Brian De Palma, Mission: Impossible, Post-Cold War Cinema, Paranoia Thriller, Surveillance Studies, Tom Cruise, Action Cinema.
The film's plot centers around Ethan Hunt, a talented but inexperienced IMF agent who is recruited by Jim Phelps to join a mission to stop a rogue agent named Dimitri Vlasov from obtaining a highly classified document known as the Non-Official Cover (NOC) list. The NOC list contains the real names of undercover CIA agents operating around the world, and Vlasov plans to sell it to the highest bidder.
Upon release, critics were mixed. Roger Ebert praised the "intelligence" of the Langley sequence, but others complained the plot was "too convoluted." Audiences, however, disagreed. grossed over $457 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of the year.
In the early 1990s, Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to adapt the television series into a feature film. With Tom Cruise attached to star as Ethan Hunt, the film's production was greenlit, and De Palma was brought on board to direct.