burj khalifa tom cruise stunts

Did Tom Cruise Sit Atop the Burj Khalifa Without a Harness?

The skyscraper is more than a half-mile tall., published june 10, 2021.

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This is a genuine photograph of Tom Cruise sitting on top of the Burj Khalifa, but he is almost certainly wearing a harness.

A practically unbelievable photograph of actor Tom Cruise sitting on top of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at a height of more than a half mile, is frequently shared online along with the claim that the actor wasn't wearing a harness during the stunt:

This photograph was taken in 2011, during the filming of the fourth installment in the "Mission Impossible" series. Cruise did a number of stunts in that movie that took place inside (and outside) the building. Here's a behind-the-scenes clip showing some of these stunts:

At one point during filming, Cruise and the stunt team decided to take a helicopter to the top of the building to get a few photographs. Cruise talked about this experience during an appearance on "The Graham Norton Show."

While the picture is real, there's plenty of reasons to doubt the claim that Cruise was without a harness during this stunt. For one, when Cruise filmed these stunts (as seen in the behind-the-scenes clip above) he is wearing a harness. In fact, Tom Peitzman, the visual effects producer for the movie, said in 2011 that everyone involved in filming these stunts (even those who were inside while Cruise was hanging on the outside of the building) were also wearing a harnesses.

"Special mounts had to be made for the 65-millmeter Imax cameras, special safety had to be put in place, because in a building that's 800 meteres tall [it's 2,723 feet] you couldn't run the risk of anything falling. Even all of us who are working inside the building, we all had to harness ourselves because the window was open." 

With all of the safety precautions that went into filming these stunts, it seems highly improbable that Cruise would be allowed to sit on the top of this building without a harness. 

It should also be noted that while there are pictures of Cruise sitting on the Burj Khalifa and of the helicopter near the Burj Khalifa, there are no photographs of Cruise getting in or out of the helicopter. While it seems likely Cruise simply hopped out of the helicopter for a quick pic, there was likely a little more involved (such as hooking up some sort of security cable.)

It's also worth noting that helicopter is not the only way to access the top of this spire. This column is actually hollow and can be accessed via an internal ladder. This is how maintenance crews would access this area. In 2013, photographer Joe McNally was allowed to access this area to take some images.

It seems likely that someone was waiting for Cruise as he transitioned from the helicopter to the spire, and then helped him attach a safety harness. 

Correction [June 14, 2021]: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to photographer Joe McNally as John McNally.

By Dan Evon

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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How Tom Cruise pulled off that 'Mission: Impossible 4' skyscraper climb and canceled his retirement from the blockbuster franchise

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As the star of the Mission: Impossible movie series, Tom Cruise has been pulling off impossible missions — and improbable stunts — for a quarter century and counting. From the 1996 franchise-starter to the currently filming seventh and eight installments, the first of which will hit theaters in 2022 , the actor's alter ego, super-agent Ethan Hunt, has traveled the globe and saved the world many times over.

But Cruise's license to thrill almost got revoked a decade ago in the fourth installment, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol . Directed by Brad Bird and released in theaters on Dec. 15, 2011, the movie was widely assumed at the time to be the star's final outing. In a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Ghost Protocol stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz confirms that's how things went down in the original script, which features an extended climax where Ethan chases rogue nuclear strategist Kurt Hendricks (played by Michael Nyqvist) around a towering carpark.

"There was a point in the script when he's fighting Michael Nyqvist where he was supposed to get his leg broken," Smrz remembers now. "They wanted it hyper-extended at the knee, just shredded — end of career, you know? The studio was going to write him out, and Tom did not want it. He was strapping in his harness, looked at me and said, 'I ain't going nowhere.' Then he walked out on set and did his thing. We had [the leg break] all set and ready to go, and it disappeared."

Turns out that Cruise called his shot correctly. Far from becoming his last Mission: Impossible movie, Ghost Protocol relit the franchise's fuse with a mighty $210 million domestic box-office gross and a wave of ecstatic reviews. The movie also boasts a sequence that consistently ranks on or near the top of any list of the very best Mission: Impossible stunts : Ethan's nail-biting climb up the side of Dubai's world-famous Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

As stunt coordinator, Smrz — who first collaborated with Cruise on Mission: Impossible 2 — oversaw that scene and agrees that it's one for the record books. "I said to Brad, 'Do you have any idea what we're doing?'" he recalls. "'We're climbing 1,700 feet in the air, 200 feet up a building. This has never been done before, and it'll never be done again, because they're never going to allow it.' It's a work of art, and I don't think it can ever be beat as far as a climbing sequence on a building."

And as Smrz reveals, it's a stunt that very nearly didn't happen. Early on in pre-production, Paramount seemed poised to cancel Ghost Protocol outright before shooting started. "We had started prepping the building climb immediately on a studio lot, and were on the payroll for about before weeks when we heard that they were going to pull the plug. Tom went to have a meeting with [the studio] and we would know the outcome at the end of it."

Fortunately, Cruise emerged from that meeting with a greenlight, and Smrz and his team restarted preparations for pulling off the Burj Khalifa climb — a sequence that was always designed to serve as the movie's spectacular centerpiece. Initially skeptical that the building's owner would let them turn the 2,722-foot skyscraper into a movie set, the crew recreated three floors of the Burj on a soundstage in Prague. "We built an adjustable wall, slowly raised it until it was vertical and practiced for 200 hours on it with a crew of seven or eight guys. But Tom kept saying, 'I really want to climb that building.'"

Eventually, a compromise was reached: the production could shoot for one day on the exterior of the building, and the rest of the sequence would be shot on another 60-foot adjustable wall that has been constructed in the desert outside of Dubai. Once again, though, Cruise changed the course of production with a single sentence. "The first day [on the Burj] went so well that Tom said, 'We're filming the whole thing here on the real building.' We ended up doing one day of shooting over on the set, and the rest of it was on the real building."

With Cruise leading the charge, the Ghost Protocol crew worked out a deal with the building's owners that gave them full access to several floors that weren't yet in use. Smrz and his team then knocked out roughly 17 glass panels to make room for the stunt and camera cables and other rigging.

"I told them, 'We won't scratch your building; we're not going to damage anything.' As they saw that we were not destructive and really cared about their building, they started to work with us. There was this one guy I called Dr. No, because every time I'd ask if we could do something, he'd go, 'No!' at first. But towards the end, if I said, 'Hey, we need to drill another hole,' he'd say, 'Just tell me where.'"

As designed by Cruise, Bird and Smrz, the eight-minute Burj sequence has two distinct movements: Ethan's slow, deliberate climb up the side of the Burj in order to recover all-important nuclear launch codes and then his rapid descent. The upwards journey includes a gasp-inducing plunge where Hunt falls from an unsteady perch outside his target floor. Cruise performed the fall himself, dropping roughly forty feet from a height of 1,700 feet off the ground.

"That was probably the most nail-biting day of the show," Smrz says, adding that they only did a single take of Cruise's fall. "Somebody said, 'What if the cable breaks?' And I said, 'That's not an option.' We actually did the math, and there was enough time of free fall for him to text me on the way down, and for me to receive it!"

But Smrz also makes it clear that he would have overruled Cruise if he truly felt the star would be in danger. "If he wasn't an actor, Tom could have been a stuntman, and I would put anybody in anything if I didn't think it was safe for a stunt guy. I've got to be 99.9 percent sure it's going to be successful before we do it, whether it's a stunt person or an actor. So putting Tom into the harness was no different than a stunt guy. I expect the stunt to work, because we've already proven it over and over. "

Ethan's journey down the Burj starts with him running down the side of the building until he literally reaches the end of his rope. But he's the opposite of home free: He's still one floor above the rest of his team — William (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Jane (Paula Patton) — and has to make a daring leap into the void to reach them. In order to gain the necessary momentum, Ethan runs in the opposite direction alongside the building and then power jumps into the air, swinging on the cable in a wide arc as he heads for the open window where William and Jane stand.

"When Tom swung on that rope around the building, Brad wanted him to go out farther," Smrz remembers. "I said, 'We'd have a problem: He has to come back, and I can't soften the impact on the glass. So the farther he goes out, the harder he's going to hit the glass, and he's already hitting it really hard.' Brad came from the world of animation where anything he wanted to do was possible, but I have a reputation for trying to keep everything real. I like to see when they hit the ground, that it hurts. But Brad was great to work with, because we'd always just sit down and talk and make sure we both were happy."

Ethan's cable swing also includes some shots that were filmed on the recreation of the Burj, including the moment where he unclips in mid-air and the moment where he flies at the window, hitting his head. But the scene where Renner clutches Cruise's leg high above Dubai was filmed on location. "We had Tom suspended on the real building, and then we dropped him," Smrz explains. "Jeremy and Paula were on cables, and they actually did dive out the window and caught Tom by his ankle. The actors did a fantastic job, especially because it was hot. We were working on glass, and it got up to 125 degrees."

