Mission: Impossible backdrop
Mission: Impossible poster
Action & Adventure
Crime
Drama

The Best Episodes of Mission: Impossible

Every episode of Mission: Impossible ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Mission: Impossible!

The Best Episodes of Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible is an American television series that was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicles the missions of a team of secret...

Seasons7

  1. Background image for The Killer
    8.3/10(313 votes)

    #1 - The Killer

    S5:E1

    Hired killer Eddie Lorca does everything randomly, making him impossible to anticipate. The IMF must find out who his boss, Scorpio, is and all they know is Lorca is arriving in town for an assignment - they don't know who he's going up against. The team creates a ""blank"" hotel and Paris as a cabdriver intercepts Lorca at the airport. Paris and Willy have to stall when it takes more time to set up the hotel then it takes according to the phone book to get to ""their"" hotel. They then put the room number Lorca randomly chooses on the bugged room they have set up. They intercept Lorca's call to his contact, and Paris-as-Lorca meets her instead to find out the target. Dana then delivers the contract to Lorca using the information Paris obtained. The target is a black union leader, and Barney must take the man's place. Lorca eludes surveillance and almost kills Barney with a planted explosive, but Jim figures things out just in time. The team then fake Dana's death, and she gives a dying-b

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Paul Krasny
  2. Background image for Operation Rogosh
    8.2/10(575 votes)

    #2 - Operation Rogosh

    S1:E3

    Imry Rogosh is a mass murderer who kills to forment political upheaval. He is targeting Los Angeles, so the IMF knock him out in a car accident. When Rogosh ""wakes up"" he is in a cell in a prison in his own country, three years later, and ready to be executed as an American agent. To "prove" his loyalty to the cause, Rogosh has to spill the information on his secret operation, but during the mock trial a slip-up cues him in on the ruse. Briggs has to act fast to get Rogosh to reveal the plan to kill the citizens of Los Angeles.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Leonard Horn
  3. Background image for The Train
    8.1/10(393 votes)

    #3 - The Train

    S1:E24

    Prime Minister Larya of Svardia is working to establish democracy, but is unaware that his personal protege, Deputy Premier Pavel, plans to set up a dictatorship. The team must persuade Larya of Pavel's plans. The IMF fakes a train ride for Larya, Pavel, and Pavel's aide Androv. They then fake a crash, put Androv and Pavel in a fake hospital, and tell them that Larya is dead. They immediately begin plans to eliminate anymemory of Larya and start arresting dissidents. Then the hospital wall slides away to reveal that Larya has heard the whole thing, and dismisses them both.

    0 Comments
    View all
  4. Background image for The Carriers
    8.0/10(464 votes)

    #4 - The Carriers

    S1:E10

    Enemy agent Janos Passik is preparing to train 200 foreign agents to infiltrate the U.S. and engage in some form of bacteriological warfare. The team figures out that Passik has created a replica of a ""typical American town"" so as to train his agents to learn how to blend into American society. Rollin, Cinnamon, Barney, and bacteriologist Rogr Lee replace the new group of recruits and must then find their way to the research lab. They soon realize that the American-trained agents will be infected with a highly contagious plague and then sent into American to kill millions. The group must not only destroy the plague samples but make sure that Passik and his superiors do not find out that the destruction was deliberate.

    0 Comments
    View all
  5. Background image for The Legacy
    7.9/10(405 votes)

    #5 - The Legacy

    S1:E15

    The IMF must get hold of a horde of Nazi gold through four young men, sons of Hitler's top aides, who are sent to Switzerland to meet for the first time and pool their parts of the ""puzzle"" together. One of the men, the only one known to them, is replaced by Rollin. Each has part of an account number, and the team needs to hypnotize and trick the bank manager into giving them the complete account # and then slip it to Rollin. The bank account contains an envelope with a microdot, which when combined with a slide in each man's pocket watch provides the location of the treasure. After seeing the other men's slides, Rollin fakes the loss of his watch, then he and the rest of the team head to the cemetary. Two of the men figure out the puzzle from their pieces and follow. In a gunfight Dan is wounded, but one of the men is killed and the other runs off rather then face Rollin's wrath. The gold turns out to have been made into a crypt, and is recovered.

