Tom Cruise risked suffocation in the most "challenging" and "terrifying" Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning stunt

Tom Cruise is no stranger to difficult stunts, as he's proven time and again in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but he might have faced his biggest challenge to date in the upcoming movie Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

The follow-up to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning sees Cruise's Ethan Hunt diving into the wreckage of the Sevastopol submarine. Something goes wrong during the mission, putting the hero in an impossible, life-threatening situation.

This subaquatic sequence, shot in an 8.5 million litre water tank on a rotating gimbal, is set to be one of the most impressive stunts in the movie. It required Cruise to wear a special suit and mask that he could only be in for 10 minutes at a time before suffering damaging consequences.

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"I'm breathing in my own carbon dioxide. It builds up in the body and affects the muscles," the actor told Empire about the dangers behind the stunt, which could have led to him to suffer from an absence of oxygen in body tissue, a condition known as hypoxia.

"You have to overcome all of that while you're doing it, and be present," he added.

The film's director Christopher McQuarrie reflected on filming the sequence, saying it was "so challenging and so terrifying" for the team, but especially "really physically punishing" for Tom Cruise.

"He's in a rotating structure filled with debris, and you had to find a way to make that environment look as chaotic and unhinged as humanly possible, but in a way that you could repeat, and that Tom could navigate, and survive," McQuarrie explained.

As seen in the first trailers of the movie, the new Mission: Impossible movie is packed with death-defying stunts, which see Ethan Hunt hanging from a biplane and engaging in plenty of intense fights.

If this is his goodbye from the franchise, Tom Cruise is giving his all.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hits cinemas on May 23, 2025. For more, check out our movie release dates calendar, and don't miss our ranking of the best Mission: Impossible movies.