The Burj Khalifa climb wasn't just a franchise-best stunt: It was also a personal best for Cruise, one that the actor has been trying to top ever since. "He wants to beat it," says Smrz, who hasn't worked on a Mission: Impossible movie since 2015's Rogue Nation , where Cruise awarded him the opportunity to choreograph the wild motorcycle chase of his dreams . "We took it to a whole other level, but it wasn't beating the building, you know what I mean? It was just a motorcycle chase. So they came up with that plane stunt . Tom's going to try to step it up to the next level in every movie, but he's also getting older: I used to tell him, 'Tom, you're going to end up walking like I do if you keep this up!'"

In that case, it's just as well that Cruise is better known for his running anyway. Asked about the actor's famously meme-friendly fleet feet , Smrz confirms he's the last person you want to be in a race with. "He can run 17-and-a-half miles an hour," he marvels. "In the scene where he's running away from the Burj, I had my stunt guys chasing him, and he was killing them. I said, 'Can you slow down a little?' And he started laughing and said, 'I'm not slowing down — tell them to speed up!' He's really fast and he has this odd style where he really lifts his legs high, and he's got the arms and legs pumping. Maybe that's his secret."

Reflecting on the Burj Khalifa climb a decade later, Smrz feels that it's increasingly rare for a studio to allow a movie star, and a stunt crew, the time and resources necessary to pull off a major setpiece on that level. "The big thing was that we really could have done that entire sequence on a stage and with visual effects. But Tom refuses to do that, because he wants climbing the Burj to be part of the thing that he does. He likes to do his own stuff, it's great for publicity and he enjoys it. It's always funny when somebody tells me, 'Tom's not going to do that — the studio's not going to allow it.' And I just say, 'He'll be doing it.'"

At the same time, with the tragedy on the set of Rust still fresh in everyone's minds , Smrz acknowledges that the industry is potentially facing widespread change in terms of how major action sequences are handled, especially when guns are involved. For his part, he believes that safety is always paramount even if it comes with a price tag. "I've been told [by studios], 'You and your guys are too expensive,'" Smrz says. "But at the end of every film, I always ask, 'Still think I'm too expensive?' and they go, 'No, we got what we paid for.' It's so busy out there right now ... and it has a lot to do with the experience of the person they hire. And right now, they're kind of hiring anybody, so it's a little scary.

"I don't think squibs and gunfire are going to go away," Smrz continues. "It's part of the job, and you have to be extra safe and unafraid to stand your ground. You have to be willing to get fired if you know that you're right and they want to push on anyway. On five occasions, I've started to walk off the set and never made it off because they realize how serious you are. You're willing to leave the movie, and that's what it takes if they expect us to keep it safe. I don't think it can get any safer: I mean, if they're going to make it so problematic that they'll just stop doing stuff, it'll all be cartoons."

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is currently streaming on Paramount+.

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How tom cruise pulled off the burj khalifa stunt in ‘ghost protocol’.

When moviegoers think of the unforgettable action scenes from the Mission Impossible movies, the Burj Khalifa stunt from Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol inevitably comes to mind. The incredible stunt features actor Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) scaling the world’s tallest building in Dubai. We take a behind-the-scenes look at what went into filming the stunt, one of the craziest scenes in Mission Impossible history.

Setting the Scene: Burj Khalifa in Dubai

Burj Khalifa , the 2,722-foot skyscraper and engineering marvel in Dubai, boasts 163 floors, including the 130th floor where the shoot for this jaw-dropping scene occurred. Not only is the Burj Khalifa an architectural landmark, but it’s also the backdrop for the fourth installment of Mission Impossible .

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is on the prowl for Kurt Hendricks, played by Michael Nyqvist , in search of some nuclear launch codes. This will prevent a devastating weapon from falling into the wrong hands.

The Planning Phase

Creating the stunt began with an initial concept from director Brad Bird , who directed both Ratatouille and The Incredibles . Ghost Protocol was Bird’s directorial debut in live-action cinema, and his vision for the Burj Khalifa sequence was ambitious: Tom Cruise had to climb the exterior of the skyscraper. As a filmmaker, Bird wanted to film the scene in real time, with IMAX cameras capturing every jolt of every slipped hand for maximum viewer impact.

Cruise insisted on performing his own stunts, a hallmark of his work across the Mission Impossible franchise, so he took on the challenging Burj Khalifa stunt, forgoing the easy route of using a dedicated stuntman or doubles. As one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Cruise has performed a growing list of extremely dangerous stunts for the majority of his career, often pushing the limits of what an actor will do, from free climbing to a high-speed helicopter chase in Fallout .

Given the height and potential safety concerns involved, the safety of the shoot was extremely important. To ensure the scene could be filmed without a hitch, a comprehensive and coordinated effort was needed from the production team. Dubai Studio City , the city’s official film authority, helmed by Jamal Al Sharif , worked closely with the studio to manage a myriad of logistics. This process involved obtaining special permits, coordinating with the architects and full-time engineers of Burj Khalifa, ensuring that all safety codes were met.

The logistics of shooting on the Burj Khalifa’s exterior required innovative expertise. To begin, the production team had to build a glass wall around the area of the building where the shot would be taken. Professional climbers were employed to identify strategic points on the building where the rigging could be attached. To protect the Burj Khalifa’s facade, they had to find a way to break windows for rigging, without causing damage to other parts of the building.

Once the areas of the building were identified and the glass wall was erected, the team faced the next obstacle: rigging up the harnesses and cables that would keep Cruise safe. The actor was attached to a safety harness, which was then fastened to the side of the building itself. A variety of tools were used in the process, including a thin wire, a piece of cable, and a pair of suction gloves. Every component of the setup was meticulously brake-tested and inspected for any potential faults before Cruise was attached.

Beyond the physical setup, the shot required careful planning and coordination. This required a multitude of repetitions to make the stunt appear as smooth and natural as possible on the big screen. It required substantial training and preparation, even for a Hollywood star like Tom Cruise.

Training and Preparation

Before the shot was taken, Cruise underwent extensive training with stuntman, Gregg Smrz . This training involved Cruise learning how to perform an Australian rappel , a descent technique used by climbers, and learning how to maintain his grip on the glass finger holds.

In terms of mental preparation, Cruise employed a sort of Zen mindset, focusing on the task at hand, making sure his mind remained clear during the stunt. The ultimate goal was to allow Cruise to remain calm under pressure. Given the stakes, any minor mistake could have resulted in a grim call, so the stunt required his unwavering focus.

Shooting the Scene

The day of shooting brought with it the tension relief that the scene was finally underway. All the careful planning and rigorous training was about to be put to the test. Director Brad Bird and his crew were faced with numerous challenges during the shoot. One was to ensure that the live-action scene felt authentic. To do this, they employed real-time filming, using IMAX cameras to capture the action as it unfolded.

The scene, captured by the legendary cinematographer Robert Elswit , shows Cruise using a pair of special suction gloves to climb the building, holding on for dear life as he fights crosswinds and the relentless sun. Every frame of the sequence, from the wide shots showing the real dimensions of Burj Khalifa, to the close-ups that reveal the strain on Cruise’s face, adds to the impact of the scene.

One of the difficulties that arose during the shoot was the potential threat of a sandstorm. Given Dubai’s desert climate, a sandstorm could have disrupted the shooting schedule. Worse, it could pose a risk to Cruise and the rest of the crew working on the 130th floor of the skyscraper. However, with careful monitoring of weather conditions, they managed to work around this challenge and shoot the scene successfully.

Incorporating humor into this intense scene provided a touch of tension relief. Simon Pegg , who plays Benji Dunn in the movie, delivers a really funny line just before Cruise takes his jump of faith. This juxtaposition of humor and high-stakes action is a signature part of the Mission Impossible franchise.

Post-Production

After the scene was shot, the production team had to replace the windows that were broken during the shoot, making sure the Burj Khalifa returned to its original state. In the end, the sequence required the breaking and subsequent replacement of several windows. This was carefully managed to prevent any lasting damage to the architectural landmark.

Once the film was in post-production, the beauty of Dubai as a shooting location was enhanced through the use of high-quality sound and editing. The inclusion of the Burj Khalifa sequence in Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol not only boosted the film’s advertisement but also highlighted the city of Dubai and the skyscraper itself.

The Impact and Legacy of the Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa Stunt

In the end, the shoot was beneficial for Dubai, putting the city and the Burj Khalifa on the map for many international viewers. With its pivotal role in Ghost Protocol , the skyscraper has become an iconic part of cinematic history.

