Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a 2011 American action spy film directed by Brad Bird (in his live-action debut) and produced by and starring Tom Cruise from a screenplay by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec. It is the sequel to Mission: Impossible III (2006) and is the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. It also stars Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Paula Patton. In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) are shut down after being publicly implicated in a bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team to go without resources or backup in the life-threatening effort to clear their names.