CANNES, France — Getting a ticket to the most star-studded premiere at a prestigious French film festival might as well be an impossible mission. I still chose to accept it.
Even if you haven’t heard of the Cannes Film Festival, you’ve definitely seen the pictures. Its sprawling red carpet draws dramatic displays of fashion and celebrity each year. Lately it’s been the place to be to debut a buzzy film to famously lengthy standing ovations.
My task at hand: Get a ticket to the premiere of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning for its May 14 premiere. Yes, at the same hallowed theater that incited buzz for last year’s awards darlings (and conversation starters) like Anora and Emilia Perez. It might seem a little out of place for an action movie to screen here, but Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 both premiered on the Croisette in 2024. The goal is glamour, and a hefty helping of A-list star power is a crucial ingredient in that recipe.
First, I needed a ticket. Four days before the premiere, I signed onto the website at the exact moment seats opened — down to the second at 1 a.m. E.T. — and the movie had sold out faster than the Eras Tour. I was thwarted. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Ethan Hunt, the secret agent that Tom Cruise has played in the eight Mission: Impossible movies that I watched over the past two weeks to prepare, it’s that the most impossible missions make for the most compelling stories.
The author channeled Tom Cruise in 1996’s Mission: Impossible. (Paramount/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Chalk it up to dumb luck, brute force or convenient plot development, but relentlessly refreshing the ticketing page at least a thousand times — in the car, on the plane and, finally, at the crack of dawn in my hotel room — resulted in a miracle: I got a ticket. I was going to see Cruise, the president of movies and savior of the theatrical industry, flashing his ever-present sunglasses and zillion-dollar-at-the-box-office smile in person. I would be among the first people to clap through the credits of the (alleged) end of a decades-spanning franchise.
Phase one was complete.
Phase two: Get inside. Each Mission: Impossible movie includes a soirée scene in which Hunt infiltrates a high-society event to beat up a bunch of people and end up covered in blood. But the strict Cannes premiere doesn’t technically prohibit displays of bodily fluid as long as you’re in an evening gown, so Hunt would have been fine. “Naked” dresses and long trains were newly banned, though, but luckily for the Cannes event staff, I didn’t have room for any of that in my carry-on.
I wore the kind of dress that would pass at a fancy wedding but wouldn’t get you weird looks as a journalist technically working through the hours before the premiere, paired with the demure Croc heels I thought melted standing outside the rainy Met Gala. Some of my favorite looks belonged to the American college students that I met on the lawn a block away from the theater. They were relegated to that zone, attended by a security guard and tucked away under umbrellas, at 6 a.m. — more than 12 hours before the screening’s scheduled start time — for a chance at snagging an unclaimed seat. I never saw them again.
That made my walk into the theater even more dramatic. I had my ticket scanned no less than five times. The glamorous steps of the red carpet had a security guard manning both sides of almost every step leading to the entrance, ready to scold and eject anyone who dared take a selfie of the momentous walk. Toto’s “Africa” blared on the loudspeakers outside. I saw Andie McDowell.
I was in.
On to phase three: Watch the movie. But first — and this is crucial in every Mission: Impossible movie — I had to make sure I didn’t die. I couldn’t bring a water bottle into the theater, and there were no water fountains to be found. Descending the stairs to the ground floor in search of concessions would expend energy I couldn’t lose.
Cruise passed out filming Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. He was climbing onto the wing of a stunt biplane that he was also flying. I wasn’t about to disrespect him by fainting from something so unfilmable as dehydration. I went to the bathroom and stood at the sink, googling how to say “please don’t judge me” in French (s’il vous plaît ne me jugez pas). I cupped my hands and drank.
The aforementioned stunt that Tom Cruise passed out filming during Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. (Paramount Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection)
The older woman to my right, wearing an impossibly chic leopard-print dress, smiled and did the same. She said something in French I assume was approval. We both survived.
I hiked to the relegated upper balcony zone for the bourgeoisie, claiming a solo seat between the wall of a staircase and the aisle. Perfect for someone who needs elbow room to take notes for the story they’re writing. A young man who looked like a tall Timothée Chalamet muttered “so lonely” to his friends in a thick French accent, flicking his forearm toward me as he walked past.
