Here’s the thing about Tom Cruise: we may never have another truly fearless actor like him again. The man hung from a biplane for real, after all, in his latest film Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. Oh, and not to make things more complicated, his parachute catches on fire once he drops from the plane and he has to quickly cut himself free and deploy a second chute. Well, he could’ve done the plane stunt, we well know, but surely he didn’t also set himself ablaze, right?
Wrong. Cruise did jump from a helicopter at 7,500 feet in Drakensberg, South Africa with a fuel-soaked main parachute that was rigged to be set on fire, according to The Hollywood Reporter, a death-defying stunt he performed a terrifying 16 times. Sheesh.
“What I’m going to do is I’m going to be deploying,” Cruise explained to crew members in a recent video that highlights the work that went into making the stunt work behind the scenes. “[And] if this is twisted while it’s burning, I’m going to be spinning and burning. I have to kick out of the twist and then ignite. I got 10 seconds.”
As a result, Guinness World Records has declared that Cruise set a record for “the most burning parachute jumps by an individual."
Most burning parachute jumps by an individual - 16??
— Guinness World Records (@GWR) June 5, 2025
Congratulations @TomCruise ? pic.twitter.com/AkHBtKFlrP
“Tom is no stranger to record breaking,” Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, said. “Over his impressively long and consistent career, he’s proved himself to be the most powerful actor in Hollywood and the most bankable star, and he’s still the actor with the most consecutive $100 million movies on their resume and the most successful leading action hero at the worldwide box office.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning joined Sinners in passing the $350 million mark over the weekend. Cruise’s eighth Mission: Impossible film is now up to $353.818 million globally, with positive word of mouth helping fuel a 33% drop from opening weekend. IGN's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning review returned a 6/10. We said: "The action thrills, but the soapy tone keeps greatness just out of reach for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning."
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
