Tom Cruise may be 62, yet he still insists on doing his own stunts, from climbing the tallest building in the world to driving motorcycles off cliffs. But in the upcoming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, hitting the 2025 movie release schedule on May 21, the action icon pulls out all the stops, this time with a high-stakes underwater sequence he’s been building toward for four decades. Naturally, he shared a behind-the-scenes look on social media, and it goes so hard, proving that the Minority Report performer isn’t just making movies, he’s making cinematic history.
In a new Instagram video post, Cruise revealed behind-the-scenes footage of himself prepping, suiting up, and diving into a deepwater tank to film one of The Final Reckoning’s biggest sequences. The post’s caption reads, “It’s all about preparation and communication.” In the clip, which you can watch below, he and director Christopher McQuarrie are shown mapping the dive beat-for-beat, using hand signals and rehearsing underwater maneuvers with precision.
The sequence aboard the submerged wreck of the Sevastopol, a Russian submarine hiding the core of the film’s main antagonist, The Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence. Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt must reach the AI’s housing, a glowing orb hidden in the depths, before it can be recovered and used against humanity. What’s teased in the BTS footage is far from a basic dive. Instead, fans are treated to a set piece involving falling debris, malfunctioning compartments, and torpedoes rattling loose, all while Hunt fights the clock and his oxygen levels.
The Jerry McGuire veteran star has long been obsessed with pushing action filmmaking to its limits, but this latest feat shows a level of ambition even by his standards. With the help of McQuarrie—his collaborator since Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation—the pair crafted what they call “an underwater sequence unlike any other.” The scope is massive, and the execution feels more like a real-world dive mission than a movie set. And unlike previous entries, there’s a rawness to the stunt work that reminds viewers why Cruise remains unmatched when it comes to the best action movie sequences.
It’s also a full-circle moment. In a previous Instagram post, Cruise captioned the work on the water sequences, referencing Legend (1985), one of his early fantasy films, where he first tackled complex underwater shots. The actor wrote:
From Legend in 1985 to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, I have been studying and filming underwater sequences for over 40 years. We have always tried to push our filmmaking to the next level, and in this movie McQ and I saw an opportunity to create an underwater sequence unlike any other. We are excited to share it with you.
Forty years later, the Top Gun star has built an entire franchise around escalating physicality. The eighth entry into the series of spy action thrillers might be his boldest leap yet, because he’s seen holding on to the wing of a biplane in the Final Reckoning trailers, but now we know that’s just the tip of things, as we are also getting a death-defying underwater sequence. If the rumors are true that this is Hunt’s final mission, the actor is making sure he goes out with something audiences haven’t seen before—and probably won’t see again.
With the film’s release just weeks away, the buzz around this underwater stunt is heating up. Whether or not The Final Reckoning marks the end of the line for Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise’s commitment to doing it for real reminds us why Mission: Impossible remains the gold standard for action movie franchises.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning releases in theaters on May 23, 2025.