Would Hunt have let jokes about his solitude thwart him on his mission? Certainly not. He probably would have made out with a hot thief and sped away from a fiery explosion on a motorcycle in front of that man for vengeance. I settled for taking really good notes.
Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II. (Paramount/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
While we waited for the film to start, the theater livestreamed the red carpet on the big screen, focusing on Cruise. We watched him sign dozens of autographs as his adoring fans, who had lined up in lawn chairs for hours before the screening to have a shot at waving notebooks, movie posters and drawings (and, in one instance, a dog) at him from behind a barricade for a few fleeting moments.
Tom Cruise signs autographs for fans before the screening of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. (Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images)
When Cruise appeared onscreen, the crowd in the theater went wild. An announcer shouted “Tom Cruise!” among a litany of French words, really indulging in the accent for the R. The whole theater stood in reverence as the cast took their seats in the orchestra. One middle-aged blond woman recorded ultra-zoomed footage of Cruise with the resolution typically seen only in Bigfoot videos for at least 10 minutes, then left the theater entirely as the movie began.
I can’t say much about it — it’s not in theaters until May 23 — but there’s nothing like watching a movie with people who have made a pilgrimage out of pure love for movies and their stars to sit in the dark with you for 2 hours and 45 minutes. It’s a religious experience.
At premieres, crowds are louder. They clap for the Paramount and Skydance logos in the opening credits. They holler when punches are thrown and death is defied. At Cannes, they don’t laugh much, but I assume that’s a French thing.
Something I didn’t expect was the double layer of subtitles for the film. The audio is in English with French subtitles, and below the big movie screen is a small second screen with English subtitles. I noticed they didn’t match up to the audio, though — they might have been translations of the French subtitles. Regardless, that setup taught me that the French term for “foosball” is babyfoot.
Having just done the equivalent of cramming for the exam the night before with the Mission: Impossible movies, I was intimately familiar with every reference made to past installments. I was shocked so many people in the audience weren’t — especially when a character from the original movie appeared in a crucial role. That sort of stunt in a Marvel movie would have had fans at my local Regal theater foaming at the mouth, but the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière was silent. Maybe I wasn’t surrounded by die-hard franchise fans. I think these people just love movies and Cruise. Regardless, phase four was complete.
Phase five: Clap and leave.
Cannes audiences give famously long standing ovations. Take 2024, for instance — Anora went on to win the festival’s top prize and Best Picture at the Oscars, earning a respectable seven-and-a-half-minute ovation. But that paled in comparison to that of Horizon, which went on for 11 minutes, moving star and director Kevin Costner to tears. That movie did so badly at the box office, its three planned sequels may never see the light of day.
In my experience, your palms really start hurting at the three-minute mark, but they sort of go numb after that. After the credits, the smiling faces of the cast are projected onscreen, and applause swells with adoration every time, peaking with Cruise. I started my timer at the first instance of clapping and turned it off when director Christopher McQuarrie started addressing the crowd at his seat with a microphone, effectively hushing the crowd. I counted seven and a half minutes. Other outlets have reported different times, but I know what I saw!
Hayley Atwell, Angela Bassett, Tramell Tillman, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie and Pom Klementieff on the Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning red carpet at Cannes. (Kristy Sparow/Getty Images)
“One of the things Tom and I do when we sit here in the audience is we listen to you. We’re listening to all of your reactions; we’re listening to every breath you’re taking,” McQuarrie said. “A couple of times you were very, very quiet. You kept us in suspense. But this response is why we do it. You are why we do it.”
He referred to Cruise as “my very own action figure … who was actually willing to do just about any crazy thing I could think of.” That yielded the most sincere laughter from the crowd that I’d heard all night, as well as a huge smile from Cruise, who might not have stopped beaming since landing in the south of France.
As people began to leave, I did what I knew Cruise himself would do: I went to the roof. Just kidding! I went to the balcony in the press room to watch people pour out of the theater. Celebrities, the ultra-rich and scrappy 20-somethings all had to spill through the same doors and back into the night — some walking to parties, others climbing into black SUVs. I walked a few blocks to McDonald’s.
Going to the theater is a communal, sacred experience, but the prestige and social norms of this glitzy French venue also made it a uniquely isolating one. I felt deeply emotional and connected to the crowd, but maybe it was all in my head, just like my feelings for the characters of Mission: Impossible.
Regardless, my mission was accomplished.
