Mission: Impossible - How To Become An IMF Agent, Explained

Warning: spoilers for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One are in play. If you haven’t been debriefed on Ethan Hunt’s latest caper, you’ve been warned. 

Good morning potential IMF recruits. No matter what time of day you find this article, it could be the dawn of a new era in your life. If you’re reading this, your interest has been piqued by the release of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One's release, and you want to know what it takes to become the next Ethan Hunt.

Well, I can neither confirm nor deny that I’m an IMF recruitment officer; but I can say this: I now know how to get into the Impossible Mission Force. Those of you that want to disavow the presence of spoilers for Tom Cruise’s latest mission have been warned, as we need to reveal some top-secret details to lay out the path of recruitment.

If you’re leaving, have a nice day, and forget you ever saw this; even though we’ll never forget we saw you. For all who remain, here’s how you too can become an agent on the front line of one of the best action movie franchises around.

The Impossible Mission Force, And How It Works

We learn in Mission: Impossible’s latest chapter that in America’s domestic intelligence community, the IMF or “Impossible Mission Force,” is kind of an open secret. Answering directly to the President, they are the men and women who do what no other above-the-books agency can do.

If a situation is impossible for the other folks to handle, they “leave word” with the IMF, who then assigns a team to carry out the mission at hand. These people are trained to be ghosts, and there’s a good reason why, as the first step to becoming an IMF agent is literally a criminal offense.

Step 1: Live A Life Of Highly Skilled Crime

Much like the world of James Bond movies, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One proves that the IMF favors a special type of person that can become a clandestine operative. In the case of new recruit Grace (Hayley Atwell), the fact that she’s a high-class thief from an orphaned background kind of makes her an analogue for 007 himself.

However, you don’t need to be orphaned at an early age to become an IMF agent, you just need to be a really good criminal. Grace’s record is stuffed with tons of raps she’s beaten, from pickpocketing to extortion. She’s clearly good at what she does, and it’s not long before her path crosses with Mission: Impossible hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), which leads us to the next step of any prospective IMF agent’s journey.

Step 2: Attract The Attention Of Your Nearest IMF Recruiter

Once you’ve gotten a formidable criminal record under your belt, that’s the sort of action that draws the attention of several interested parties. For your sake, it’d be best if the IMF is the first to get your number, and they’re bound to be on your trail if the price is right.

The skills of an expert hacker, thief, or whatever actions started Ethan Hunt's Mission Impossible story usually happen to be of service to those running the show at the Impossible Mission Force. Again, you’re going to be trained to be a ghost, and to take on the tasks the major leaguers can’t handle. So if you’re of a certain reputation, disappearing into service is the best retirement plan you could hope for.

Step 3: Wait To Be Offered 'The Choice.'

As we saw with Grace’s recruitment, there’s three choices that potential IMF agents see themselves backed into: prison, death, or “The Choice.” Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) dutifully acknowledge this as they help Ethan Hunt lure Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One’s new team member into the fold; as they were given that same choice.

As anyone with a Paramount+ subscription can see, there’s a downside to “The Choice” that comes up rather frequently. To accept this choice is to basically give up any semblance of life you had before that moment. You can try and build something afterwards, though as we saw with Ethan’s ex-wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan), that doesn’t exactly work for too long.

On one hand, personal attachment is seemingly a thing of the past outside of The Community. But on the other hand, the IMF is its own sort of family that’s intensely loyal, and you won’t have to worry about going to prison or dying…unless you fail a mission and/or become disavowed.

Step 4: Choose To Accept, And Light The Fuse

If you’re ready for a life of spying to be your sole existence, all you have to do is choose to accept once you’ve been given “The Choice.” We see Grace do just that in Mission: Impossible 7’s ending, as she tells Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) that she has accepted the choice offered by Ethan. The stage is now set for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two to show us Hayley Atwell’s character as a full fledged agent; and that’s just one of the many exciting cliffhangers that 2024 movie is set to resolve.

Should you have followed all of those steps above, congratulations: you’re now an IMF agent! Continue to await random dead drops with instructions that tend to self destruct five seconds after they’ve been delivered!

Your life is now on constantly on the edge, as you’ll be dealing with enemy governments, rogue agents, and potential foes resurfacing from your cryptic past. It’s all in service of “The Oath” that the Impossible Mission Force lives by:

While you don’t necessarily need to make any decisions about becoming a new IMF recruit at the moment, you can choose to accept Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. As the movie is now officially in theaters, you can uncover all of the latest twists, turns, and secrets this storied franchise has to offer.

Should you want to read some spoiler free thoughts on what to expect, our official Mission: Impossible 7 review is freely available to satisfy. Otherwise, this tutorial will self-destruct in five seconds…and don’t say I didn’t warn you.