Lastly, Tom Cruise’s commitment to performing his own stunts, combined with the willingness of the Mission Impossible team to push boundaries, resulted in an action sequence that is unforgettable, even now. The Burj Khalifa stunt is definitely one of Cruise’s most famous feats.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like Behind Tom Cruise’s Insane Rogue Nation Airplane Stunt.

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How the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise pulled off its wildest stunts

The road to the 'biggest stunt in cinema history'

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For nearly 30 years, Tom Cruise has chosen to accept his mission of risking his life to entertain us. The "Mission: Impossible" franchise is famous for its increasingly jaw-dropping stunts that Cruise personally performs, and he may have outdone himself for the newest installment, "Dead Reckoning Part One." One of the sequel's stunts has been described as the biggest in cinema history.

In honor of his latest mission, here's a peek behind the curtain at how Cruise pulled off the wildest stunts in the series, including a few from "Dead Reckoning," which hits theaters on July 12:

"Mission: Impossible" - The Langley vault

For the famous scene in the original film where Ethan Hunt infiltrates CIA headquarters, Cruise really hung upside down from the ceiling and was quickly dropped to the floor like seen in the movie.

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"It was all done by hand and weights" with "two guys feeding him up and feeding him down," stunt coordinator Greg Powell explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette. Cruise also recalled that initially, he kept hitting his face when falling to the floor, but he finally got the shot to work by putting coins in his shoes.

"Mission: Impossible 2" - Rock climbing

The opening of "Mission: Impossible 2," which finds Ethan Hunt dangling off rocks and nearly falling to his death, was shot in Utah with Cruise doing the entire sequence himself.

"The scary thing was, the cliff was 2,000 feet high, and there were no protections on the ground," director John Woo explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette. "I was sweating and in a panic."

According to Entertainment Weekly , Cruise only wore a thin safety cable, and getting the scene took seven takes. "We had five cameras on the cliff, including a helicopter camera, a camera on a crane, and cameramen hanging from safety cables, but we had focus problems, so we had to do it again and again," Woo told EW.

"Ghost Protocol" - The Burj Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa sequence was shot by having Cruise — you guessed it — legitimately hang off the side of the tallest building in the world, 2,000 feet in the air, while attached to harnesses. "We thought we'd have to recreate the building and do it in a more traditional way, and it was Tom who said, 'No, I'm going to go out there,'" producer Bryan Burk said in a behind-the-scenes featurette.

The crew set up on an empty floor of the building and had to get permission to drill holes into the ground and ceiling for their equipment, as well as take out more than 26 windows to film. To prepare, Cruise repeatedly climbed up and down a glass wall that was built for rehearsal purposes. But the actor noted in the featurette that he couldn't stay out for long because with the gear he was wearing, he was "being cut off in two main arteries" across the harness, and his legs became numb. Jeremy Renner also really had to partially hang out of the side of the building for the shot where his character grabs Ethan.

"Rogue Nation" - The plane

Yes, that was really Cruise dangling on the outside of an airplane, 5,000 feet in the air, at the start of "Rogue Nation." He "was in a full body harness" and "cabled and wired to the plane through [its] door," cinematographer Robert Elswit explained to The Hollywood Reporter , adding that "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." Cruise also wore special contact lenses protecting his eyes, though director Christopher McQuarrie noted in a behind-the-scenes featurette that "there was nothing to protect his face." So McQuarrie feared debris could be sucked into the propeller and hit Cruise "traveling at the speed of a bullet," and "if a bird hit Tom at that speed, on any part of his body, that would have been the end." Despite the risks, Cruise performed the stunt eight times.

"Rogue Nation" - Diving underwater

The sequence in "Rogue Nation" where Ethan dives underwater and holds his breath for an extended period of time was filmed in a water tank, and at one point, Cruise held his breath for six full minutes. While filming the sequence, he had to "hold his breath, wait for everyone to get into position, wait for all the bubbles to clear, wait for the cameras to roll, then he does a long take, and then he has to wait for the divers to come back and give him air," visual effects supervisor David Vickery explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette.

"You have these free divers that came in and trained me how to do it," Cruise said on the Graham Norton Show . "It's not pleasant." In fact, he noted that after filming the stunt, "There'd be times I'd be sitting there talking in meetings, and I wouldn't breathe. I realize I am not breathing, and I had to turn my autonomic system back on to breathe again." Though the scene was shot underwater, Cruise was surrounded by green screens so much of the environment around him could be added in post-production.

"Fallout" - The HALO jump

For the HALO (high altitude low opening) jump sequence in "Fallout," not only did Cruise really fall out of a plane traveling 165 miles per hour at a height of 25,000 feet, but he did it over 100 times. The film crew also built a large wind machine that was used to rehearse, and a special helmet had to be developed that would both provide oxygen and ensure Cruise's face could be seen in the shot, according to a behind-the-scenes featurette.

"It'll look like one continuous take, but they're really three long takes," Cruise explained, and he had to fall to exactly three feet in front of the camera. The sequence also had to be filmed during a tight window to get the lighting right. The lightning storm, though, naturally had to be added in post-production.

"Fallout" - The rooftop chase

Though the rooftop chase in "Fallout" isn't as dangerous of a stunt as some of the others, it stands out because Cruise was injured making it. He jumped across a rooftop for the sequence but broke his ankle by accidentally landing in a way that his leg smashed into the side of a building. The injury forced the film to shut down production, but footage of Cruise breaking his ankle and running past the camera while limping was used in the movie.

"I knew instantly it was broken," Cruise recalled on The Graham Norton Show . On the blu-ray commentary, director Christopher McQuarrie remembered Cruise "laying on a couch with [his] foot up and a bag of ice on it" and asking, "Did we get the shot? Good, because we're not coming back."

"Fallout" - The helicopter fall and chase

For the finale of "Fallout," Cruise actually dangled from a helicopter before dropping 40 feet. Director Christopher McQuarrie told the Los Angeles Times a pulley system and safety line were used, but he added, "The only thing the safety line was ensuring was that if Tom was killed during the stunt, we wouldn't be looking for his body in the bushes. Because if he made the fall at the wrong angle, it's picture wrap on Mr. Cruise. If he hits the payload headfirst as opposed to back first or legs first, he'll break his neck and just be a rag doll."

In fact, Cruise's co-star Rebecca Ferguson revealed in a behind-the-scenes featurette that as the stunt was being shot, "I heard myself scream" because "I actually thought he fell," while McQuarrie recalled, "We heard on the radio, 'I think we just lost Tom.'" Cruise also flew the helicopter through the mountains for the chase sequence, and he was trained in flying specifically for the film. Cameras were attached to the helicopter, meaning Cruise "was performing three jobs: he's the pilot, he's the camera operator, and he's acting," McQuarrie noted.

"Dead Reckoning Part One" - The train fight

For an action sequence on a train in "Dead Reckoning Part One," an entire functioning train was built, and a fight was shot on top of it while the vehicle was moving at 60 miles per hour, according to a behind-the-scenes featurette . The train was then filmed being destroyed by falling and crashing into a quarry.

"Dead Reckoning Part One" - The motorcycle cliff jump

The marquee stunt of "Dead Reckoning Part One" involves Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff into a base jump, which director Christopher McQuarrie described as "far and away the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted." Cruise's training involved more than 13,000 practice motocross jumps and over 500 skydives. A ramp was constructed in Norway for Cruise to ride off and deploy a parachute in the air — and he then did it five more times.

Cruise told Entertainment Tonight the stunt was shot on the first day of filming so the crew would know whether he would be alive for the rest of the movie. "We know either we're gonna continue with the film or we're not," he said. "Let's know day one … Do we all continue, or is it a major rewrite?" But to quote Anthony Hopkins in "Mission: Impossible 2," this is not mission: difficult. It's mission: impossible.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.

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The Hilarious Story Behind Tom Cruise’s Iconic ‘Mission Impossible’ Stunt

"Only Tom!"

Image Credit: Paramount Pictures

Apparently, Tom Cruise was not pleased when told a Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol stunt was going to be created digitally and he had an unintentionally funny response…

Tom Cruise is one of Hollywood’s most successful actors. The 59-year-old is renowned for his many acting accolades, starring in the iconic film Top Gun , and for performing all of his own stunts .

And the stunt that Cruise is most famous for has a rather funny story behind it. We’re, of course, talking about the Burj Khalifa stunt Cruise pulled off for the film Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , which was released in 2011.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest tower in the world and in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt must scale the outside of the building to the 130th floor, retrieve nuclear codes and then repel down it. And Cruise insisted on performing the dangerous stunt himself.

But according to Joseph Kahn, the filmmaker best known for directing numerous Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, and Eminem music videos, the original plan for the Burj Khalifa stunt was to CGI Cruise in. Taking to Twitter , Kahn wrote:

“Heard a great Tom Cruise story. On Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol they did an animatic of the Burj Khalifa sequence, explaining how there was going to be a digital Tom to do the stunts. Tom then angrily said “THERE IS NO DIGITAL TOM! JUST TOM!” So they shot it for real.” Joseph Kahn

Kahn went on to say that Robert Elswit, who was the director of photography for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , told him this hilarious story about Cruise.

