It’s spy versus spy as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) faces off against an international network of rogue operatives known only as The Syndicate, a near-mythical organisation so clandestine that no one has been able to prove they even exist. When an escalating series of terrorist attacks threaten the existing world order, Hunt and his crack IMF team must set out to bring down The Syndicate by any means necessary – before their equally-skilled adversaries destroy them first.

Sound impossible? Just another day at the office...

If you take away Tom Cruise, the theme song, the masks and the stunts, the films in the Mission: Impossible series could not be more different. But the one major constant across the five films in the series has been its penchant for edge-of-your-seat thrills generated by the ‘impossible’ scenarios our heroes inevitably find themselves in.

Cruise in particular seems hell-bent on topping himself with each outing by performing stunts more death-defying than the last. This time around, Cruise hangs onto the side of a plane as it takes off and (as if that wasn’t enough) also holds his breath for over six minutes in a riveting underwater scene shot in a single take. Now that’s devotion to his craft.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and returning cast members Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames crank the intensity up to 11, making Rogue Nation a globe-trotting, spectacular thrill ride so adrenaline-fuelled that you’ll wish the canteen sold sedatives to go with your popcorn.

Marathon Man is a critically acclaimed thriller involving our hero, a PhD student and long distance runner (Hoffman), a Nazi war criminal (classic British actor Sir Laurence Olivier) and a conspiracy involving the diamond trade.

There are complex twists and turns in a tense rollercoaster of a suspense film. Roy Scheider and William Devane flesh out a stellar cast, with Marthe Keller playing Elsa, Hoffman’s girlfriend, who may not be all she claims to be.

William Goldman completed his bestselling novel in 1974. He then adapted it for the screen. Directed by successful John Schlesinger and released in 1976, the movie did well at the box office. Olivier, in particular, was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the chilling villain with extreme dentistry skills put to scarifying use in the film.

A likely-apocryphal story from the production of the film supposedly involves Hoffman telling Olivier that to play a character who was to have been awake for three days, Hoffman had indeed stayed up for three days beforehand. Olivier then said to him, “Why don’t you try acting?”

Either way you look at it, Marathon Man is a skillfully crafted thriller, and a film worthy of a night out at the Film Group to be seen once again on the big screen.