as it takes off—before the opening credits even roll!). And the breakneck pace doesn’t relent much afterwards. In fact, you could make a case that this is where the franchise finally found its rhythmic sweet spot. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames are all given their moments in the spotlight, too. But the real draw here is the clockwork precision and giddy inventiveness of McQuarrie, whether it’s in the—deep breath—underwater computer-lab chip exchange or the Hitchcockian Vienna opera house sequence (a sequence, by the way, that actually feels operatic), where we first become intrigued and enthralled by Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa, the series’ best late-stage addition. All of this, plus Alec Baldwin as the head of the CIA!
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