This alleged (and funny) response from Cruise does seem legitimate; especially when you consider that Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol ’s insurance company refused to insure the film if Cruise performed the Burj Khalifa stunt, so Cruise fired them and went and found an insurance company that would let him do the stunt.

In any case, whether Cruise actually said it or not, the line “There is no digital Tom! Only Tom!” is iconic.

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• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol pushed boundaries by using a camera trick to capture Tom Cruise climbing and reacting to a sandstorm through a glass window.
• The stunt was filmed on a partial set piece in Vancouver, with the skyline and sandstorm added in post-production.
• The success of the Mission: Impossible movies is due in part to the dedicated behind-the-scenes artists who push the limits of filmmaking.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol may have had Tom Cruise scaling the world’s tallest building, but a subtle camera trick used during the stunt sequence is what truly pushed the boundaries of what was possible. Serving as the first live-action movie for The Incredibles director Brad Bird, 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol saw Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his team attempt to steal nuclear launch codes during a clandestine meeting held at the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. However, to access the building’s secure server and trick the original buyer, Hunt is forced to scale the side of the building in one of the movie's more memorable sequences.

During a new episode of Corridor Crew ’s "VFX Artists React" series on YouTube with guest, ILM VFX artist Todd Vaziri, the hosts are stunned by a moment when the camera moves around Cruise’s head, seemingly moving right through the glass window he is climbing to catch his reaction to an incoming sandstorm. Vaziri revealed that portion of the stunt was filmed on a partial set piece in Vancouver against a blue screen, and that while Cruise was only 20 feet in the air, the Dubai skyline and incoming sandstorm were composited in during post-production. Check out the full explanation in the quotes and video below:

So this is on a partial set piece in Vancouver. He’s 20 feet off the ground, and some of the sky is the real Vancouver sky. On the flip side is a blue screen. We are looking at the beginning of the shot into the set piece of the reflective window into a blue screen, so that’s all synthetic back there. [Digital artist] Mark Nettleton did an amazing job in this shot. As the camera swings around, the window is removed so that the camera can swing around and get an over-the-shoulder of Tom. That’s a real reflection of Tom, but not of Dubai.

How The Mission: Impossible Series Continues To Push Filmmaking Boundaries

When Tom Cruise first rebooted the classic 1960s spy show Mission: Impossible in 1996, few would have believed that he would still be helming the blockbuster franchise some 27 years later with plans to return for even more. While this year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One did not perform as well at the box office as first anticipated, it still did manage to bring in over $560 million worldwide and push the cumulative total of the franchise past a massive $4 billion milestone.

A large part of the franchise’s ongoing longevity and enduring appeal comes from Cruise’s willingness to engage in a series of death-defying stunts, with each movie featuring a series of increasingly more impressive feats. Yet, as this latest revelation about the fourth installment suggests, there is still far more behind-the-scenes VFX and camera work needed to bring the final sequences together. For every nail-biting moment that Cruise places himself in danger for the sake of entertainment, a swarm of dedicated camera operators, VFX crew and digital artists are also pushing the boundaries of their respective fields to deliver a polished product.

This latest behind-the-scenes revelation about Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol simply reinforces the vast amount of careful forethought and planning that goes into capturing Cruise’s amazing stunt work. Whether it be the clever use of drone technology in order to capture him hurtling off a cliff on the back of a motorcycle, or making it seem as though a window on a 163-story building could miraculously disappear, the success of the Mission: Impossible movies owe a great deal to their dedicated behind-the-scenes artists.

Source: Corridor Crew

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Behind the scenes of Tom Cruise's Burj Khalifa stunt

Incredible footage of Cruise jumping out of windows of the 828 metre Burj Khalifa

Dubai: Take a look at this incredible behind-the-scenes video showing just how Tom Cruise did his stunts on the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, for his upcoming film Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol . Cruise shocked the world last October when he performed stunt after crazy stunt on the outside of the building, and here the film's director Brad Bird takes viewers inside the shooting with some incredible footage of Cruise jumping out of windows of the 828 metre skyscraper, swinging around the side of the building -- and even running down it. You won't believe your eyes.

The film releases in the UAE at Imax and standard cinemas on December 17.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, ethan hunt’s second act and tom cruise’s third: the unending impossible mission.

If there’s a “before” and “after” in the “ Mission: Impossible ” franchise, an obvious dividing point is the Burj Khalifa. This now-iconic sequence in the fourth film, 2011’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” revolutionized the series around spectacular set pieces centered on Cruise actually performing jaw-dropping, death-defying practical stunts on location. By contrast, in 2006’s “ Mission: Impossible III ,” when Ethan Hunt needed to access the roof of a heavily guarded Shanghai skyscraper, while Cruise really did the swing and the wirework the stunt called for, he did it on a stage with green screens, not in the steel and glass canyons of Shanghai. What set the bar for the future was going to Dubai and climbing on the face of the world's tallest building; every subsequent big set piece, from clinging for dear life to the fuselage of an ascending turboprop military aircraft to riding a motorcycle over the edge of a cliff, has sought to clear or even raise that bar.

However, there’s an even more crucial before-and-after moment in “Ghost Protocol,” some 20-odd minutes before the Burj Khalifa sequence. It's not as flashy, certainly, but in a way, it's just as momentous. The scene finds Ethan on a fourth-story ledge of a hospital building in Moscow, looking down into a roll-off dumpster. It was here that I first realized that I was seeing something new—something that would ultimately mark the beginning of Ethan Hunt’s second act and of Tom Cruise ’s third.

The first three “Mission: Impossible” movies all have memorable set pieces and images, above all, the iconic CIA vault sequence in the inaugural 1996 Brian De Palma film: a nail-biting tour de force of tonal and literal suspense. They also have significant drawbacks, varying as much as the styles of their very different directors—but one limitation common to them all. In the early films, we see Ethan leap from an exploding helicopter to a bullet train in a tunnel, jump from one face of a red sandstone tower to another while free soloing, and yo-yo over the exterior wall of Vatican City. What we never see before that hospital ledge, though, is Ethan blink in the face of a death-defying challenge. 

“Ghost Protocol” actually opens with another Impossible Missions Force agent, Hanaway, leaping off a rooftop and executing a series of midair maneuvers so outrageous, with such all-in-a-day’s-work panache, that, watching for the first time, I resigned myself to two hours of casually weightless cartoon superheroics. When Hanaway is murdered moments later, the sudden reversal feels like rapid-fire moves in a game of speed chess—a feeling that persists as Ethan winds up hospitalized, handcuffed, and guarded by a Russian intelligence agent named Sidorov, only to escape the cuffs using a paper clip and, Batman-like, vanish from the hospital ward within seconds. Until that is, Sidorov leans out the window and incredulously spots Ethan on a ledge, wearing only torn slacks, looking down at a dumpster dozens of feet below.

“How to Jump From a Building Into a Dumpster” is one of the extreme procedures detailed in a small 1999 volume titled The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook , by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht. The contents are based on expert input, though the book is officially classified as “humor.” It is reportedly “entirely possible to survive a high fall (five stories or more) into a Dumpster, provided it is filled with the right type of trash (cardboard boxes are best) and you land correctly.” Ethan is only on the fourth story; if anyone can land correctly, it’s obviously him. Yet who would count on a dumpster outside a hospital to contain the right type of trash? Ethan glances uneasily at Sidorov, who gestures invitingly toward the dumpster: Be my guest. Shirtless, barefoot, breathing raggedly, Ethan looks down ... and, for the first time since we’ve known him, decides that he doesn’t like his chances. Defeated, he begins inching back toward Sidorov and captivity.

Then comes the electric punchline. A passing delivery van; a quick calculation—and Ethan, leaping from the building, finds a way to street level almost as preposterous as Hanaway’s. The differences, though, are crucial: Ethan is anxious and desperate, and he doesn’t quite (as they say in gymnastics) stick the landing. Throwing his belt over a power line, Ethan ziplines down to meet the delivery van—but when he lets go, he topples off the van and tumbles heavily to the cobblestones. Sidorov, fortunately, is almost as stunned as Ethan recovers, enough to scramble to his feet and dash around a corner.

What the “Mission: Impossible” series discovers at this moment is this: Imperfect stunts can be more thrilling than perfect ones. An unflappable Superman who always knows exactly what to do and does it perfectly is less exciting than a fallible, vulnerable action hero—one who can be caught by surprise, who hesitates and has misgivings, who is forced to improvise, sometimes miscalculating and even getting hurt.

