We had one film release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Tom Cruise and his crew have been making films since the 1990’s under the franchise Mission: Impossible, an adaptation of the classic television series about a team of secret agents, Mission: Impossible became an important spy series within the 1990’s, but fell out of favor with audiences, resulting in a significant gap between its third and fourth chapters. After Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol proved that the films were still capable of thrilling audiences, a new lease at the cineplex was granted.

The third film in the franchise adds an impressive debut at the box office and an incredible string of reviews from critics who have given it some of the best reviews of the Summer, but when talking about the Oscars, neither of these facts are important when you’re an action film.

This series has never generated Oscar buzz, not from its initial outing to the most recent. Yet, there’s still the possibility that the love of critics gives it a boost with Academy voters, but likely only in the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories. All others are out of the question. Even the sound categories will struggle to find dominance against louder, more bombastic soundscapes and those of year-end prestige pictures that sometimes compete here. Ultimately, MI5 won’t likely seal any deals with voters and will continue the series’ string of Oscar failures.