Mission: Impossible 8 Breaks Box Office Record 25 Years After Tom Cruise Scored Best Memorial Day Ever

Audiences chose to accept their final Mission over Memorial Day weekend. Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — the eighth and final installment in the Tom Cruise-fronted franchise — opened opposite Disney’s live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch for the combined biggest Memorial Day weekend box office haul in history. Stitch took the No. 1 spot over M:I 8 with $192.7 million domestically and $168.6 million internationally for a global cume of $361.3 million globally, with The Final Reckoning grossing a series-best $79 million stateside and another $112 million overseas for a starting haul of $191 million at the worldwide box office.

The Final Reckoning comes exactly 25 years after Mission: Impossible II — the John Woo-directed second outing for Cruise’s IMF Agent Ethan Hunt — led the best Memorial Day weekend ever at the time when it opened in May 2000. (That film’s 4-day $71.8 million, 6-day $92.8 million boosted the total Memorial Day box office to an all-time high, with the animated Dinosaur, Shanghai Noon, Gladiator, and Road Trip all contributing to the then-record $174.7 million Memorial Day.)

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Cruise would later score his biggest theatrical opening to date when Top Gun: Maverick flew into theaters over Memorial Day weekend in 2022, jetting to a record $160.5 million domestically over the four-day holiday. The Top Gun sequel was Memorial Day’s biggest opener of all time until Lilo & Stitch, which blew previous record holders like 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($139.8 million), 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($126.9 million), and 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand ($122.8 million) out of the water.

With a total $326 million, Memorial Day 2025 outperformed the combined $306 million led by new releases Fast & Furious 6 ($117 million) and The Hangover Part III ($50 million) way back in 2013. (Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Great Gatsby, and The Croods are among the titles that contributed to the overall revenue.)

Final Reckoning‘s $79 million marks the 17th-biggest Memorial Day opener and the best for the nearly 30-year-old franchise, surpassing Mission: Impossible II (the 19th biggest at $71.8 million). The original Mission: Impossible, released on May 22, 1996, is ranked 26th with $56.8 million.

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Starring Cruise alongside franchise veterans Ving Rhames (Luther) and Simon Pegg (Benji), as well as Dead Reckoning newcomers Hayley Atwell (Grace), Pom Klementieff (Paris), Esai Morales (Gabriel), Shea Whigham (Briggs), and Greg Tarzan Davis (Degas), The Final Reckoning now holds the biggest opening of the Mission: Impossible series.

2018’s Fallout previously held the record for best opening ($61.2 million), followed by 2000’s M:I 2, 2015’s Rogue Nation ($55.5m), 2023’s Dead Reckoning ($54.6m) — it opened in the shadow of Oppenheimer and Barbie — 2006’s Mission: Impossible III ($47.7m), 1996’s Mission: Impossible ($45.4m), and 2011’s Ghost Protocol ($12.7m), which opened in limited release before going on to finish as the second highest-grossing entry in the franchise with $694.7 million. Fallout, pitting Cruise against a mustachioed Henry Cavill as the villain, remains the highest-grossing installment at $786.6 million.

Mission: Impossible 8 — also featuring Mariela Garriga, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, with Angela Bassett and Henry Czerny, returning to his role as Kittridge — is now playing only in theaters.