Composer behind Tom Cruise’s iconic Mission: Impossible theme tune dies

Lalo Schifrin, the award-winning composer of Mission: Impossible, has died at the age of 93. The composer’s son Ryan confirmed that the artist died peacefully in his home in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 26, surrounded by family.

Lalo was reportedly suffering complications from pneumonia.

Born in 1932 in Argentina, Lalo won four Grammy Awards and was nominated for six Oscars over the course of his career.

Amityville Horror, Cool Hand Luke, The Fox, Voyage of the Damned and The Sting II were all nominated for Best Original Score, while in 1980 he was nominated for Best Original Song for The Competition.

However, he is perhaps best known for composing the Mission: Impossible theme for the 1960s TV series, for which he was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1968, and three Emmy nominations.

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The music became a global success however when Tom Cruise rebooted the franchise with the 1996 film.

In 2025, almost 30 years later, Tom premiered the eighth, and reportedly final, film in the movie franchise, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.

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But the music also never saw the light of day, as Lalo had originally composed a different piece for the theme until the show’s producers heard a sample of another piece composed for an action sequence.

“The producer called me and told me, ‘You’re going to have to write something exciting, almost like a logo, something that will be a signature, and it’s going to start with a fuse,’ he told AP in 2006.

“So I did it, and there was nothing on the screen. And maybe the fact that I was so free and I had no images to catch, maybe that’s why this thing has become so successful — because I wrote something that came from inside me.”

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The distinctive tune was written in the uncommon 5/4 time signature, with the meter spelling out the letters M and I in morse code.

He also composed the theme for private eye TV show Mannix that ran between 1967 and 1975.

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In 2018 Lalo was awarded the third-ever honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

“Composing for movies has been a lifetime of joy and creativity,” he said of the honor. “Receiving this honorary Oscar is the culmination of a dream. It is a mission accomplished.”

Clint Eastwood presented him the award “in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring”.