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47 free Mission Impossible trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Mission Impossible trivia questions with answers. Tom Cruise has been accepting impossible missions since 1996, and the trivia is as good as the stunts: a score that was thrown out weeks before release, a moustache that broke Superman, an ankle broken on camera and a villain who missed out on Wolverine because the shoot ran long. This quiz runs 47 questions across all eight films, from Brian De Palma's Prague heist and John Woo's doves to Ghost Protocol's Burj Khalifa climb, Rogue Nation's opera, Fallout's HALO jump and cliff fight, and the Entity storyline of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning. There are questions on the 1966 TV series and its 5/4 theme too, so casual fans and completists both have somewhere to start. Every answer has been checked against reference sources, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a movie night, a franchise rewatch or a film round at pub trivia.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ethan Hunt works for the IMF. What do the letters stand for?
Impossible Missions Force
The name comes straight from the 1966 TV series, whose taped briefings warned that 'the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions'.
Q 02Who created the original 1966 Mission: Impossible television series?
Bruce Geller
Bruce Geller created Mission: Impossible, which ran on CBS for seven seasons from 1966 to 1973 and won the Emmy for Outstanding Dramatic Series in 1967 and 1968.
Q 03Who composed the famous Mission: Impossible theme?
Lalo Schifrin
Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin wrote the theme for the 1966 CBS series, and it won him two Grammy Awards in 1968.
Q 04The Mission: Impossible theme is written in which unusual time signature?
5/4
The theme is in 5/4 time, five beats to a bar; Schifrin built its rhythm on the Morse code for the letters M and I, two dashes and two dots.
Q 05Who directed the first Mission: Impossible film in 1996?
Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma directed the 1996 film, which was Tom Cruise's first credit as a producer and was shot partly on location in Prague.
Q 06Which veteran actor plays Ethan's IMF mentor, revealed as the mole, in the 1996 film?
Jon Voight
Jon Voight plays Jim Phelps, who turns out to be the traitor; Peter Graves, the TV Phelps, declined to reprise the role once he learned the character would be the villain.
Q 07In the 1996 film, what is the IMF team in Prague trying to stop being stolen?
The NOC list of undercover agents
The list reveals the identities of every undercover CIA agent in Europe; the real one is later lifted from Langley in the famous wire-drop heist.
Q 08In the 1996 climax, a helicopter is dragged behind a TGV into which famous underground passage?
The Channel Tunnel
The train is bound for Paris through the Channel Tunnel; Krieger's helicopter, tethered to the train, is dragged inside, where Ethan destroys it with a stick of exploding gum.
Q 09Two members of which band recorded the hit dance version of the theme for the 1996 film?
U2
U2's rhythm section, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., recorded the dance version, which reached the US top ten and earned a Grammy nomination.
Q 10Which composer's score for the 1996 film was rejected and replaced by Danny Elfman's at short notice?
Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri's completed score was thrown out late in post-production, and Danny Elfman wrote the replacement in a few weeks, weaving in Schifrin's original themes.
Q 11Which uncredited actor plays IMF tech Jack Harmon, killed early in the 1996 film?
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez, Cruise's co-star from The Outsiders, plays Jack Harmon uncredited; Harmon is impaled at the top of a lift shaft during the Prague embassy job.
Q 12Who directed Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)?
John Woo
John Woo directed the 2000 sequel, bringing his trademark slow-motion doves and two-gun shootouts; it was the highest-grossing film worldwide of 2000.
Q 13In Mission: Impossible 2, what is the name of the engineered virus, and its cure?
Chimera and Bellerophon
Q 21Which of the first seven Mission: Impossible films had the lowest worldwide gross?
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible III made about $398 million worldwide, below the first film's $457 million and MI2's $546 million, despite positive reviews.
Q 22Ghost Protocol was the live-action directing debut of which animation director?
Brad Bird
Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, made Ghost Protocol his first live-action film; composer Michael Giacchino came with him from both Pixar films.
Q 23In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Ethan Hunt scales the outside of which skyscraper with malfunctioning sticky gloves?
Burj Khalifa
In Greek myth Bellerophon slew the Chimera; the virus has a 20-hour dormant window in which the cure works.
Q 14Which actor lost the role of Wolverine in X-Men partly because Mission: Impossible 2 overran?
Dougray Scott
Dougray Scott, who plays villain Sean Ambrose, had been cast as Wolverine, but MI2's overrunning schedule forced him out and the role went to Hugh Jackman.
Q 15Where was Tom Cruise's free-solo climbing entrance in Mission: Impossible 2 filmed?
Dead Horse Point, Utah
The opening climb was shot at Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah, with Cruise climbing himself on a thin safety cable that was removed digitally.
Q 16Which knighted actor makes an uncredited cameo as Mission Commander Swanbeck in Mission: Impossible 2?
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins plays Mission Commander Swanbeck uncredited, briefing Ethan in Seville and ordering him to recruit the thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall.
Q 17Which nu-metal band recorded 'Take a Look Around', a version of the theme, for Mission: Impossible 2?
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit's 'Take a Look Around' put Fred Durst's vocals over Schifrin's theme; Metallica contributed 'I Disappear' to the same soundtrack, and Hans Zimmer wrote the score.
Q 18Mission: Impossible III was the feature-film directing debut of which TV creator?
J. J. Abrams
Cruise hired him after binge-watching Alias; the delay while Abrams finished Alias and Lost cost the film Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Anne Moss and Scarlett Johansson.
Q 19Who plays arms dealer Owen Davian, the villain of Mission: Impossible III?
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Owen Davian, whose calm threat to count to ten is one of the series' most chilling scenes; the 'Rabbit's Foot' he wants is never explained.
Q 20Which Simon Pegg character debuts as a desk-bound IMF technician in Mission: Impossible III?
Benji Dunn
Benji Dunn becomes a field agent from Ghost Protocol onward, one of the few characters besides Ethan to recur across most of the series.
Cruise was attached to the Burj Khalifa by cables the whole time; Industrial Light & Magic painted them out.
Q 24In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the IMF is disavowed after being framed for bombing which landmark?
The Kremlin
The Kremlin bombing gives the film its title: 'Ghost Protocol' is the order shutting the agency down.
Q 25Which Bollywood star plays Mumbai media tycoon Brij Nath in Ghost Protocol?
Anil Kapoor
Anil Kapoor plays the playboy tycoon Brij Nath; Paula Patton's Agent Jane Carter seduces and then overpowers him to get the override codes for his satellite.
Q 26Who is the first director to helm more than one Mission: Impossible film?
Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie directed Rogue Nation and Fallout, then Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, after doing uncredited rewrites on Ghost Protocol.
Q 27Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation opens with Ethan Hunt clinging to the outside of what?
An A400 cargo plane taking off
An A400 cargo plane taking off, with Cruise really strapped to the fuselage; the sequence was shot for real rather than faked.
Q 28Which opera is playing at the Vienna State Opera during Rogue Nation's assassination attempt?
Turandot by Puccini
The assassination attempt unfolds during Puccini's Turandot, the shot timed to the climax of 'Nessun dorma'; the film itself premiered at the Vienna State Opera in July 2015.
Q 29Who plays Ilsa Faust, the MI6 agent who first appears in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation?
Rebecca Ferguson
Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa was killed off in Dead Reckoning Part One, in Venice, at the hands of Gabriel.
Q 30What is the name of the rogue organisation of ex-spies led by Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation?
The Syndicate
Solomon Lane's Syndicate is a network of presumed-dead agents drawn from intelligence services worldwide; in Fallout its remnants regroup as the Apostles, a terror-for-hire outfit.