9. Julia Meade-Hunt (Michelle Monaghan)

You can’t possibly think you can replace the only woman to ever make globe-trotting, death-defying secret agent Ethan Hunt settle down for even a second. Julia’s irresistible appeal had a man known for jumping off motorcycles and escaping car explosions helping with a dinner party like a suburban dad with a license to kill. Depending on how you view Ilsa Faust, Julia is arguably the most important woman in Hunt’s life, and thus the most important woman in this male-dominated action film franchise. She’s Hunt’s emotional weak point, one that Owen Davian presses on to bring him out of hiding in Mission: Impossible III, the only person Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) goes out of his way to train to be a spy, and one of the main reasons the water supply of a third of the world’s population wasn’t poisoned in Fallout. Beyond that, Michelle Monaghan plays her with a grounded realism that makes her the most relatable character in a movie franchise full of people meant to be extraordinary in the best and worst ways. Without Monaghan’s performance as Julia Meade-Hunt, Ethan Hunt would be nothing more than a means to an end for the audience. With her, he’s a fully formed man with stakes beyond the mission he chose to accept.