Name: The Mission Impossible Timeline Explained
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T04:49:47.000Z
Duration: 13 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

You just leave word for a nameless man and hope he gets the job done. Is that it?"

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the Mission Impossible timeline.

This mission, should you choose to accept it, contains spoilers for all eight films, including The Final Reckoning.

Even after eight films, Ethan Hunt is something of an enigma, although we know his story starts with a woman named Marie.

In any case, Marie's death at the hands of a terrorist known as Gabriel forever changed Ethan's life.

Ethan would be blamed for Marie's murder, but Impossible mission force director Eugene Kittredge gave him a choice, prison or the IMF.

Thirty years ago, you were offered the choice.

Join the IMF or spend your life in prison.

Because of your unique natural talents, your government forgave you.

If Ethan couldn't save Marie, he might as well save the world.

Ethan gained a mentor and father figure in veteran agent Jim Phelps, who seemingly died with the rest of his team on a mission gone wrong.

As it turned out, Phelps faked his death, plotting to sell IMF information to arms dealers.

Just exactly when he knew is something of a question.

Mind telling me, Ethan? Before or after I showed up in London?

With IMF suspecting Ethan of being the mole, he goes on the run to clear his name.

Ethan assembles a new team, most of whom ultimately betray him.

This includes Jim's wife Claire, with whom Ethan becomes romantically involved.

Yet Ethan gains one loyal partner in hacker Luther Stickle.

Ethan ultimately defeats Jim, and prevents the list of non-official cover agents from falling into the wrong hands.

IMF comes to see Ethan as leadership material, offering him another mission.

Ethan's next major mission sees him go against another rogue agent, Sean Ambrose, who seeks to release a genetically engineered virus called Chimera.

Our hero saves the world again, this time riding off into the sunset with his new girlfriend, Naya Nordoff-Hall.

Ethan's wife, Claire, is also on the run.

Ethan seeks to take a permanent vacation with his new fiancée, Julia Mead.

We ran out of ice. I'll be back in 10 minutes.

Ethan is ready to settle down and pass the torch to another generation of IMF.

When a protégé dies on a failed rescue mission though,

Ethan gets wrapped up in a new mission, a mission where he has to find a way to save the world again.

He has to find a way to save the world again, on a failed rescue mission though,

Ethan gets wrapped up in another impossible mission revolving around a mysterious MacGuffin, the Rabbit's Foot.

Yeah, well, I'm assuming it's like a code word for something he's about to sell to an unspecified buyer for 850 million dollars, by the way.

Or maybe it's not a code word, maybe it's just a really, really expensive bunny appendage.

Criminal mastermind Owen Davian blackmails Hunt into stealing the Rabbit's Foot by kidnapping Julia.

With help from his buddy Luther and an IMF tech agent named Benji Dunn,

Ethan takes out Davian and saves his wife, who in turn brings him back from the brink of death.

Ethan also returns the MacGuffin to IMF, although he isn't told what exactly the Rabbit's Foot is.

It wouldn't be until years later that Ethan finally learned that the Rabbit's Foot evolved into the Entity, a highly advanced AI that inevitably turns against humanity.

The Entity demonstrates its power by being activated on the Russian submarine Sevastopol.

Becoming self-aware, the Entity manipulates the crew into torpedoing themselves, sinking the ship.

Over time, the Entity grows more powerful and dangerous, unbeknownst to Ethan, who is off on other missions.

Ethan, you are my best man, and I'm sorry it's come to this after all the sacrifices you made.

Despite his attempt to live a normal life, the thrill-seeking Ethan can't bring himself to retire.

He helps Julia fake her death, allowing her to safely resume civilian life.

Although Ethan still cares for Julia, their marriage was essentially a honeymoon, not made to last forever.

As long as we're together, she can never be safe.

It wasn't your job to protect her, Britt.

Although Ethan might not have anyone to come home to, his team essentially becomes his family.

On Ethan's latest mission to stop terrorist Kurt Hendricks, a.k.a. Cobalt, Benji is upgraded to field agent.

Ethan also finds reliable allies in IMF agent Jane Carter and analyst William Brandt, despite initially butting heads with the latter.

While Ethan still handles most of the death-defying stunts, it's clearer than ever he can't keep flying solo.

The mission is not the codes, the mission is Hendricks.

Failure to a terrorist is just a rehearsal.

We lose Hendricks today, he shows up somewhere else tomorrow.

He finds another way with no IMF to stop him.

This is where Mission Impossible becomes more about the team rather than a one-man show.

Ethan's team not only prevents a nuclear war between Russia and the U.S., but also restores IMF's good name.

Yet there are still some who believe the IMF should be retired, like CIA Director Alan Hunley.

Mr. Chairman, the so-called Impossible Mission Force is not just a rogue organization.

It is an outdated one, a throwback to an era without transparency and without oversight.

Hunley nonetheless becomes part of Ethan's inner circle following a mission to stop the syndicate, an organization of rogue governmental agents gone bad.

So the shuttering of the IMF was all part of an elaborate scheme to expose the so-called syndicate?

Which is why you're here today, asking for the IMF to be reinstated.

Of course, nobody is better at going rogue than Ethan Hunt and his friends.