    0 Comments
    View all
  6. Background image for Encore
    7.9/10(231 votes)

    #6 - Encore

    S6:E2

    Kroll and Stevens run the Northeast Syndicate and the IMF must bring them down. In '37 the two of them killed a rival mobster, hid the body, and killed the witnesses, so the IMF needs to get Kroll to lead them to the remains. They grab Kroll, drug him up, and cosmetically alter him to look like he was in '37. Then they dump him on a Hollywood set and convince him through incredibly elaborate means he is in 1937 on the day of the murder and the rest of his life is a dream. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail, Kroll and ""Stevens"" reenact the murder at a cafe, which gives them the location so that Barney and Willy can find the real body in the real cafe's basement. The IMF fade away, leaving a reaging Kroll to confront his partner as he flees the 1937 New York set and wanders into an adjacent Old West street.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  7. Trending NowTRENDING NOW

    The 20 WORST Episodes of Mission: Impossible

    READ
  8. Background image for The Traitor
    7.8/10(332 votes)

    #7 - The Traitor

    S1:E27

    An American intelligence officer, Hughes, has defected to the enemy with the only copy of an encoded top-secret message. The IMF must get to him, get him out, discredit him, and recover the message before the enemy can get a cryptographer, Belson, to work on the message. Rollin takes Belson's place, and sets it up so that Ambassador Brazneck, in charge of Hughes, believes that Dan is going to buy the papers from someone in the embassy. Rollin-as-Belson works with Hughes to decode the message, then drugs him. Willy gets special agent Tina Mera, a contortionist and acrobat, into the embassy through a fake air duct. She uses a fake bed covering to make Hughes ""disappear"", then break into the vault and get the real message. With Hughes out, Briggs picks up the fake message from someone pretending to be Hughes, who has ""disappeared"" from the embassy. Tina returns, plants money on Hughes, and removes the fake disappearing bed cover. Brazneck believes Hughes has betrayed him and Hughes flees

    0 Comments
    View all
  9. Background image for Pilot
    7.7/10(725 votes)

    #8 - Pilot

    S1:E1

    IMF team leader Dan Briggs assembles his team for the first time. The mission: to recover two nuclear warheads belonging to General Rio Dominguez from a hotel vault in Santa Costa. Jim and Willy sneak safecracker Terry Targo into the vault, who figures out how to get out. The team then captures Dominguez but Targo's fingers are broken in the attempt. With no other alternative, Briggs has himself and Dominguez put into the vault, and Briggs threatens to enter a random combination if Alicio doesn't tell him the code. Dominguez breaks. With the bombs defused, Willy takes the warheads out of the vault. Briggs remains behind and uses the information Targo gathered earlier to get out during a fireworks distraction set off by Barney. Briggs and the rest of the team make a desperate race for safety and get onto a plane heading to safety seconds before the military can catch up to them.

    0 Comments
    View all
  10. Background image for Odds on Evil
    7.7/10(459 votes)

    #9 - Odds on Evil

    S1:E6

    Prince Iben Kostas plans to use his money to finance a war. Infiltrating his casino, the IMF team goes to work: IMFer Andre (pretending to be Cinammon's husband) breaks the bank at roulette thanks to a not-so-portable computer worn by Willie underneath his tux. Andre then loses the money to Rollin as another gambler. Kostas tries to get the money back by playing against Rollin and cheating by using marked cards and tinted contact lens. However, Rollin has a similar pair of lens and also deals bad hands to Kostas. Finally Kostas antes up the 1.5 million in war funds, thinking he can't lose. Rollins tricks him, and the team must make a desperate escape.

    0 Comments
    View all
  11. Background image for Invasion
    7.7/10(173 votes)

    #10 - Invasion

    S6:E9

    An earthquake damages the U.S.'s Distant Early Warning (DEW) system and a Defense Department advisor, Whitmore Channing, steals plans from the Air Force identifying the weak spots. Channing has hid the information for pick-up by an enemy agent the next day, and the IMF must get the name and flight # of the agent from Channing. The IMF evacuate Channing's city block and drug him unconscious after a fake electrical shock, then wake him up after adjusting the clocks to a day later. He believes the information has already been picked up, an idea ""proven"" by a faked IMF invasion of the European People's Republic. But then the EPR invaders arrest Channing and put him on trial. Channing reveals the location of the drop to prove his ""innocence"", and then the IMF let him covertly know the whole thing is a fake. Channing calls his contact and mentions his name - the IMF get it via a tapped line and arrest the man before he can recover Channing's info.

    0 Comments
    View all
  12. Background image for Break!
    7.7/10(188 votes)

    #11 - Break!

