Mission: Impossible (Seasons 1–7)

Mission: Impossible (1966) is the landmark CBS spy thriller created by Bruce Geller — stream all seasons online on iFILM. For seven seasons from 1966 to 1973, the Impossible Missions Force ran covert operations that the US government could never officially acknowledge. The series later returned for two more seasons on ABC in 1988–1990.

Peter Graves anchors most of the run as Jim Phelps, who receives his briefings on a recording that self-destructs within seconds. The ensemble changed across seasons — Leonard Nimoy and Martin Landau both cycled through as core members — but the format held: one impossible assignment per episode, solved through disguise, deception and split-second timing. Lalo Schifrin's theme, built on a five-four time signature, became one of the most imitated pieces of music in television history.

The show essentially invented the modern heist-and-impersonation thriller as a genre template, the one that Tom Cruise's film franchise has been remixing since 1996. Watch every season of Mission: Impossible online on iFILM.