As the world eagerly anticipates watching Tom Cruise & Co. risk death for our enjoyment with *takes deep breath* Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, here’s a breakdown of the five best scenes and sequences from the previous six films.

5. Davian Double (Mission: Impossible III)

There are bigger action set pieces throughout JJ Abrams’ entry in the franchise, but the best comes as Ethan and his team must steal the Rabbit’s Foot – an unspecific bad guy device that’s very bad – from Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). To do so, they have to not only sneak into the Vatican undetected, but double as Davian without anyone noticing. The plastic masks have been a staple of the Mission: Impossible franchise since the beginning, but they’re utilized to fantastic effect here, no doubt because of Hoffman’s series-best performance. Hoffman never lets you forget that you’re not just watching him but another man under his skin, trying to seem as normal as possible. The action set pieces almost always grab headlines when it comes to this franchise, with the plot arguably less important, but it’s the spy intrigue that holds it all together in Mission: Impossible III.

4. A Night at the Opera (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)

Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust has been an undeniable positive to the series since her introduction in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and the opera scene in Vienna is a perfect illustration of why. When the IMF team realizes a group of terrorists plans to assassinate a foreign dignitary, Ethan sets out to prevent the unthinkable. Since the good guys’ plan never goes off without a hiccup or two, it’s further complicated here when Faust shows up to pull the trigger. Cinematographer Robert Elswit uses the dynamic lighting of the opera house to make one of the best looking scenes of the franchise, and Christopher McQuarrie syncs up the action with Puccini’s “Turandot” as it’s unfolding on the stage. It all culminates in a nail-biter of a moment as Ethan has to decide how to utilize his one shot. McQuarrie has brought a great deal to the franchise since Rogue Nation, but he’s perhaps the best at creating character-based action and intrigue.

3. Breaking into Langley (Mission: Impossible)

Before I had ever seen Brian de Palma’s Mission: Impossible, I had known about the centerpiece heist sequence in Langley. Far too many movies, TV shows, commercials and more had paid homage to it in ways that the franchise hasn’t seen since. The setup: Ethan Hunt and his team must break into the impossibly secure, technologically advanced vault at the CIA headquarters to steal a copy of the “NOC List”, a database of every US covert operative around the world. What makes the sequence one of the best of the entire genre isn’t just the nuts-and-bolts of how Hunt pulls it off, but in how de Palma films it, ratcheting up the tension with every passing second. For a franchise defined by noise, the irony isn’t lost that its quietest sequence is arguably what drew people in from the beginning.

2. The Ending (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)

Look, half of the spots on this list could be populated with sequences from Fallout, as it took everything that came before it and doubled down on stunts, story, and spectacle. But Christopher McQaurrie’s, and Tom Cruise’s, finest moment comes in the final set piece in Fallout, as the IMF has to defuse two nuclear bombs in the remote mountains. The specifics are less important out of context, as Tom Cruise dangles from a helicopter, and later from a mountain cliff, while the clock ticks down closer to disaster. McQuarrie cuts between Cruise to Rebecca Ferguson and Simon Pegg as more and more difficulties are thrown in their faces. Cruise’s commitment to verisimilitude has never felt more dangerous, with each passing moment as he cheats death by performing the most insane stunts imaginable and making it look and feel flawlessly real.

1. The Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)

Where were you when you heard that Tom Cruise free-climbed the tallest building in the world? Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was an inflection point for the series, a renewed dedication to real-life stunts that’s led us to where we are today – not to mention the film’s naming conventions. It all comes to a head with what’s easily considered one of the most dangerous stunts ever attempted, when Cruise has to climb up 7 floors with only some semi-functional sticky gloves. That Bird films the sequence with a commitment to showing you that there’s no way it’s fake makes you appreciate its daring execution even more. And the scene is essentially the Mission: Impossible franchise boiled down to its pure essence: crazy action that only increases in danger, world-ending stakes, kooky gadgets, and dynamic filmmaking.