    S7:E1

    Syndicate man Dutch Krebbs controls a large gambling operation and an undercover IMF agent with a camera-watch disappeared, presumably with recorded evidence against Krebbs. The IMF must find the agent's body and the watch. Jim poses as a pool player (being helped by Barney) to attract Krebbs' attention - Krebbs plans to use Jim to rip off a rival racketeer's best shooter, but Jim's girlfriend Mimi (formerly Press' girlfriend, now working with the IMF for revenge) reveals he's cheating to Krebbs, who believes Jim can't lose. Meanwhile the IMF rob Press, Krebbs' lieutenant, twice and Press has to make up the loss - Barney promises he can get the money by betting against Jim but Jim wins - Krebbs is accused of cheating and believes Press sold him out and orders a hit. Willy, working in the mob, tells Press about the watch and Press goes after it to get the evidence to bring down Krebbs and the team recovers the watch and takes them into custody, and Mimi signs on with the IMF.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for Two Thousand
    7.7/10(197 votes)

    #12 - Two Thousand

    S7:E2

    Joseph Collins, a nuclear physicist, steals plutonium and is going to sell it to a unidentified foreign interest through a man named Haig. The IMF must identify Haig and locate the plutonium, so they feed Collins fake news story about military action in the Middle East, then arrest him for murder and show him film of Los Angeles under attack before knocking him out. When he wakes up, for Collins its the year 2000, he's been unconscious for 28 years, and the state exterminates anyone at the age of 65...which Collins will be in two days. Desperate, he escapes from his cell and finds a secret meeting of military heads who are ready to surrender beacuse of their lack of nuclear material - Collins obligingly gives them the location of his cache.

    0 Comments
    View all
  14. Background image for The Ransom
    7.6/10(439 votes)

    #13 - The Ransom

    S1:E8

    Mobster Frank Egan kidnaps the daughter of Dan's friend and uses her as a hostage to force Dan and the team to break out a key witness, Augie Gorman, against him. After several failed ploys, Barney manages to contaminate Gorman's water supply inside the hotel safehouse where the police are keeping him. The team has taken over the hospital room and use a rotating examination table to switch Gorman for IMF member Steve (who resembles him). At the exchange, Egan tries to double-cross Dan, but the IMF team leader has a trick or two of his own to make sure things go smoothly and Gorman gets what's coming to him.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Harry Harris
  15. Background image for The Frame
    7.6/10(384 votes)

    #14 - The Frame

    S1:E17

    Gangster Jack Wellman is moving syndicated crime into politics, killing off certain politicians and replacing them with men more sympathetic to the Syndicate. The team goes in as caterers. Cinnamon sneaks into Wellman's room, blows a hole in the wall, and inserts a fake safe. Meanwhile, Barney and Willy break into the real vault from the rear and steal the 4 million in profits that Wellman has tucked away, and which he is to split with his fellow mobsters at a dinner that night. They open the real vault and discover the money missing. Going upstairs, they find Cinnamon who claims to be Wellman's girlfriend, tells him she knew ""it"" wouldn't work, and reveals the fake safe. As Cinnamon and the rest of the team depart, the other mobsters tell Wellman to open the safe or they'll kill him, and don't believe his desperate pleas that he's never seen that safe before in his life.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for The Trial
    7.6/10(357 votes)

    #15 - The Trial

    S1:E18

    Josef Varsh plans to put an American on trial on false charges, discredit the West, and gain power. Rollin, disguised as Dan, meets with a woman who sold out her boyfriend/Western spy. Meanwhile, Briggs himself is with the Deputy Minister, a rival of Varsh's and a reformer. Rollin-as-Briggs leaves behind evidence implicating himself, and Varsh has the real Briggs arrested. Kudnov, who knows Dan is innocent, insists that Varsh let Briggs go, so Varsh orders him killed. The IMF team makes the Deputy Minister vanish - now they have to get the Deputy Minister and the girlfriend into court to testify and make Varsh look foolish.

    0 Comments
    View all
  17. Background image for Snowball in Hell
    7.6/10(339 votes)

    #16 - Snowball in Hell

    S1:E21

    A former prison guard, Sefra, has got hold of a supply of cesium 138, which explodes at temperatures above 70 degrees. Sefra plans to sell the sample and the formula from the closed-down prison base where he once worked. Rollin and Barney go in as a photographer and model respectively, and Sefra ""learns"" that Barney is a former prisoner returning for revenge. The team fakes a generator break down while Sefra beats Barney, and the cesium starts to heat up. Sefra has it taken to a nearby hospital refrigerator, where the IMF makes the switch. When Sefra discovers the missing jar, he forces Barney to show him the escape route which he supposedly used to escape. As Sefra makes his own escape, the IMF send the cesium sample toward him on a remote-controlled mini-tank, and it blows up, killing Sefra and making sure no one gets the formula or the sample.

