Mission: Impossible 8 is coming in 2025 – here's what you need to know (2024)

Mission: Impossible 8 was meant to arrive this summer, but we're going to have to wait more than a year to see the conclusion to Dead Reckoning's two-part story.

Well, we say Dead Reckoning, but the next movie will no longer be called Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two. It's currently untitled and we don't know whether the title change will affect the story.

Mission: Impossible 8 was delayed as a result of the 2023 strikes in Hollywood and will now land in cinemas in May 2025. It's currently filming, so hopefully there won't be any further delays.

The new movie could mark the final mission for Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, although writer/director Chris McQuarrie isn't so sure this is the end.

As we wait to find out how the story ends, here's everything you need to know about the next Mission: Impossible movie.

Right now, Mission: Impossible 8 is set to be released in cinemas on May 23, 2025 following a year-long delay from the original June 28, 2024 release date.

Filming started on the movie in March 2022, went on a temporary break for the promotional tour of Dead Reckoning Part One, before it was suspended in July 2023 as a result of the strikes in Hollywood.

Production then resumed in March 2024 and is ongoing as of May 2024. We don't yet when filming is meant to wrap up, but hopefully the movie will hit that planned May 2025 release date.

Tom Cruise will, of course, be back as Ethan Hunt, but Mission: Impossible 7 wasn't without its casualties.

Ethan's long-running IMF cohorts Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) will be back, but Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust was killed by Gabriel (Esai Morales) so won't be returning.

There's always a possibility that Ilsa isn't actually dead, but she seemed like a goner to us and the way McQuarrie has been defending the controversial moment suggests she is definitely dead.

"It's a very heroic death for that character. It is not in any way, shape, or form disposable. It's a noble and heroic death," he said. "That, to me, is the hardest thing to find for a character."

Ferguson also seems pretty clear that Ilsa is a goner. "Well, I mean, sometimes those three-picture deals you have in Hollywood, they end, and actors have the possibility of saying no. And we were at that point," she said in February 2024.

"There's just that much you can do with a character, I find, and I'm entitled to my own opinion on this too. I want her to go rogue. I'm interested in the dark side, I don't want to be a team member, I'm not interested in that."

Hayley Atwell will be back as Grace, who at the end of Mission: Impossible 7, accepts the choice to join the IMF, while Vanessa Kirby's Alanna Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow, will continue causing havoc for Ethan.

It looked as though Pom Klementieff's Paris would not survive after being stabbed by Gabriel, but she's still breathing at the end after saving Ethan and Grace – so expect her to return and be on the side of the goodies next time.

In fact, Simon Pegg shared a picture of the actress on Instagram in December 2023, teasing her return: "Hard to kill! If you think you've seen the last of Paris… think again."

Henry Czerny's Kittridge, Shea Whigham's Jasper Briggs and Greg Tarzan Davis's Degas will all be back as well. Cary Elwes won't return though, as Denlinger as Gabriel killed him after finding out where the Sevastapol was buried (more on that in a bit).

We're welcoming back an old face in Mission: Impossible 8 too, as Rolf Saxon reprises his role as CIA analyst William Donloe from the first movie. He was transferred to Alaska which, fortunately, is near where the Sevastopol sub is buried under the ice.

Mark Gatiss and Charles Parnell will be back as the heads of the NSA and NRO, respectively, from Dead Reckoning Part One, while Mariela Garriga reprises her role as Marie who has a connection to Ethan's past.

Newcomers to the series in the next movie are Janet McTeer, Hannah Waddingham, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Katy O'Brian and Tramell Tillman. We don't yet know who they're playing and how big a role any of them will have.

We do know though that Mindhunter star Holt McCallany is playing Secretary of Defense Bernstein in the next instalment, while Nick Offerman is playing somebody called Sydney, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We don't have an official synopsis yet for Mission: Impossible 8, but we can gather at least how the next movie will begin.

While Gabriel is the villain of Dead Reckoning, it's fair to say he's not the true antagonist as it's actually an all-powerful AI, often called the "entity".

Whoever controls the entity can basically control the world as it has the power to distort digital data and has already hacked into the world's intelligence network.

The entity was the creation of the US government and they tested it out on a Russian sub called the Sevastopol, merely to see if it could show them where the stealth sub was. Unsurprisingly, the entity went rogue and destroyed the sub.

It's on the Sevastapol that the entity's source code is stored and the only way to access it is with a cruciform key. Luckily, Ethan has said key and at the end of Mission: Impossible 7, he's told by Paris that he needs to find the Sevastopol.

Ethan doesn't know where it is, but intends to find it to destroy the entity which can only be done at its source. Aiming to stop him will be Gabriel who is doing the entity's bidding and, obviously, the entity doesn't want to be destroyed.

This battle between Ethan and Gabriel will form the basis of Mission: Impossible 8 as Ethan knows that Gabriel knows where the Sevastopol is. We imagine there will be a lot more spycraft going on too, but this is where the next movie will start at least.

It explains why Donloe comes back into the series as he's stationed in Alaska, near where the sub is buried in the Bering Sea. Ethan better hope that he doesn't hold a grudge though as it was his fault Donloe is in Alaska in the first place...

Even though Mission: Impossible 8 is filming (and has been for a while), we don't have any footage yet and might not get any until later this year due to the delay.

Mission: Impossible 8 is released in cinemas on May 23, 2025.