In Mission: Impossible (1996), what does the acronym NOC stand for in the stolen list?

In Mission: Impossible (1996), NOC stands for “non-official cover.”

The film's opening mission centers on a list of CIA agents operating under non-official cover, meaning they do not have the overt diplomatic protection associated with official intelligence postings. Ethan Hunt's team is sent to obtain the list, which is known as the NOC list.

The Prague operation goes wrong, and Ethan is blamed after the other members of his team are killed. He then discovers that the mission has been compromised and tries to expose the real mole while assembling an unauthorized team. The film's famous Langley break-in follows from that investigation.

NOC is an intelligence term rather than a title for a department. In real-world usage, a non-official-cover officer works without formal diplomatic status, which can make capture particularly dangerous. The movie uses the concept as the key information target of its heist-like espionage plot.