How to visit the spectacular filming locations of Mission: Impossible

Telegraph

21-05-2025

From Tom Cruise leaping between Shanghai skyscrapers using a makeshift swing in Mission: Impossible III, to a daredevil sequence in 2011's Ghost Protocol, in which a diminutive Cruise scales the world's tallest building in strong winds with a malfunctioning suction glove, and the memorable opening of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), which finds our favourite field agent clinging to the outside of a military cargo aircraft as it ascends, it's a surprise Cruise has made it through three decades of filming the thriller franchise in one piece.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is out on Wednesday and is (the producers claim) the concluding instalment of the eight-film series, which began life as a 1960s television show starring a square-jawed Peter Graves as agent Jim Phelps. The Final Reckoning sees Cruise capering around London (he was spotted filming at Westminster Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, on the London Underground and at the Natural History Museum in spring 2024), performing biplane stunts over the South African coast and navigating the wreckage of a sunken submarine off the coast of Svalbard, a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean (brrrr).
The franchise's globetrotting settings are, of course, as much of a draw as the improbable action sequences and have spawned myriad city tours and dubious stag party excursions. Here are a few of our favourites, and how to plan your own adventure there.
Prague, Czechia
One of the most famous Mission: Impossible locations (known as M:I to true buffs), Prague is the star of the first half of the first Mission: Impossible, which stars Jon Voight as Jim Phelps and Kristin Scott Thomas as field agent Sarah Davies.
The scenes where the team infiltrates the US embassy to stop rogue agent Alexander Golitsyn from stealing a list of undercover CIA agents were filmed at Liechtenstein Palace on Prague's Kampa Island (tourists can visit the palace on guided open house days in June and July), and the embassy interior scenes were filmed at Prague's National Museum (standard entry £10.13).
The initial Prague safe house of our secretive espionage team is located on Platnéřská Street, a charming cobblestone street where sightseeing boats dock today.
Ethan meets Impossible Missions Force (IMF) director Eugene Kittridge in the Akvarium restaurant in Prague's Old Town Square (it doesn't exist, as it was built for the film – though a similar atmosphere is to be found in the old-time Restaurace Mincovna, famed for its beef goulash and apple strudel). Jim Phelps appears to fall to his death from the Charles Bridge into the Vltava.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), the fourth in the film franchise, features the iconic scene of Ethan Hunt improbably climbing the glass façade of the Burj Khalifa (in an altercation with Sabine Moreau, played by French actress Léa Seydoux, an assassin working for villain Kurt Hendricks). In the plot, Ethan has gone rogue to clear the name of the IMF after it is framed for bombing the Kremlin.
Still the world's tallest building (at 2,722ft), Burj Khalifa was opened the year before the film's release and is now a major tourist attraction in the emirate, with 900 residential units, an Armani-branded hotel (doubles from £350 a night), a 124th-floor observation deck (general entry from around £41) and At.Mosphere, the world's highest restaurant from ground level, located on the 122nd floor and known for its cold seafood towers and lychee and jasmine-infused 'cocktails in the clouds'.
Vienna, Austria
The Austrian capital gets a star turn in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), the fifth film in the franchise, in which Ethan and his team face down a shadowy organisation called The Syndicate that seeks (cue: evil guffawing) to cause global chaos and dismantle the IMF. In a dramatic set piece, Ethan and Benji (Simon Pegg) try to frustrate The Syndicate's attempts to assassinate the Austrian chancellor during a performance of Turandot at Vienna's State Opera House (Wiener Staatsoper).
Visit the Neo-Renaissance-style Wiener Staatsoper, with its grand staircase of polished Kaiserstein marble, on a 40-minute behind-the-scenes tour (£12), or book a seat at an opera or ballet from around £30. Climb the south tower of the Gothic St Stephen's Cathedral, which also features in Rogue Nation, for views across Vienna (£5.47).
Paris, France
We catch a glimpse of the Tour Eiffel in Rogue Nation, when Hunt is hiding out in a room in the centre of the French capital. However, it's in the sixth instalment, 2018's Mission: Impossible – Fallout, that we see Paris in its spring and summer bloom. Ethan and August Walker (Henry Cavill) parachute on to the glass roof of the Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysées during a party hosted by the White Widow.
The west wing of the Grand Palais is home to the the Palais de la Découverte (Science Museum), with tickets from £23.19; and the Galeries Nationales, which has exhibitions of the French pastoralist Jean-François Millet and the Mexican artist José María Velasco for summer 2025.
A thrilling motorcycle chase sees Ethan going the wrong way around the busy roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe, which isn't recommended (though you can visit the monument's interior rooms for £18.50), and there's a speedboat chase through the vaulted underground canals of the Canal Saint-Martin (Canauxrama's canal boat tours travel through underground areas of the canal from £19pp). The Trocadéro region, Tuileries Garden and the Palais-Royal gardens also feature.
Norway
In 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the pristine snowy landscapes of Hellesylt in Norway stand in for the Austrian Alps. The climactic action takes place on the Rauma Railway, with Cruise parachuting on to the roof of the speeding train, fist-fighting on the roof (predictably) with baddie Gabriel, and escaping as the train plunges into a ravine after Gabriel detonates the rails.
Less dramatically, you can travel the scenic 71-mile-long route from Andalsnes on the Norwegian coast to the village of Dombås in the mountains in an hour and 40 minutes, for around £20. Stop off at the Kylling Bridge. Popular for its views of Vermafossen waterfall, the bridge is destroyed in Dead Reckoning Part One 's (happily, fictional) dramatic train wreck. Svalbard archipelago features in the latest film.
United Kingdom
London features prominently in the M:I films, notably in Hunt's sprint around St Paul's Cathedral and its rooftop, through Paternoster Square and the City of London and across Blackfriars Bridge in Fallout, the sixth film in the series, and in the latest movie, which was filmed on location in London and in Bicester, north Oxfordshire.
Elsewhere the UK is the great pretender: Birmingham New Street railway station stands in for Abu Dhabi International Airport in Dead Reckoning Part One; Darlton Quarry in Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire, features in the 'Austrian' rail crash scene in the same film; and Levisham station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway also features in Dead Reckoning 's railway scenes. Trips on the heritage line, which runs between Pickering and Whitby from March to November, cost from £15.
Rome
In 2006's Mission: Impossible III, agent Ethan Hunt and his team infiltrate the Vatican City by staging a traffic jam along the Viale Vaticano and climbing the city walls. It's unlikely that the newly anointed Leo XIV would appreciate that, but unusual tours of the papal Rome include the Passetto di Borgo, a trip along a secret passage connecting the Vatican City to Castel Sant'Angelo from £13.
The atmospheric central Roman streets Via dei Funari, Via Nazionale, Via di S Maria Maggiore and Via dei Serpenti feature again in a chase scene in Dead Reckoning Part One, in which Ethan Hunt and Grace (Hayley Atwell) try to evade capture by several combatants while handcuffed together in a small yellow Fiat 500.
Venice
The city of canals also steals the scene in Dead Reckoning Part One. The IMF team's initial base in Venice is established at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music (where student shows can be attended for free); Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) dies during a sword fight on the handsome cast-iron bridge the Ponte dei Conzafelzi; and Ethan and his team infiltrate a lavish, candle-lit party hosted by the arms dealer and White Widow Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) inside the Doge's Palace (tours from £21).
After Ilsa's death, Ethan grieves on the panoramic terrace of the 15th-century palazzo hotel Gritti Palace, where rooms start at a starry £1,355 per night.