Feats of the human body behind Tom Cruise’s stunts in Mission: Impossible movies

By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

He’s leapt from cliffs, clung to planes mid-takeoff and held his breath underwater for as long as professional freedivers. Now, at 62, Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt for one final mission – and he’s still doing his own stunts.

With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the saga reaches its high-stakes finale. But behind the scenes of death-defying spectacles lies a fascinating question: just how far can the human body be pushed – and trained – to pull off the seemingly impossible?

And at what cost? In filming the eight Mission: Impossible films, Cruise has suffered…

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