Ethan Hunt

Ethan Hunt
Mission: Impossible character
Hunt, as portrayed by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 3
First appearance	Mission: Impossible
Portrayed by	Tom Cruise
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	IMF Agent (1988-present)
Spouse(s)	Julia "Jules" Meade Hunt
Relatives	Margaret Hunt (mother) Donald Hunt (uncle)

Ethan Matthew Hunt is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mission: Impossible film series. He is portrayed by Tom Cruise.

In the first film, Hunt acts as the IMF point man for an experienced field team, led by veteran Jim Phelps, with whom he is closely bonded. While attempting to recover stolen files containing information on all IMF's field agents during a mission in Prague, the entire team, barring Hunt, is supposedly killed and the files are stolen, leaving Hunt the only suspect as he learns that the mission was a set-up to expose a mole who had been selling secrets to a Czech arms dealer. Hunt decides to steal the genuine list himself, demanding 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), Jim's wife and the only other apparent survivor of the mission. After recovering the list, Hunt 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 Hunt and was working with Krieger and Claire to eliminate the team's other members. Setting up a situation where Jim's continued survival and his criminal activity is exposed to the head of IMF, Hunt kills Jim and Krieger as they attempt to escape from the train where Hunt had arranged to make the exchange, with Claire being killed in the crossfire. At the conclusion of the film, Hunt meets briefly with Stickell and is taking over Jim's position.

The second film in the series was directed by action filmmaker John Woo in 2000. In the film, Hunt is tasked with retrieving a deadly genetically engineered virus, known as "Chimera", from a rogue IMF agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), who intends to release the virus after acquiring a controlling influence on the company that created it so that he can profit from sales of the cure. Hunt attempts to infiltrate Ambrose's 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. At the climax, Nordoff-Hall is forced to infect herself with the last virus in order to save Hunt; with Hunt having destroyed the only other traces of the virus, she was thus able to shield Hunt until he could escape. Subsequently racing against time—the virus is incurable twenty hours after infection—Hunt manages to acquire the cure and kill Ambrose in Melbourne.