Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Chasing the Key

The race for the key opens in the sand. Ethan Hunt travels to the Rub al-Khali — the Empty Quarter — and retrieves one piece of the key from the disavowed MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, faking her death to shield her from a bounty. The desert covers most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula, spread across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, its dunes rising to 250 metres. The production shot its desert footage in the Emirates, on the desert that gives the scene its name.

Location precision: The desert scenes were filmed in the Emirates' share of the Empty Quarter; the pin marks the Rub' al Khali as a whole, not the patch of sand filmed.

Ethan Hunt, Benji Dunn and Luther Stickell fly to Abu Dhabi International Airport to intercept the second piece of the key, only to find it is a fake. In the terminal Ethan meets Grace, the thief who has stolen the first piece from him. The production filmed a scene at the airport's new terminal before it opened; renamed Zayed International Airport in 2024, it now runs every flight through Terminal A. It is the primary international airport of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

Visitor guidance: All flights now use Terminal A, the terminal seen in the film before it opened.

Grace is picked up by the police in Rome, and Ethan frees her from custody, setting off a chase through the streets. Its signature image is the Spanish Steps, the 135-step stairway between Piazza di Spagna and the Trinità dei Monti church, which the film turns into a car chase. The end credits admit that a replica on a studio backlot was used for the driving. The steps themselves are public and free to climb, and the film held its world premiere on them on 19 June 2023.

Visitor guidance: A public stairway in central Rome, free to climb between Piazza di Spagna and the church above.

Venice is where the film's cruellest turn lands. Ethan and Ilsa follow Grace to the city and slip into a party at the Doge's Palace held by the arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, with Gabriel among the guests. Gabriel kills Ilsa there, devastating Ethan. The palace is one of Venice's great Venetian Gothic landmarks, first built in 810 and rebuilt in 1340; it has housed a museum since 1923 and has been joined to the old prison by the Bridge of Sighs since the 16th century. Visitors can walk its halls and the bridge today.

Visitor guidance: The palace works as a museum; the Bridge of Sighs connects it to the former prison.

The film's most famous stunt was shot in western Norway. Ethan rides a motorcycle off the cliff edge above Hellesylt, dismounting in mid-air, and parachutes onto a moving train. Hellesylt is a small village in Stranda Municipality, in Møre og Romsdal county, sitting at the head of the Sunnylvsfjorden; a ferry connects it to nearby Geiranger. Filming took place in Stranda Municipality in September 2020.

Location precision: The film doesn't name the cliff; the pin marks Hellesylt, the village beneath the drop used for the jump.

Visitor guidance: A ferry links Hellesylt to Geiranger on the Sunnylvsfjorden.

A train runs through the Alps with the completed key aboard the Orient Express, and the production shot the sequence on a heritage line in England. Filming began on 20 April 2021 at Levisham, a village inside the North York Moors National Park whose station lies on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The runaway train heading for a blown bridge is a nod to the wreck in the silent film The General. The railway is a heritage line through the moors, and heritage trains still call at Levisham station.

Visitor guidance: A heritage railway through the national park; its trains stop at Levisham station.

The finale is a wreck. Gabriel detonates a bridge ahead of the train, and the locomotive and carriages go over. The production built a set in a disused quarry near Stoney Middleton, a village in the Derbyshire Dales in the White Peak area of the Peak District, and in August 2021 filmed a locomotive crashing into the quarry. On screen, Ethan and Grace climb through the carriages as they fall. The quarry set is long gone; the village and its valley remain.

Location precision: The crash was filmed on a set in a disused quarry near Stoney Middleton; the pin marks the village.