Actor Tom Cruise has recounted how a death-defying mid-air battle on a biplane in the last Mission: Impossible film separated the joints in his fingers and nearly broke his back.

The actor – who is renowned for performing his own stunts, no matter how dramatic or dangerous – reprised his role as field agent Ethan Hunt in 2025’s Mission: Impossible ­– The Final Reckoning, fighting to stop a rogue artificial intelligence called the Entity.

The pivotal biplane scene occurs when Hunt is engaged in a high-stakes fight with the villain Gabriel, played by Esai Morales.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly coinciding with The Final Reckoning’s digital release, Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie describe in vivid detail the filming of the stunt, which was shot in Africa.

The pair said it required “great flying and great helicopter operating”, with McQuarrie directing from the chopper.

“That almost broke my back,” Cruise said, as he and McQuarrie commentated on the unfolding action.

“It’s so punishing on this wing… this is all real, guys… I was like, I need my whole body going. I have to somehow fly to him to hit him.”

McQuarrie said the force of holding onto a seatbelt and dangling from it as the plane flew upside down separated the joints in Cruise’s fingers.

“It was so painful to watch,” he added, describing how the actor’s hands were badly swollen by the end of the sequence.

“Oh god, that was brutal,” Cruise said.

Tom Cruise in action during the biplane battle. Photo: Paramount Pictures

The Final Reckoning is the eighth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, and is also said to be the last. It opened in May and has taken nearly $US600 million ($A934 million) at the box office internationally.

Cruise, now 62, has suffered all manner of injuries while pushing his body to the limits for the films, including a broken ankle, cracked ribs and a torn shoulder.

For 2015’s Rogue Nation, he even held his breath for more than six minutes underwater so a scene in which Hunt recovers a stolen ledger from a submerged vault could be filmed in a single take.

One of his most dangerous and spectacular stunts was during filming of the seventh film in the franchise, Dead Reckoning Part One, in which he rode off a cliff on a motorbike.

“We were in Norway, and he did it maybe seven or eight times in front of us. The motorcycle cliff job was beautiful and insane,” co-star Pom Klementieff told The New Daily when the film premiered in 2023.

Actor Simon Pegg added: “When you watch the movie, it’s thrilling, but you know he [Cruise] survived. We didn’t know if he was going to survive.”