Aviation Motion Pictures

If you have any films to add to this list, or would like to contribute in brief plot summaries, email to wingut@airaffair.com.

Military

• Hell's Angels 1930, directed by Howard Hughes
• Devil Dogs of the Air 1935, James Cagney
• Flight From Glory 1937
• Captains of the Clouds 1942, James Cagney
• One of Our Aircraft Is Missing British, 1942
• A Guy Named Joe 1943, Spencer Tracy
• Air Force 1943, John Garfield
• Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, 1944, Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum
• Johnny Comes Flying Home 1946
• Twelve O'Clock High 1949, Gregory Peck
• Task Force 1949, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan
• Flying Leathernecks 1951, John Wayne
• Breaking the Sound Barrier British, 1952
• The Bridges at Toko-Ri 1954, William Holden, Grace Kelly
• Strategic Air Command 1955, Jimmy Stewart
• Bombers B-52 1957, Karl Malden, Natalie Wood, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
• The Hunters 1958, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner
• Fail-Safe, 1964 Henry Fonda
  A technical glitch sends U.S. bombers to drop nuclear bombs on Moscow, and the President must decide what to do if they cannot be stopped.
• The Blue Max, 1966, 1966, George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress
• The Battle of Britain 1968, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer
• Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970, Martin Balsam, E.G. Marshall
  Chronicle of the Japanese attack Perl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. This film received an Acadamy Award for its special effects.
• Aces High 1977, Malcom McDowell, Christopher Plummer
• Firefox 1982, Clint Eastwood
  Adaptation of the Craig Thomas novel. An ex-Vietnam pilot is smuggled into Russia to steal an advanced jet fighter that is controlled by telepathy.
• Blue Thunder 1983, Roy Schieder
  A Los Angeles police helicopter pilot discovers his new high-tech superchopper is part of a government conspiracy.
• Top Gun 1986, Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer
  Story? We don't need no stinking story. The planes are the stars of this film.
• Iron Eagle, 1986, Louis Gossett, Jr.
  Most unlikely tale of a teenager who teams up with an Air Force colonel to fly a pair of jet fighters to a fictional Middle Eastern country to rescue the boy's father.
• BAT*21, 1988, Gene Hackman, Danny Glover
  A U.S. weapons expert is down behind Vietnam enemy lines, with an observation pilot as his only contact. He must make his way to safety using a most unsual code. A lot of amazing flying by the Cessna Skymaster observation plane.
• Air America 1990, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr.
  The escapades of two eccentric pilots in the CIA's secret Vietnam air force.
• Flight of the Intruder, 1990, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Brad Johnson
  Disillusioned Navy Intruder pilot flies an unauthorized mission to bomb a heavily-defended North Vietnamese city.
• Firebirds 1990, Nicolas Cage, Tommy Lee Jones
  U.S. military helicopter pilots are sent into South America to root out drug dealers.
• Memphis Belle 1990, Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz
  The story of a WWII B-17 bomber and her crew, famous for completing 25 bombing missions over Europe. By most accounts, the film bears little resemblance to the real final mission.
• Interceptor 1992
  Incredibly bad tale of terrorists who hijack an in-flight military transport aircraft carrying two F-117 Stealth fighters as cargo.

Adventure

• The Spirit of St. Louis Jimmy Stewart
• The Tarnished Angels 1958, Rock Hudson, Robert Stack. A 1930s New Orleans newsman covers a stunt pilot, his wife and mechanic. From the Faulkner novel Pylon.
• The Great Waldo Pepper 1975, Robert Redford, Bo Svenson
• Cloud Dancer 1980, David Carradine
• The Right Stuff 1983, Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid
  Adaptation of the Tom Wolfe novel about legendary test pilot Chuck Yaeger, the early manned space program and the Mercury astronauts.
• High Road to China 1983, Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong
  A spoiled rich girl in danger of losing her inheritance hires a vagabond pilot to fly her across 1920's(?) Asia and China in search of her father.
• The Aviator 1985, Christopher Reeve, Rosanna Arquette
• Always 1989, Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, John Goodman
  A daredevil firebomber is killed in a firey crash, and must return as a spirit to tutor his sucessor, who falls for his old girl. A remake of the 1943 film A Guy Named Joe.
• The Rocketeer 1991, Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton
  An aspiring 1930's airshow performer stumbles across a secret government-developed jet pack, and must keep it out of Nazi hands.
• Drop Zone 1994, Gary Busey, Wesley Snipes
• Terminal Velocity 1994, Charlie Sheen, Natassja Kinski

Comedy

• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb British, 1964, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
  A crazy Air Force general, Jack D. Ripper, sends his aircraft to bomb the USSR because he believes the Soviets are trying to steal "precious bodily fluids." The Soviet ambassador informs the U.S. President that if any nuclear weapons reach their targets, the Soviet doomsday device will be triggered, which will destroy the U.S. Can the President stop Ripper and his bombers?
  Although this film appears to be a parody of Fail-Safe, the two films were actually made simultaneously.
• Catch-22 1970, Alan Arkin
  Black comedy from the Joseph Heller novel.
• 1941 1979, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd
• Airplane! 1980, Robert Hays, Leslie Nielson, Lloyd Bridges
  Slapstick spoof of airplane disaster movies. Basic premise is based loosely on the (serious) novel Runway 08: a washed-up fighter pilot must land an airliner after the flight crew is disabled by food poisoning. But the actual story is only secondary to the nonstop stream of sight gags, celebrity cameos, and bad puns.
• Hot Shots! 1991, Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges
  Parody of Top Gun, in the style of Airplane!

Disaster

• The High and the Mighty 1954, John Wayne, Robert Stack
• Airport 1970, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin

The film that started it all. Compared to some if its successors, the story is a simple one: a madman (the term "terrorist" hadn't been invented yet) sets off a bomb in an airliner lavoratory, and the crew must try to get the aircraft on the ground safely. A snowstorm and another airliner mired in the snow on the runway complicate matters.
• Skyjacked 1972, Charlton Heston, Claude Akins A combination Cold War and disaster thriller. A crazed hijacker forces an airliner to fly a polar route to the Soviet Union. How will the Soviets react?
• Airport '75 1975, Charlton Heston
  A small plane hits an in-flight airliner squarely in the cockpit, taking out the entire flight crew. Rescuers must thread a pilot through the gaping hole to land the plane and save the day.
• The Hindenburg 1975, George C. Scott, Ann Bancroft
  Fictional version of the famous dirgible's ill-fated voyage.
• Airport '77 1977, Eddie Albert
  A specially-reinforced 747 airliner is hijacked, crashes, and sinks intact in the Carribean. The Navy must rescue the passengers before the plane floods.
• Airport '79 1979, George Kennedy
  Thankfully the last of the Airport movies. An unscrupulous defense contractor needs several tries to take down the latest super-airliner, which is carrying a reporter with damaging information.
• Die Hard II 1990, Bruce Willis
  Terrorists seize control of air traffic control functions of a major airport, and implausibly hold all the airborne aircraft hostage. Supercop John McLean must defeat the terrorists so the planes, one of which carries his wife, can land safely.
• Passenger 57 1992, Wesley Snipes