Establishing that Ethan is fallible and can get hurt is part of what makes the Burj Khalifa sequence so thrilling. It’s riveting to watch him step out into empty space 123 stories up and laboriously make his way to the 130th floor; it’s even more thrilling to watch Cruise run (any time he runs, he’s just Tom Cruise) back down the side of the Burj Khalifa on a tether. The final payoff, though, comes when the tether proves too short, obliging Ethan to take a running leap, spinning free of the building and releasing the line with split-second timing, freefalling toward safety … but coming in a bit high. Bashing his face against the wall above the opening, he is saved only by the quick action of his teammates, who manage to catch him by the ankle and haul him back into the building. This would never have happened in earlier installments. 

To be fair, Ethan wasn’t really an action hero in the beginning, and the CIA break-in certainly makes him sweat. Yet the first film’s climactic helicopter-train-tunnel sequence, while it gets points for audacity and ingenuity, is solidly in cartoon territory. The same is true of the mannered, balletic violence of John Woo ’s stylish, divisive “ Mission: Impossible II ,” in which, no matter how much punishment he takes, Ethan never loses his impassive cool. By the Shanghai skyscraper sequence in “Mission: Impossible III,” there are hints of what’s to come, though we don’t see what circumstances force Ethan to improvise his base jump exit from the building or how he reacts to them. 

Ethan’s second act corresponds to the third phase of Cruise’s career, though the transition from the long, successful first phase to the shorter, awkward second one is fuzzier. After two decades of almost charmed superstardom, Cruise infamously suffered a series of mostly self-inflicted PR disasters in the 2000s: Deriding psychiatry, shaming Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants, unnervingly intense proselytizing for Scientology, and of course, “jumping” on Oprah’s couch. Cruise’s public image has always been complicated, but by the mid-2000s, he was widely perceived as off-puttingly nutty. When he went to work on “Ghost Protocol,” there was talk of passing the torch to Jeremy Renner .

Instead, “Ghost Protocol” kicked off Cruise’s mission to claw his way back to the top. Going silent about his controversial opinions and personal life, he put everything he had into making the Tom Cruise narrative about his willingness to push himself to the limit and the limits of what audiences had ever seen anyone do. People thought of him as a crazy zealot; he set out to become the crazy zealot of action spectacle. He had done his own stunts for years; now, he began doing things no stuntman had ever done, things no one would ask or expect of a stuntman.  

Cruise’s extreme commitment is mirrored in Ethan’s—a reality highlighted whenever Ethan takes an unexpected hit or Cruise gets really injured. Perhaps the most striking difference between first-act and second-act Ethan is this: Ethan chooses to walk away from the IMF at the end of each of the first three movies. For second-act Ethan, walking away is unthinkable, and normal, private life is a luxury he can’t afford. The De Palma film massacred Ethan’s entire team; not until the end of “Ghost Protocol” is there finally a sense of a real team around him again. “Your missions,” he tells them, adding, “Choose to accept them.” That unorthodox use of the imperative tense tells us that Ethan’s choice is made: a different choice from the one at the end of every prior film. The IMF is now his family, and impossible missions are his life.

Nor is it just Ethan or just “Mission: Impossible.” Quintessential third-act Cruise movies include “ Edge of Tomorrow ,” an alien-invasion movie with a “ Groundhog Day ”–like time-bending premise, and “ Top Gun: Maverick ,” establishing Pete “ Maverick ” Mitchell as Cruise’s other signature role with a second act. His “Edge of Tomorrow” character is a shallow, self-interested glad-hander (not unlike many first-act Cruise roles) who is gradually remade through one temporal iteration after another, progressively becoming the ultimate warrior, preternaturally gifted and willing to do whatever it takes, even dying countless times, to save the world and the one person who understands what he’s going through and what he can do. As for Maverick, while he’s not Ethan (Ethan wouldn’t have pushed the Darkstar to Mach 11 if Mach 10 were enough), he’s come to share Ethan’s driving determination to do whatever is necessary to see the mission through and to bring his team home safely, along with Ethan’s aura of singular ability as the one man who can get it done. Even Cruise’s young co-stars had to commit to boot camp and flight training for “Maverick”’s unprecedented aerial cinematography, acclimating to extreme g-forces in order to perform in rolling, spinning F/A-16s—something no one could ask or expect, except Cruise.

As triumphant as Cruise’s third act has been, there’s no going back to the kind of bankable superstardom he enjoyed for so long. Those days are gone forever, not just for Cruise but for everyone in the intellectual-property entertainment era. The new stars are brands: superheroes, video games, and toys. In Ethan’s second act, and Maverick’s, we see Cruise figuring out how to succeed in the current environment without that advantage. This is no longer just a tactic to offset bad PR. Cruise has become a quixotic standard bearer in an era marked by a lazy overreliance on digitally generated spectacle and synthetic action, as another way of making movies, for creating must-see big-screen spectacles by celebrating human potential and achievement. Ethan regularly saves the world; the box-office success of “Top Gun: Maverick,” in the words of no less than Steven Spielberg , helped to save Hollywood. But even that isn’t all. Cruise made “Ghost Protocol” in his late forties and spent his fifties making the sequels. Now 60, he recently expressed his intention to go on making “Mission: Impossible” movies into his eighties Cruise seems to want to extend his third act until the first two acts are mere prologue, to outrun time itself. 

With each passing year, Cruise’s creative resistance looks as much more quixotic as it does more necessary. It’s almost eerie how “Dead Reckoning: Part One” has arrived as anxieties in Hollywood over its own future and the role of encroaching technology in that future have reached a tipping point. Among the stakes in the historic double strike of Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are the displacement of human creative work by rapidly evolving AI. Subtext is text in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” which grapples explicitly with anxiety over superhuman technology and human obsolescence. There were lowkey concerns in “Maverick” about drones eventually replacing elite fighter pilots, but in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” the enemy has arrived. Computer-generated illusions erode access to truth and reality, and the very notions of right and wrong hang in the balance. Tom Cruise and Ethan Hunt may never give up, but what mission will be worth fighting for if human beings lose the future?

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Burj Khalifa viral moments, including Tom Cruise stunt, Emirates advert and a giant ring

From blockbuster performances to digital recreations, here are five times the landmark has stood out from the crowd.

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. He performed his own stunts while filming one scene on Burj Khalifa. AP

Wednesday marks 13 years since Burj Khalifa was inaugurated, becoming the world’s tallest building and a global landmark.

Standing 828 metres tall, the structure took more than six years to build, at a cost of $1.5 billion.

In the years since, it has become more than just a building. It’s a tourist attraction, a space for art and celebration, a shooting location for countless films and music videos and the subject of several viral social media moments.

Here, The National looks at five times Burj Khalifa has been seen from a different perspective.

When Tom Cruise scaled it in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol

Merely a year after Burj Khalifa was completed, it featured in one of the most memorable scenes from the 2011 blockbuster Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol .

Tom Cruise ’s character, secret agent Ethan Hunt, uses a pair of special suction gloves to reach the 130th floor. Known for doing his own stunts, Cruise shot scenes in which he walked sideways across the building’s exterior 518m in the air.

When a member of Emirates crew stood on top of it for an advert

New emirates video shows flight attendant on top of burj khalifa.

In 2021, Emirates caused a stir when it posted a video on social media appearing to show a flight attendant standing on top of Burj Khalifa , holding a sign celebrating the UAE being removed from the UK’s red list during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some questioned whether the video was fake, but the Dubai airline soon revealed it had enlisted the help of skydiver and stuntwoman Nicole Smith-Ludvik, who posed as crew for the ambitious shoot.

Smith-Ludvik did in fact stand on the building’s highest point strapped to a safety harness — a feat only achieved by a small handful of people — as she was filmed by helicopters and drones.

She later returned to the same spot for another video, this time promoting Emirates’ partnership with Expo 2020 Dubai.

When it was given a CGI umbrella to shelter from the rain

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fazza (@faz3)

In December, Burj Khalifa was at the centre of a fun video to brighten up a grey and rainy day in the city. The viral clip , shared by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed , Crown Prince of Dubai, shows the top of the tower opening to produce an umbrella, sheltering itself from the rain.

The CGI video was produced as part of the city’s Dubai Destinations promotional campaign, which has created several images and clips that have gone viral in recent months. Videos include a summer campaign, which featured Burj Khalifa being used a ring toss for a giant flamingo pool inflatable.

When it lit up for special global events

Burj khalifa lights up in tribute to queen elizabeth ii.

Burj Khalifa is famous for its nightly projector light shows, which transform the outside of the structure into a colourful show that draws tourists from around the world. But it also produces several special lights shows to mark global events, from celebrations to memorials and everything in between.

It held a special memorial show following the death of UAE President, Sheikh Khalifa , who died in May aged 73.

In September, it commemorated the life of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II , following her death aged 96.

