Tom Cruise collapsed on a biplane wing during a Mission: Impossible stunt, the director reveals at Cannes.

Tom Cruise‘s legendary appetite for danger nearly led to disaster while filming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the franchise’s eighth and final chapter. At 62, the Hollywood icon performed a mid-air stunt so extreme, his director says he lay lifeless on a biplane wing with no way to land.

Director Christopher McQuarrie stunned audiences at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday with his behind-the-scenes account of the sequence. During a dramatic aerial scene filmed over South Africa, Cruise attempted to walk between two wings of a flying biplane in a zero-gravity-style manoeuvre—an idea he himself had pitched.

Cruise, known for defying age and safety, insisted on performing the stunt despite warnings from professional wing-walkers. “It’s like two hours in the gym,” McQuarrie said, describing the sheer physical strain. “After 12 minutes, the body starts to break down.”

But Cruise wasn’t done. He gave the signal to keep filming—even after reaching that critical 12-minute threshold.

Then, disaster struck.

“There was a moment where Tom had pushed himself to the point that he was so physically exhausted, he couldn’t get back up off the wing,” McQuarrie revealed during an on-stage interview with Cruise. “He was lying on the wing of the plane, his arms hanging over the front. We couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not.”

Panic escalated when the pilot informed them there were just three minutes of fuel left. Landing with Cruise sprawled across the wing was out of the question.

In that heart-stopping moment, the Mission: Impossible team could do little but watch.

Miraculously, Cruise stirred. “We watched as he pulled himself up and stuck his head in the cockpit, so that he could replenish the oxygen in his body and then climb into the cockpit,” McQuarrie said. “No one on earth can do that but Tom.”

The crowd at Cannes erupted in astonishment and admiration, a testament to Cruise’s enduring status as cinema’s most fearless daredevil.

Cruise, who had just flown in on a whirlwind promotional tour across Japan, Korea, and London, remained unfazed by the ordeal. “I don’t mind encountering the unknown,” he told the audience. “It’s just an emotion for me, and it’s something that is not paralysing.”

McQuarrie, who has worked closely with Cruise on four Mission: Impossible films and the Jack Reacher series, praised his star’s relentless commitment. Yet, he also used the moment to reflect on the current state of the film industry.

He criticised Hollywood’s growing divide between art and entertainment, lamenting that streaming platforms were “cutting the audience off from the history of cinema.”

“People have never heard of The Best Years of Our Lives, or seen Cool Hand Luke,” he said. “Their cinematic history begins at Star Wars or Pirates of the Caribbean.”

McQuarrie’s point struck a chord in a year when traditional cinema is fighting to survive in a world dominated by algorithm-driven content.

But as Cruise continues to leap from planes, ride motorcycles off cliffs, and hang from trains—all for the sake of real, visceral spectacle—he offers a defiant reminder of what cinema can be at its most exhilarating.

And for now, even hanging unconscious from the wing of a biplane, Tom Cruise remains its ultimate showman.