Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning’s first trailer teases one epic last hurrah for Tom Cruise as iconic spy Ethan Hunt – and a May 2025 release date

After an extensive delay due to the pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike shortly after, the next installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise will finally arrive next year with a May 23, 2025, US release date. The trailer for the next movie, titled Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, dropped today (November 11), shows Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt at the center of another dangerously thrilling operation. You can watch it below.

Initially tipped to be titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, the next installment in the movie franchise will be a direct sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023) which sits in our list of best Paramount Plus movies. As well as the return of Tom Cruise as leading man and producer, Christopher McQuarrie is back as director and co-writer following his involvement in previous movies Rogue Nation (2015) and Fallout (2018).

Besides Cruise and McQuarrie, there are a number of other actors featured in the first trailer revealed to come back for what could be the final movie in the series. The next biggest return following Cruise and McQuarrie is Angela Bassett, who’s set to reprise her role as CIA Director Erika Sloane a character first introduced in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018). Additionally, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, and Hayley Atwell are all lined up to return. Joining them are new cast members Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, and Katy O’Brian.

Once again, Tom Cruise is a masterful stunt artist in yet another suspenseful trailer for his action-pay movie series. In between deep sea diving, darting through the city of London, and even more knife fights, the trailer teases that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning could be the last operation for Cruise as Ethan Hunt.

Mission: Concluded – is this it for Ethan Hunt?

Previously, we’d reported that the seventh and eighth installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise would be Tom Cruise’s last as Ethan Hunt, and based on the new trailer and the title of the movie, it looks like our speculation could be correct. When Cruise revealed the movie poster on Instagram even his caption “Every choice has led to this” was a strong indication that we may be reaching the final destination on the Mission Impossible train.

But despite the little clues scattered throughout the trailer and Paramount’s interest in promoting the movie as the ‘final’ Mission: Impossible entry, The Hollywood Reporter has brought attention to Cruise’s reluctance to publicly bid farewell to Ethan Hunt – revealing that the actor told the Sydney Morning Herald “I hope to keep making Mission: Impossible films until I’m (Harrison Ford’s) age”.