4. Hanging off the side of an airplane (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)

Within four minutes of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation starting, Ethan Hunt was hanging onto the side of an airborne plane while gravity tries to rip the skin off his face. The best Mission: Impossible stunts usually elicit the same reactions: What?! Why? Seriously?! Before we get into how ridiculously insane this stunt is, what really endeared it to me was how I just assumed Cruise’s reckless mentality was about to be on display. This is the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, so we’ve already seen him dangle from a ceiling vent in Langley, climb Dead Horse Point, and scale the tallest building in the world, all because the mission called for it. So, as soon as he asked Benji if he could open the door on a moving plane, I didn’t just know he was going to climb that plane, I wanted him to.

Now, as far as ludicrous stunts go, this one is hard to top (but we will!). The man was 5,000 feet in the air, holding onto nothing but a plane door with his legs dangling. The continuous shot of the plane getting higher, with no camera cuts, is spectacular and deeply uncomfortable. And that always makes for an all-time stunt. The fact he did this stunt EIGHT times makes it even wilder.