Tom Cruise is well used to putting his life on the line for our entertainment, and for this, we are truly thankful. But come on man, this is getting too close for comfort! The world’s last true movie star with the heart and soul of Evel Knievel is at it again, taking to social media to post some genuinely bonkers footage of him hanging upside down from a biplane. Read this again. He is hanging upside down from a biplane, being watched by his director, writer, producer, and friend, Christopher McQuarrie who is… quite happy to see this whole thing being recorded on a cellphone.

The biplane stunt is, we assume, the big set piece of Mission: Impossble – The Final Reckoning although it could be that they’ve done something even more batsh*t and just not shown us yet, which we cannot truly rule out. Of course, Cruise is renowned for performing his own stunts in the Mission: Impossible series, consistently either pushing the boundaries of cinema or flying closer to the sun than Icarus. Among his more noteworthy feats is scaling the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, in Ghost Protocol. In Rogue Nation (2015), he clung to the side of an Airbus A400M during takeoff, and in Fallout (2018), Cruise performed a HALO jump from 25,000 feet. Easy. Oh, and in Dead Reckoning (2023), he rode a motorbike off a cliff.

Tom Cruise Lost Consciousness While Flying a Plane

Hang on… pic.twitter.com/aA5pC1YdfY

— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) February 7, 2025

A few days ago, Empire Magazine published an interview with Cruise as part of a feature on the movie, in which he explained that he had to train himself to breathe when in the biplane and would lose consciousness:

“When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen. So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”

McQuarrie added that he would just sit in awe of Cruise‘s commitment as he watched his leading man go out again, and again, just to try and deliver something new for the audience.

“There are stunts in this movie that will melt your brain,” McQuarrie said, before adding: “There would be a day in Africa – any day in Africa – where Tom would go out and do something that topped anything he had ever done before.”

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hits theaters in May 2025. The previous Mission: Impossible films are streaming now on Paramount+.

via Collider