In November, it also lit up to celebrate Saudi Arabia’s historic World Cup win over eventual victors Argentina in the group stages, which shocked and delighted fans around the world in equal measure.

When it was surrounded by a futuristic ring design

In August, Burj Khalifa was — quite literally — at the centre of an ambitious architectural project , which would see it encircled by a 550-metre-tall ring structure.

The planned project by architecture firm Znera Space, known as Downtown Circle, would be a floating city concept that would change the emirate’s skyline as we know it.

With a circumference of 3km, the structure would consist of smaller units containing homes as well as public, commercial and cultural spaces, as well as a skypark and a tram that circles the outer perimeter.

However, the design is very much still a concept. “Our roles as architects is to come up with these ideas,” Najmus Chowdry, co-founder of Znera Space, previously told The National . “We want people to comment on it, criticise it, to see how we can think about building topographies.”

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

By William Goodman

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

By Jason Diamond

By Eileen Cartter

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.

The 13 Wildest 'Mission: Impossible' Stunts, Ranked

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Ever since the film franchise started way back in 1996, the Mission: Impossible movies have been a reliable source of blockbuster fun loaded with thrilling stunts and explosive action. The seventh film in the series, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (July 12), promises to offer more of the same for thrill-seeking moviegoers.

Tom Cruise recently delivered one of the most memorable ode to cinemas ever recorded, talking about how excited he is for the upcoming Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One whilst harnessed to a World War II biplane that's soaring through the air.

This not only reminded the world why fans love Cruise so much (not that anyone really needed reminding), but also highlighted the fact that the actor is willing to put himself in harm's way to create the most, memorable and exciting experience for audiences. Something he's been doing in the Mission: Impossible franchise for years.

Updated on July 8, 2023, by Ryan Heffernan:

13 the langley heist, 'mission: impossible' (1996).

Though The Langley Heist stunt in Mission: Impossible is nowhere near as dangerous as some other stunts on this list, it did set an early precedent that this action franchise was committed to practical filmmaking.

The scene, which sees Hunt drop into the control room, landing just inches from the floor, has been parodied across multiple other films and TV shows. The iconic scene is easily one of the franchise's most recognizable moments and sets the tone for what is to follow.

12 Exploding Fish Tank

It may seem a little tame in comparison to the no-holds-barred madness of the later entries in the franchise, but the amount of water unleashed when the fish tank exploded made this a genuinely dangerous stunt for Cruise.

In the years since, Cruise has joked about the lack of clarity regarding when the explosion would occur, but it's still a stunt the beloved actor is proud of. As was the case with the Langley heist, this stunt told audiences what to expect from the franchise and from future Cruise films too.

11 Free Climbing

'mission: impossible ii' (2000).

Tom Cruise is a man of many talents. Alongside acting and producing some of the most memorable and successful films of recent times, he is also a pilot, stunt driver, and expert climber. It's the last of these skills that he highlighted in Mission: Impossible 2 .

The scene may not add a lot to the overall plot of the sequel, but it puts audiences on the edge of their seats immediately, unable to look away as Cruise leaps across the rock and even dangles one-handed, looking out over the abyss below him. It's just a shame the rest of the film couldn't match the sheer exhilaration of the opening scene.

10 The Train Chase

Released in 1996, the very first Mission: Impossible movie used plenty of intense, confined sequences as a means to create suspense. The film still exhibited the extraordinary action flair that the series would come to be known for though, with its climactic action sequence featuring a train being tailed by a helicopter.

With the villains attempting to make a daring escape via helicopter, Hunt climbs on top of the speeding train and hooks the chopper to one of the carriages just moments before it disappears into a tunnel. With Cruise flinging himself around and even jumping onto the helicopter, the scene was an action highlight of the first film, rife with a far-fetched sense of high-octane thrills.

9 Motorbike Chase

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

In one of the best chase sequences in the entire Mission: Impossible franchise, the sequence from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation sees Ethan and Benji ( Simon Pegg ) in hot pursuit of Ilsa Faust ( Rebecca Ferguson ) in a silver BMW. After the car is upended, Hunt gets on a motorbike to continue the chase.

The high-speed hysteria was made all the more intense by some little details like Cruise reacting when his knee scrapes the road and his tentative checks before overtaking the truck. The sequence is exciting right up until its explosive end when Fuast stands in the middle of the road, forcing Hunt to evade her crash his bike in the process.

8 The Knife Fight

You'd be forgiven for assuming that this scene was filmed using CGI; after all, who in their right mind would want a knife mere millimeters from their eye? The answer, of course, is Tom Cruise. After measuring the distance to Cruise's eyeball (very carefully, we hope), a cable was used to balance the knife above Cruise's eye.

That wasn't all, though. Cruise's Mission: Impossible II co-star Dougray Scott then leaned on the knife, using all his weight to push it down, resulting in the most realistic possible scene. Though Mission: Impossible II is considered the worst entry in the franchise, the tension of this scene will never be forgotten.

7 The Underwater Scene

While filming Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , it quickly became clear that the underwater sequence would not work unless Tom Cruise learned how to hold his breath for six minutes. Unsurprisingly, Cruise was willing to put in the extra work and spend a lot of time training with professional divers.

The result is a tension-filled Tom Cruise scene during which audiences literally fear not only for the life of superspy Ethan Hunt but for the life of the beloved actor too. Christopher McQuarrie 's decision to film this as practically as possible was a very bold one, but it ensured this scene is one of the most memorable of the entire franchise and explains why he has returned to the director's chair for every sequel since.

6 Chase Through London

'mission: impossible - fallout' (2018).

During the filming of the sixth film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible - Fallout , fans were shaken when something we all considered to be impossible finally happened. Tom Cruise injured himself during a stunt.

While leaping from one building to another, the actor broke his ankle. Being the consummate professional that he is, Cruise not only finished the scene, limping past the camera with a grimace that shows he knew exactly how much damage he had done, but it is also the take they use in the movie. Filming may have been delayed while Cruise recovered, but thankfully his appetite for stunts was unaffected.

5 The Helicopter Chase

Fallout is a very rare accomplishment in filmmaking. Not only is it the best entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise and one of the best films of Cruise's career , but it also contains some of the best stunt work of the actor's career too. The helicopter chase sequence is a perfect example of this.

Beginning with Cruise dangling beneath a helicopter, using a rope to climb up to the cockpit, he then climbs aboard, defeats the pilot, and flies the helicopter himself. Whizzing between valleys and ducking and weaving behind the helicopter he is pursuing, this scene reminded audiences yet again why Cruise is the best action star of all time. He's not a bad pilot, either.

4 The Plane Hang

Much of the marketing campaign for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation was based around the film's opening scene, which sees Tom Cruise dangle from the side of a plane while it takes off. If that sounds absolutely bonkers, it's because it is. It's easily one of the riskiest stunts Cruise has ever performed, but it is also one of the most impressive.

Watching the runway grow smaller in the distance as the plane soars into the sky creates a sense of vertigo in the audience, making them feel as if they're up there with Cruise. Christopher McQuarrie decided to introduce himself to the franchise with a bang, and my goodness, are we glad he did.

3 The Motorbike Cliff Jump

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

The trajectory of the long-running Mission: Impossible franchise has seen the stunts get bigger and bigger, and that only looks like continuing Dead Reckoning Part One . A major marketing tool for the film was the behind-the-scenes featurette uncovering how they shot the incredible stunt.

Said to be the most dangerous stunt Cruise has ever performed, the sequence required him to drive a motorbike off a cliff, launching himself into a free fall before pulling a parachute and gliding to safety. As reported by Variety , the stunt was the first thing filmed so, in the event that something when horribly wrong, production had all the time and money available to them to rework the film.

2 Climbing the Burj Khalifa

'mission impossible - ghost protocol' (2011).

Scaling the tallest building in the world (at the time of filming, anyway) is enough to make most actors call for their stunt doubles. Not Cruise, though. Armed with only a single safety rope, the actor clung to the outside of the building with the ground a mere 829 meters beneath him.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol marked the start of the franchise's decision to market each new entry around one unbelievable stunt, a decision audiences received incredibly positively. After all, watching Tom Cruise sprint down the side of the Burj Khalifa is a cinematic experience few will forget.

1 The Halo Jump

The halo jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout is easily one of the most impressive stunts Cruise has ever performed. Filmed with one continuous take, the scene is a work of cinematic brilliance. Following Cruise from his jump out of the plane, to his diversion to save the unconscious Walker ( Henry Cavill ), to his eventual rushed landing, it is as tense a scene as you're likely to see.

The added complication of the storm and Walker's brash decision to jump anyway only add to the drama of the sequence, and the upcoming Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - Part One will have to pull something huge out of the bag to upstage this thrilling stunt.

