James Bond vs Mission Impossible. Which spy movie series you prefer?

So we are only talking Daniel Craig's Bond, right? If not, by its never-ending filmography, Bond has a head start by double digits to MIs 5(?) films? Bond should win. Bond has the most electoral votes, I heard.

Bond can be play by multiple actors. Ethan hunt can only be Tom cruise and no one else.

James Bond has style, Mission Impossible has Tom Cruise. It's a hard choice but my vote goes to Tom.

They both got shitter.

I'm surprise this hasn't been a crossover movie yet at all!

Although I would have prefer Kingsman vs Bond type of film.

No sorry it's Bond, all day.😁😁

Bond, James Bond.

You're name gave you away lol.

Honestly the Tom Cruise MI movies have been rock-solid, with the exception of MI 2.

Loved the first one, second one was like "WOooooooo action, motorcycles, vroom vroom" then the third one is when you could start taking them a little serious again.

The thing I like about the MI movies is they have a good crew, they're almost like heist movies except espionage. Good acting, good humor, just enough tension and drama to make it serious, and really amazing action scenes.

Yeah, I like Daniel Craig a lot in his other movies, and I even like him as Bond....but Cruise is just really awesome, and has only gotten better with age.

In terms of modern Bond, Skyfall is better than any of them imo.

In the grand scheme, Bond movies are all over the place and less consistent. But, they do still exhibit a charm with all the tropes it helped popularize. Over the top villains, exotic location, ridiculous stunts, woman, music score, gadgets etc...

Mission Impossible is comparatively hollow. And if just want action great sequences better off watching Asian stuff.

Skyfall villain actually resemble Far cry villain.

@ghosts4ever: I mean, it was basically Bond that invented the trope of the madman "visionary". Namely Donald Pleasence as Blofeld which is one of the great character reveals in cinema. It's super ingrained now, that people don't even need to watch Bond or know the name to recognize the character design, but back then, sitting in a cinema, this would have been mindblowing.

Raoul Silva is also kind of a continuation of Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye, although better conceived imo.

As per TC's rules, James Bond. Can't stand Tom Cruise so Bond wins for me automatically.

MI1 took a giant steaming crap on the source material by killing off the entire team and making Jim Phelps the villain. It also took itself way too seriously for the quality of the material they were working with. It had some cool/memorable moments (along with some really dumb ones) but overall I thought it was just kind of "meh".

MI2 was the first US film where John Woo got to go 100% John Woo and it shows. It feels like an overcorrection from his earlier Hollywood films like Hard Target and Broken Arrow, where he was somewhat reigned in by the producers/studio. I really enjoyed this movie, but I will not even try to argue that it isn't an incredibly stupid movie. It's as dumb as they come, but the style over substance approach worked because he had a pretty awesome sense of style.

MI3 was the first film in the series where they actually started to seem like decent spy films, although of the "modern" MI films I'd say it's the least interesting one. PSH as the villain was cool but he was underutilized. The last three have been really solid, though. They are at a level of quality where honestly it doesn't even feel like it's the same series of films. It's very rare that a film series actually gets -better- in it's 4th, 5th, and 6th installments, especially when it's an action series. Most action series that go on for anywhere near that long just feel like they are beating a dead horse for ever-decreasing quality and returns (cough, Die Hard, cough).

Yeah, that's a good breakdown.

I liked MI 1 only because it was a bit subtler than the new ones, a bit more sleek. I wasn't familiar with the original Mission Impossible material, so I can't comment on killing off certain characters and so on.

MI 2 was, as you said, dumb. The action was good, but the same can be said for Michael Bay films...

And yeah, MI3 is where we entered the good times, and imo they've only gotten better. I don't buy many movies these days, but I definitely found MI3 to whatever number they're on good purchases as I watched them multiple times.

I don't mind the newer Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise, but... Tom Cruise.

I'm a bigger fan of the original series that the movies are based off of.

As far as James Bond goes, I'll be a purist for the Sean Connery ones.

So classic!

Yeah, it's definitely Bond for me. That stated, I really enjoy Cruise as Hunt in the MI movies, they're really good, too.

I think Bond is superior, however. For one, the villains are much more interesting.

@shellcase86: Yea. You Only Live Twice, story-wise, is all over the place. But the scale and production, especially the end set which is all real (though obviously not inside a volcano) is amazing.

Fav scene rooftop, wonderful.

Love me some Mission Impossible but gotta go with Bond. so many classic films and I basically grew up watching bond movies

I have very fond memories of Christmas day afternoon sat down in front of the TV with my family and a fat belly watching a Bond film. It was tradition.

Quiet sad really as all my Grandparents and Mum have passed away and there is no way my wife and daughter would sit down on Christmas day and watch a 3 hour spy film.

Bond, and it's not even close.

The style, the cars, the women, the villains, the supporting characters... it's Bond, James Bond.

MI is great, but not the icon Bond is.

Never really cared for James Bond...and I just love Tom as an actor.