Picking up from Dead Reckoning Part One, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt now holds the key to confronting the formidable AI known as the Entity, his most perilous adversary yet. The film propels the plot forward as Hunt must gather his team to locate the sunken Russian submarine containing the Entity’s source code, the key to its destruction.

Tom Cruise was last at Cannes in 2022, when the film festival gave him an honorary Palme d’Or and, in return, got one of the last bona fide Hollywood stars to grace their red carpet as he launched “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Just his arrival outside the premiere, beamed onto the screen in the Grand Théâtre Lumière drew a response. When Cruise stepped out his car, oohs and applause reverberated through the theater. Cruise spent several minutes signing autographs for fans lined up on the Croisette.