Ethan Matthew Hunt (portrayed by actor Tom Cruise) is the central fictional character from the Mission: Impossible film series.

In the first movie, it was mentioned that his parents owned a farm in the state of Wisconsin, and that his father died of illness, after which time an uncle named Donald moved in to help with the farm. Both Hunt's mother and uncle were taken into police custody and charged with smuggling narcotics as part of a CIA strategy to flush Hunt out of hiding in Europe while he was suspected of treason. In the third film it was mentioned that both his parents were deceased.

Mission: Impossible

In Mission: Impossible, Hunt acts as the IMF point man for an established and experienced field team, led by veteran Jim Phelps, with whom he has a particularly close bond. While attempting to recover stolen files containing information on all IMF's field agents during a mission in Prague, the entire team, barring Ethan, is killed, leaving Ethan the only suspect as he learns that the mission was a set-up to expose a potential mole who had been selling secrets to a Czech arms dealer. With no other way to clear his name, Hunt decides to steal the genuine list himself, intending to demand that the genuine mole be present at the exchange. He sets up a rogue team of other disavowed agents, including computer expert Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), pilot Franz Krieger (Jean Reno), and Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart), the only other apparent survivor of the failed Prague mission, with the intention of stealing the list from CIA headquarters. Having recovered it, Ethan is shocked to learn that the true traitor is actually Jim Phelps himself, who was completely unhinged and had become disillusioned with his career after feeling that he had become irrelevant. Phelps faked his own death in order to frame Ethan and was working with Krieger and Claire to eliminate the other members of the team. Setting up a situation where Jim's continued survival - and hence his criminal activities - are exposed to the head of IMF, Ethan subsequently defeats and kills Jim and Krieger as they attempt to escape from the train where Ethan had arranged to make the exchange. At the conclusion of the film, Ethan meets briefly with Luther, who has become reinstated as an active agent, and contemplates resignation, but is later contacted by another agent asking if he wants another mission, thus taking over Jim's position.

Mission: Impossible II

In the second film in the series, Hunt is given the task of retrieving a deadly genetically engineered virus from a rogue IMF agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), attempting to infiltrate his inner circle through Ambrose's former girlfriend, Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), an accomplished thief. During their mission Hunt and Nordoff-Hall engage in an affair that complicates the mission, particularly when Nordoff-Hall is forced to infect herself with the virus in order to save Ethan; with Ethan having destroyed the only other traces of the virus, she was thus able to shield Ethan until he could escape. Subsequently racing against time - the virus is incurable twenty hours after infection, Ethan manages to acquire the cure and kill Ambrose.

Mission: Impossible III

In the third, Hunt, now a training officer for IMF, plans a quiet life with his fiancée Julia Mead (Michelle Monaghan), before he is called back into service to rescue a former student captured during a mission in Germany. He is forced to once again go rogue in an attempt to track down the ruthless arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who has contacts with an individual within IMF.

Other media

Aside from the three Mission: Impossible films, Ethan Hunt has appeared in other media such as comic books and video games such as the 2003 video game Mission: Impossible - Operation Surma.