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

• Mission: Impossible

Tom Cruise's 10 best stunts of all time, ranked

• Tom Cruise does his own stunts and it's remarkable what he's been able to pull off.
• Hanging on the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the world's tallest building — he's done it all.
• Here's a recap of his greatest stunts.

10. For the cargo-plane crash in "The Mummy," Cruise did the stunt inside a NASA plane that trains astronauts for zero gravity.

In 2017's "The Mummy," Cruise finds himself stuck in a cargo plane as it crashes. To pull off a scene like this, actors would typically film it in a controlled setting like a sound stage surrounded by a green screen.

Not Cruise, though.

The star shot the scene in a plane that NASA uses to train astronauts .

The scene was filmed in the plane which had to go up to 25,000 feet to get the look that Cruise was in zero gravity. The plane then did a free fall for 22 seconds.

Cruise did the flight four times to pull off the scene.

9. Cruise flew a helicopter in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

For the thrilling helicopter-chase scene in the finale of "Fallout," Cruise spent 16 hours a day training to get to the required 2,000 hours to fly a helicopter on his own.

But Cruise didn't just fly the helicopter. He also pulled off a 360-degree corkscrew dive in it, which would challenge even the most veteran pilot.

8. Cruise is really in a F/A-18 jet for the flight scenes in "Top Gun" Maverick" and had to deal with the G-forces.

When you see Cruise and the cast looking like they are battling G-forces in the jets, complete with distorted faces, it's because they really were.

Cruise and the cast went through training so their dogfight scenes could look as realistic as possible — which meant sitting in the F/A-18 jets as they were spun around and took dramatic dives.

7. Cruise climbed a 2,000-foot cliff in "Mission: Impossible 2."

In the opening scene of 2000's "M: I 2," Cruise is seen climbing a cliff. And yes, that's really him.

Cruise scaled the cliff in Utah with nothing but a safety rope . He also did a 15-foot jump from one cliff to another.

6. Cruise held his breath for six minutes for an underwater stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

In one scene, Cruise's Ethan Hunt has to dive into an underwater safe to retrieve the computer chip that will lead him closer to the villain.

Along with having to hold his breath the whole time , he must keep away from a large crane that's circling around the safe.

For the scene, Cruise first jumped off a 120-foot ledge. Then, in a 20-foot deep-water tank, Cruise held his breath for six minutes.

5. Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings while making "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

Tom Cruise loves to run in his movies; it's become his trademark. But his ability to continue running came into question after a stunt went wrong on the set of "Fallout."

While jumping from one one building to another, Cruise hit the wall of the building the wrong way and broke his ankle.

The accident halted production for months and doctors told Cruise his running days might be over. But, six weeks later, Cruise was back on set doing sprints .

4. Cruise climbed the tallest building in the world for "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol."

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, and Cruise climbed it.

For "Ghost Protocol," the actor's climb got him up to 1,700 feet in the air .

He also fell four stories down by rappelling on the surface of the building.

3. Cruise did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps for the thrilling motorcycle stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1."

For the latest "M:I" movie, Cruise once again pushed himself.

And one stunt in particular is definitely up there as one of his craziest ideas yet: driving a motorcycle off a cliff.

The star did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps to prepare for the stunt. And that wasn't just so Cruise had the skill and comfort to pull off the stunt; the training also made it possible for director Christopher McQuarrie and his crew to map out camera angles to capture it. 

The stunt was then done on the first day of principal photography.

"We know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one!" Cruise told "Entertainment Tonight" on why it was done on the first day.

Cruise ended up doing the stunt six times on the day of shooting.

2. Cruise hung on the side of a plane as it took off for "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

Cruise clung to the side of a massive Airbus A400M plane as it took off and went up to 1,000 feet dealing with speeds of 100 knots.

To protect the actor, he was secured with a wire attached to the plane. He also had special contacts on to protect his eyes from debris.

Cruise did this stunt eight times.

1. Cruise did 106 skydives with a broken ankle to pull off the HALO jump in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

While Cruise was healing the broken ankle he sustained earlier in the "Fallout" production, he went and pulled off the most amazing stunt he's done in his career so far.

In the movie, Cruise's character and CIA tagalong August Walker (Henry Cavill) decide to do a HALO jump — a high-altitude, low-open skydive, in which you open your parachute at a low altitude after free-falling for a period of time — out of a giant C-17 plane to get into Paris undetected.

Cruise did this for real by executing the jump 106 times over two weeks , many of them done during golden hour, a very brief period of perfect lighting that occurs just before sunset.

• Main content

Broken bones and zero gravity: 17 stunts that almost killed Tom Cruise

E ven if you’ve been holed up in the jungle on a Pacific island for decades, you’re likely to know three facts about Tom Cruise. One, he’s short. Two, he’s a Scientologist… And three, the maniac always – always – does his own stunts . 

His latest film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , is in cinemas now. And on the press tour, the 61-year-old star has said he hopes to continue doing them well into his 80s – like Harrison Ford, whose latest Indiana Jones film has just opened . 

But while Ford has occasionally been seen out and about in his role as a helicopter rescue pilot, Cruise’s dedication to being an action hero, on-screen and off, is unsurpassed. In real life, he saved a family from a burning boat, pulled a small child to safety from a movie premiere crush and used his private jet to send a badly injured crew member to hospital. He’s also famous for sending exclusive £101 chocolate and coconut cakes to close friends and family (and sundry journalists who ask for them) every year for Christmas. Oh, and he once ate two chicken tikka masalas back-to-back. Truly, the man is made of different stuff.  

Anyway, here’s a run-down of every time has proved he’s no mere mortal – and danced with death in the name of art.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Cruise’s latest film has several astonishing live-action moments, including a fight on top of a moving train, hurtling along at 60mph. For this scene, which also includes a moment where our hero escapes the train as it crashes into a quarry, the production team built a replica 60-ton antique train – then drove it off a cliff. Like much of the film, it was filmed in the UK; in this case, at Darlton Quarry in Derbyshire. 

But for the film’s crowning moment of adrenaline, Cruise drove a motorbike off a cliff in Norway, falling into a BASE jump. Billed as the “biggest stunt in cinema history”, the effort (and expense) which went into getting it right – as opposed to capturing an elaborate snuff flick for one of the world’s highest-paid actors – was extraordinary. 

Cruise’s training took more than a year and included intensive skydive preparation. At one point, Cruise was making 30 jumps a day – and logged more than 500 in total. His driving practice was similarly gruelling: he worked up to making 70ft leaps on the bike, performing 13,000 over the course of the build up. He also worked to finesse camera angles and body posture by repeatedly jumping into a quarry full of cardboard boxes, attached to a high-wire. As for the stunt itself, he observed: “The only two things which can go wrong are serious injury and death.” 

On the day, Cruise pulled the jump six times to ensure the team had enough footage. Of course he did. 

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

For his films, Cruise has driven cars, piloted planes, ridden bikes – and charged on horseback in full Samurai gear. But it turns out there’s a limit, even for Tom Cruise. And that limit is piloting a $67.4 million Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet in the name of entertainment. So, no: despite the rumours, the cast of Top Gun: Maverick weren’t actually allowed to fly the fighter jets in last year’s Top Gun film. 

But they got most of the way there, enduring a three-month intensive flying bootcamp prior to filming. During this gruelling regime, they spent up to four hours a day in the cockpit, experiencing the same G-forces as those depicted in the film as the US Navy’s stunt pilots pulled highly technical manoeuvres, such as flying in mirror formation. They worked their way up from twin-prop training planes to the real deal – genuine F/A-18 fighter jets, generously lent by the US Navy for a mere $11,000 an hour. So those rictus grins as they suffer the thumping G-forces are entirely unfaked. 

Cruise arguably endured more in the original Top Gun. On that film, the training was a little less graduated – notoriously, the stunt pilots wanted to take the pumped-up young leads down a notch, so they took them up for a spin with the express aim of crushing their heads into their knees with Gs and making them vomit. Charming. 

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

While shooting a sequence for Mission: Impossible 6 in London, Cruise was captured by TMZ cameras attempting to leap between two buildings, but smashing into the edge of a roof instead. While he was then seen attempting to finish the scene, he was filmed limping badly. 

As is clear from the gruesome footage Cruise showed off on the Graham Norton Show afterwards, Cruise shattered his ankle during the impact, bending his foot back till it nearly touched his leg. 

“I was chasing Henry 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 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 arrangement.”

TMZ later reported that Cruise had already tried and failed to perform the stunt at least once before, proving that one 55-year-old man can only defy gravity so often before gravity strikes back.

The Mummy (2017)

It wouldn’t be a Tom Cruise press tour without a gleeful anecdote about the star nearly getting decapitated, or getting tossed out of an exploding plane onto a motorcycle or something similarly outlandish.