    0 Comments
    View all
  18. Background image for Shock
    7.6/10(324 votes)

    #17 - Shock

    S1:E25

    Enemy operative Kiri has kidnapped U.S. envoy Carl Wilson and has an imposter, Gort, who is impersonating him to discredit a U.S. trade agreement. The team have to rescue Wilson and foil the impersonation before Kiri kills Wilson. Cinnamon impersonates Wilson's niece while Willy kidnaps Gort and Briggs-as-Wilson takes Gort's place, pretending to be Gort. The team put Gort in an asylum and give him electro-shock to scramble his memories, then claim he is is a delusional accountant. Under the threat of more electro-shock, Gort tells them the full details of his delusion: that he's to kill an American official and leave Wilson to take the blame. Barney and Willy replace the unconscious Wilson at the reception with a drugged Gort set to look like a suicide, then Briggs-as-Gort-as-Wilson takes a shot at the official. Briggs returns and reveals that "Wilson" is actually Gort, who was in Keri's employ.

    0 Comments
    View all
  19. Background image for The Innocent
    7.6/10(218 votes)

    #18 - The Innocent

    S5:E3

    In the Middle East Willy and Barney infiltrate a chemical plant to gain access to Dehominant-B, a quick-acting lethal gas. Barney is exposed to Dehominant-A while trying to get to the computer and crippled - Willy escapes and Barney is captured. Barney is interrogated and only has four hours to live. The team find out that Dr. Jerry Carlin, a dropout, is the only other person with the skills to access the computer. When Carlin rejects the team's appeal for help, Jim and Paris frame Carlin's girlfriend and threaten to keep her in jail unless he helps them. Dana provides a distract and Paris takes the head scientist Vazan's place and have Barney first fake a confession implicating the technicians and then his own death - they get Barney to the autopsy room where Doug revives him in the nick of time. Jim and Carlin take the incriminated technicians' place and Carlin manages to ruin the Dehominant and erase the computer, then everyone escapes with Vazan.

    0 Comments
    View all
  20. Background image for The Amateur
    7.6/10(217 votes)

    #19 - The Amateur

    S5:E9

    The team must steal a rocket laser and smuggle out Father Bernard and his list of Western operatives. Bernard puts the IMF in contact with Wittstock, who gets them the laser. Wittstock is killed after delivering the weapon and Police Colonel Eckert seals up the country to capture the IMF. Bernard dies of a stroke but gets the list, but nightclub owner Eric Schilling saw Dana with Wittstock and tries to take advantage of the situation to profit. When Barney splits the laser into five parts for the team to smuggle out of the country, Schilling gets hold of Dana's part and the team has to get the part from Schilling while escaping through the heavily-guarded airport. Paris in disguise buys the part from Schilling, leaving him to be captured by Eckert while Paris drops the disguise to escape, leaving the part to be recovered by the rest of the team. Then the IMF secretly blend in with an arriving broadcast crew from England just as the crew are told their visas have been revoked - the IMF

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Paul Krasny
    Writer:Ed Adamson
  21. Background image for The Tram
    7.6/10(178 votes)

    #20 - The Tram

    S6:E3

    Two underworld leaders, Hatcher and Thorne, have called a conference of Syndicate leaders to form a massive holding/laundering company. The IMF must obtain their joint Swiss bank account number. Jim gets in as a mobster and sabotages the tram that is the only way to the meeting. Willy slips in as a repairman and Casey lures down Thorne, whom they capture and then offer to return to Hatcher in exchange for the exact amount the mob leaders invested. He gets scammed into losing the money and Barney replaces the money in the safe with counterfeits. The IMF makes it look to Thorne like Hatcher kidnapped him then let him escape. When it is revealed the money is counterfeit Jim ""rescues"" him from being killed by the mobsters, then give Hatcher (with a weak heart) a fake heart attack as they escape down the tram. Hatcher gives Jim the bank account number and the team slips out of the tram with the $4 million while the weakened Hatcher remains behind - when he gets to the bottom he and Thorne k

