7. William Brandt (Jeremy Renner)
Out of everyone who’s been on Ethan Hunt’s team, there have only been two who I felt could match his tactical skills: Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and William Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner. His spy skills are so embedded into the core of who he is that when he was pretending to be an analyst, he instinctively ripped a gun out of Hunt’s hand and pointed it at him quicker than you could sneeze. Without him, Hunt would’ve been captured by the CIA when he was on the run in Rogue Nation and the entire fake meeting to intercept a nuclear launch control codebook would’ve failed in Ghost Protocol. Outside of Hunt, he’s the only person who can both play the bureaucracy game, explaining to the government why the IMF is essential when the need arises, and get his hands dirty by beating up terrorists. To put it plainly, William Brandt isn’t someone you can replace easily.