So in 2017, Cruise appeared on The Graham Norton Show to tell the story behind the standout action scene in The Mummy, which involved him and costar Annabelle Wallis being flung around an airplane cabin in zero-gravity.

“I had to convince the studio to let me do it, and Annabelle and I had to do the scene 64 times,” he revealed on The Graham Norton Show.

“It took us two days and the crew was flying around and vomiting in between takes. You couldn’t train for this. Normally stunts take months of prepping but we just did it. It was wild and I can’t believe the studio actually let me do it!”

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

The most extreme stunt in the fifth Mission: Impossible film has Cruise’s Ethan Hunt attempting to break into a Airbus A400M as the huge military transport plane starts to taxi down the runway, before taking off with the super-agent clinging on by his fingertips.

Cruise was attached to the plane by a harness. In order to have his eyes open during the scene, the film’s team used “sclera” contact lenses that would cover them both entirely, protecting them from rogue particles and hard air.

Airbus was initially reluctant to let the star do the stunt, and it took some convincing before they agreed to it. “The things we were all very concerned about were particles on the runway and bird strikes,” Cruise said in an interview with Yahoo Movies.

“We spent days clearing out the nearby grass of any birds, and they brushed the runway as best they could. My stunt coordinator would poke me if he got reports of bird strikes. The pilot had to be on the lookout for anything in the air that could impact me in any way.”

In the end, they shot the scene eight times. “I fly warbirds [vintage military aircrafts], I fly aerobatic airplanes, but this was pretty damn exciting and exhilarating,” said Cruise. “The adrenaline was flowing! When that thing was going down the runway it was everything to keep my feet down, then it went up and my body was slamming on the side. I was like ‘Whoa, this is intense.’”

Ever the dedicated professional, the most anxiety-inducing scene in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has Ethan Hunt break into an underwater security vault, holding his breath for three minutes. Cruise had been keen to film the sequence for a while, training with a professional free-diver to learn to hold his breath for six minutes. 

“The kind of training I had to do for that was pretty intense,” Cruise said. “I’ve done a lot of underwater scenes but I’ve never done one [like this] that will get the audience to lean forward and have a visceral reaction.”

Cunningly, the sequence was filmed all in one take, encouraging viewers to hold their breath alongside Cruise. And reflect, with burning lungs, on the incredible lengths the man will go to in the name of our entertainment. 

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Filming a car chase sequence, Cruise was “almost killed” by his co-star Emily Blunt. As they performed the scene for a second time, Blunt had to take a hard right at high speed.

“Suddenly, as I approach the right hand turn, I hear him going, ‘Brake, brake, brake... Oh God! Oh God! Brake the car! Brake the car!’” she recalled. 

“When I first heard him say, ‘Brake’, in my head I went, ‘Oh, shut up’, you know? As if I knew more about stunt driving than Tom Cruise!” 

Luckily, she did eventually paid attention. And both stars lived to see another promo tour. 

Jack Reacher (2012)

In 2012 Cruise told American talk-show host Jimmy Fallon how he hurt his foot after repeatedly kicking another man in the crotch during the shoot of espionage thriller Jack Reacher.

Having filmed a number of takes, what was initially a not-unenjoyable activity for the actor – “the first 10 times it was like ‘Yeah!’” Cruise told Fallon – became painful for him. “After about 50 times in, my foot was swelling... I kept having to loosen my shoe.”

Rob Alonzo, the film’s stunt coordinator, said that Cruise is “better than most stunt men. He’s an incredible driver, an incredible fighter and stunt performer. He flies planes, he knows how to ride horses, he rides motorcycles, so any director would be lucky to have a guy like that because they can keep the camera on him the whole time and it’s more engaging.”

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

While filming Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Cruise insisted on scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa which, at 2,723ft, is the tallest building in the world. In the movie’s most memorable action sequence, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt climbs up the building with adhesive gloves, then abseils down it on a makeshift rope, swinging himself through an open window.

For this last part, the actor struggled against crosswinds, and repeatedly slammed into the building: “It took a while to figure out how to not come into the building head first,” he said. Although Cruise did have a stunt double, he was only used to check the rigging (Cruise wore a harness that was digitally edited out in post-production).

In order to do the stunt, the production team was forced to scrabble around for an insurance company after the first one they used refused to cover Cruise’s scramble on top of the Burj.

Valkyrie (2008)

In 2008’s Valkyrie, Cruise played amputee Nazi war hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who unsuccessfully plotted to assassinate Hitler. Although the actor remained unharmed during shooting, 11 extras were injured on set when they were hurled from a truck. 

The side of the vehicle came loose during the filming of a night scene in Berlin, where part of the city was cordoned off and transformed into the Third Reich’s power base.  

Collateral (2004)

Another day, another near-death experience at the hands of a co-star. During the filming of Michael Mann’s Collateral, Jamie Foxx had to drive his car into Cruise’s Mercedes, but misjudged the speed. Cruise’s car went flying off the set.

“I was hitting the roof,” said Cruise. “I was down on the ground.”

“They were so worried that I had killed my man,” Foxx said. “Can you imagine all that money bouncing around in the back seat?”

The Last Samurai (2003)

The Last Samurai involved 8 months of training for the then 41-year-old Cruise, including horseriding and all manner of martial arts. “I’ve done fight scenes before,” Cruise told the Daily Mail, “but this was significantly different from anything I’ve ever experienced... There were more than 70 points of contact where you could potentially lose your eye, your ear or your nose.”

The actor came closest to death when the mechanical horses used for some of the scenes malfunctioned. While filming a fight sequence with co-star Hiroyuki Sanada, the horses were meant to stop as the two actors swung their blades. “He was approaching me and then suddenly his horse hit me and his sword was an inch from my neck.”

Cruise was saved by Sanada, whose quick reflexes and skill with the sword meant he was able to avoid decapitating the Hollywood star. “I just managed to stop my sword an inch from his neck,” said Sanada. “It was so hard. I was drenched in sweat! My God! But Tom never blinked! It was the biggest moment, the most dangerous moment. After that, I never hit him, he never hit me.”

Mission: Impossible II (2000)

In the opening scene of this 2000 sequel, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is reintroduced to viewers free-climbing cliffs at Utah’s Dead Horse Point. Cruise did all of the climbing save for the moment his character slips from the cliff. He was winched in and out of position and the harness he wore for safety was removed in post-production.

Director John Woo said that he was too terrified to look through the viewfinder as the scenes were shot, fearing that his star might slip 2,000ft to his doom. Cruise would not be persuaded against doing the stunt, though, and even tore his shoulder jumping across the cliff-face in the pursuit of the perfect shot.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

The first Mission: Impossible film set the tone for all that followed. Here, aside from the famous dangling-on-a-rope break-in scene, the most memorable stunt was the one which saw giant fish tanks explode, bringing with them a tidal wave of glass.

Cruise did the stunt himself, to the horror of director Brian De Palma and Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner. Fortunately he walked away with nothing more than a hurt ankle. One of the other stuntmen was unluckier still, as a piece of glass cut a gash in his leg.

Far and Away (1992)

For his role in the 1992 immigration drama Far and Away, Cruise had to play a contender in the world of bare-knuckle boxing. “I caught a few shots,” Cruise said. “The stunt guys didn’t want to hurt me, but it had to look real.”

“I screamed,” said Nicole Kidman, who co-starred in the film. “I saw the bruises to his body and said you better tell Ron [Howard, the director] what’s happening. But [Tom’s] pretty tough.” 

Post-release, Cruise took more a pronounced pummelling by the critics – most notably for his damn-nigh-incomprehensible Irish accent. 

Days of Thunder (1990)

The idea for this Nascar racing drama was Cruise’s: he’d been introduced to the sport by Paul Newman when the two were filming The Color of Money. Cruise did his own driving, naturally, and was praised by real-life racers for his control of the stock cars.

There was one occasion, though, when he lost control of his car. After shimmying to the left, he tried to take a right-hand turn, with the result that the car spun off the track. Although Cruise wasn’t badly hurt, the $100,000 camera that was attached to his car was totalled.

Top Gun (1986)

While filming the climactic post-crash scene in which Cruise’s character holds Goose’s lifeless body in the ocean, the actor’s parachute began to fill up with water without him realising. 

Luckily a frogman noticed the swelling and cut the chute loose seconds before it could drag Cruise down to the depths. “Cruise came as close to dying as anybody on a set I’ve ever seen,” said Barry Tubb, who played Wolfman in the film. 

Sadly, Top Gun’s aerial cameraman Art Scholl wasn’t so lucky. Scholl’s biplane spun out of control as he filmed scenes meant to show Maverick’s POV as his jet plunged into the sea; he crashed, and was killed instantly. The Top Gun: Maverick contained a touching tribute to him. 

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

Which of Tom Cruise’s stunts do you find most impressive? Let us know in the comments 

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