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for Trapped
    7.6/10(170 votes)

    #21 - Trapped

    S6:E22

    An $8 million army payroll has been stolen from a base in SE Asia by the Stafford family, Syndicate drug smugglers. The IMF must recover the money. Jim and Barney steal a Stafford truck and then offer to sell it back to the family if they pay ""protection."" Jim meets with brother Doug to convince him brother Art has ordered a hit on Doug - however, Art has put a hit on Jim and he is ambushed and gets amnesia. Meanwhile, lounge-singer Casey meets with Doug and sets it up so he thinks Art is trying to kill him. Doug makes a deal with Barney for protection from his brother in return for $2 million and leads the IMF to the money - they arrest everyone and convince Art to tell them about his plan to kill Jim. Meanwhile Art's killers are on Jim's trail and when Barney gets hold of him, he manages to recover his memory just in time to thwart them.

    0 Comments
    View all
  23. Background image for Ultimatum
    7.6/10(171 votes)

    #22 - Ultimatum

    S7:E10

    The IMF has 16 hours to find a nuclear bomb placed by an extortionist, Dr. Cooper, in one of seven Pacific Coast cities and find Cooper's associates in charge of disarming the bomb. The IMF track Cooper to a cafe and fake a radio broadcast announcing his demands will be met - then Jim and Mimi break in as convicts and take Cooper and the others hostage. The IMF eventually ""let"" Cooper call his associate Rogers to disarm the bomb but Cooper's wife Adele kills Rogers when she fears the plan has gone awry. When Rogers' death is announced on the radio, a frustrated Cooper convinces Jim and Mimi to take him to the bomb (beneath City Hall) which he shuts off with seconds to spare - the IMF take him into custody.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Barry Crane
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for Kidnap
    7.6/10(165 votes)

    #23 - Kidnap

    S7:E11

    Crime boss Metzger determines that the IMF was responsible for the heist at the Aquarius Casino (from last season's episode ""Casino"") and kidnaps Jim when he and Barney are on vacation, forcing the IMF to work for him to recover evidence against him from a safe deposit box. The evidence, a letter, is being used as a bargaining chip by Metzger's former crony, Connally, to get Federal immunity for his testimony. Casey and Willy manage to steal both keys to the box and get the letter, except Metzger's subordinate Hawks steals the letter to blackmail his boss. Barney comes up with a fake letter and use it to get to Jim where the IMF takes everyone into custody.

    0 Comments
    View all
    Director:Peter Graves
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for The Question
    7.6/10(174 votes)

    #24 - The Question

    S7:E16

    Nicholas Varsi, an enemy assassin, has been captured but claims to be a defector who will reveal his mission to a government agency, the FIS...when he is guaranteed safe asylum. But the FIS may have been infiltrated by a deep-cover operative and Varsi may be selling fake information, so the IMF must verify if he really wants to defector. Jim and Willy break Varsi out and Jim claims to be an agent for Varsi's former government and demands to know why he is defecting. Varsi says nothing and shoots FIS agent Andrea (actually a guest IMF agent) with an empty gun. They let him and Andrea go - he'll turn Andrea back to the FIS if he's a true defector, but instead Varsi goes to a hotel to meet with his former superior, Colonel Kremmer, and the IMF must figure things out before Varsi and Andrea are both killed.

    0 Comments
    View all
  26. Background image for The Psychic
    7.5/10(321 votes)

    #25 - The Psychic

    S1:E28

    An investment promoter, Alex Lowell, gained control of manufacturer of NATO top-secret defense hardware and absconded to South America to sell them to an enemy powers. The IMF needs to recover the stock documents worth $80 mil. Cinnamon gets close to Lowell as a psychic who manages to prove herself accurate with her predictions thanks to IMF assistance. She then "predicts" that Rollin (as a gangster) will play against him, try to cheat, and lose. Lowell finds the fake cards that the IMF has planted. He goes through with the game, intending on cheating Rollin. He succeeds, but as Rollin is tossed out he secretly switches the stock documents with phonies thanks to a automated feeder arm, leaving Lowell with nothing but an unendorsed check for $80 milliion.

    0 Comments
    View all

Best Episodes Summary

"The Killer" is the best rated episode of "Mission: Impossible". It scored 8.3/10 based on 313 votes. Directed by Paul Krasny and written by Arthur Weiss, it aired on 9/19/1970. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Operation Rogosh".