The eighth and (presumably) final installment of Tom Cruise’s excellent Mission: Impossible series comes to theaters next week, capping off a 30-year run of breathtaking action, shrewd spycraft, and rubber face masks.

Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning will find a now 62-year-old Cruise still hanging off of airplanes and running faster than Usain Bolt. For three decades, he has defied time and the limitations of the human body to bring big-screen entertainment to the masses — he’s the lead ambassador of Movie Magic.

To celebrate this culminating chapter of one of Hollywood’s greatest franchises, I first thought about doing a simple countdown of the films in order of my preference. That’s a very popular activity on Film Twitter these days, and I do have my own list handy.

But then I thought that would be a bit unimaginative as a tribute to a series this clever. So instead I’ve come up with a handful of categories that apply to each of the Mission: Impossible installments, and I’ll rank the seven films in those categories instead.

Appropriately, I will start with OPENINGS.

Every Mission: Impossible movie has a cold open that culminates with a hard cut to the opening credits set to that classic theme song (embedded below). Here’s how I rank them:

#7. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One – Submarine explosion, desert shootout, and intelligence meeting

At 28 minutes, this opening is more than double the length of any other film’s setup. It starts with a tense submarine encounter, cuts to Ethan Hunt and Ilsa Faust shooting bad guys in the desert (and her apparently dying), then ends with a long exposition scene between intelligence officials and two mask reveals by Ethan. The submarine explosion is effective, but this is just too much to get through for the opening credits to have the desired impact.

#6. Mission: Impossible II – Plane crash and rock climbing

Almost all of the opening sequences feature the IMF executing a mission. This one swerves, having the bad guy use his own talent for subterfuge to take down a plane while wearing an Ethan Hunt mask. It then smash cuts to Ethan rock climbing, receiving his mission from a pair of sunglasses, and tossing those glasses at the screen as they self-destruct. Like the whole movie, the opening feels out of step with the rest of the series, but the exploding sunglass cut is pretty cool.

#5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Prison break

Ethan breaks out of a Russian prison with the help of Benji, Luther, and Jane Carter (Paula Patton, in her only M:I appearance). This opening has some great comic moments and establishes director Brad Bird’s action chops out of the gate.

#4. Mission: Impossible – Ethan and team finish a mission in Kyiv

A target is duped into thinking he has murdered a woman and interrogated by a local official (Ethan in a mask) to give up a name. This opening doesn’t tie into the rest of the plot, but it gives us a great introduction to the techniques of the IMF. It’s an interesting choice to show the scheme mostly from the perspective of a behind-the-scenes agent, letting the audience in on it right out of the gate.

#3. Mission: Impossible III – Owen Davian shoots Ethan’s fiancée in front of him

This is the only M:I opener to serve as a cliffhanger. After this tense exchange, which seems to end with the murder of Julia, the movie jumps back in time. This is a trick director J.J. Abrams pulled more than a few times on Alias and he does it well in his feature directorial debut. Both Hoffman and Cruise give exceptional performances in this scene — it might be the best acting Cruise does in the whole series, which is saying something.

#2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout – Wolf Blitzer reports on nuclear detonations

In a nod to the first film’s opener, this one has the IMF team dupe a terrorist on a soundstage into thinking a nuclear attack has taken place — by having Benji report it on a fake CNN while wearing a Wolf Blitzer mask. This time, the film doesn’t let the audience in on the trick, making the reveal that much more satisfying.

#1. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation – Hanging off a plane

The only M:I film to open with its most spectacular stunt, Rogue Nation finds the IMF team trying to access a payload on a cargo plane without success. Then Ethan comes sprinting into the frame, leaps onto the plane’s wing, and hangs from a side panel until Benji can get the door open. It’s thrilling and funny, and brilliantly delivers the big “trailer moment” in the movie’s first five minutes.