65 Movies About Aviation (Films With Planes)

Director

Joseph Kosinski

Starring

Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Val Kilmer

The rare sequel that beat the original. The cast trained for months, then rode in the back of real Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets with cameras mounted in the cockpit, so the strain on their faces is the genuine article. Cruise's old call sign got its moment too: see our list of the funniest call signs for pilots.

Director

J.D. Dillard

Starring

Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson

A Korean War story about Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in the US Navy, and his wingman Tom Hudner. When Brown went down behind enemy lines, Hudner crash-landed his own fighter to try to save him, and later received the Medal of Honor. It is quieter than Top Gun and hits harder.

Director

Jean-Francois Richet

Starring

Gerard Butler, Mike Colter

A commercial pilot lands a lightning-struck airliner on a remote island in the Philippines, only to find the real danger is on the ground. It is a no-nonsense action film with a good opening act, and Butler plays the calm captain well.

Director

Siddharth Anand

Starring

Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor

A big Hindi-language action film about elite Indian Air Force pilots. It is loud, glossy and built for the big screen, and a good way into Indian cinema if you already like the genre.

Director

Paul Crowder

Format

Documentary

Filmed for IMAX and later streamed on Prime Video, this 93-minute documentary rides along with the US Navy's flight demonstration team through a full season. The formation flying, a few feet from wingtip to wingtip, is the star. Glen Powell is one of the producers. For a longer look at how pilots train, National Geographic's 2025 series Top Guns: The Next Generation follows Navy and Marine Corps students through their last six months of strike fighter training.

Director

Mel Gibson

Starring

Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace

A US Marshal escorts a fugitive across the Alaskan wilderness in a small charter plane and slowly realises the pilot is not who he says. The aircraft is a Cessna 208 Caravan, the same turboprop we cover in our Caravan cost guide. Critics were not kind, but at 91 minutes it moves.

Director

Abhishek Anil Kapoor and Sandeep Kewlani

Starring

Akshay Kumar, Veer Pahariya, Sara Ali Khan

A Hindi-language aerial action drama based on India's air strike on the Sargodha airbase during the 1965 war with Pakistan. It mixes real history with big-budget flying scenes.

Director

Christopher McQuarrie

Starring

Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg

The finale has a fight on top of a flying biplane, and Cruise did the flying stunts for real. The crew used four heavily modified Stearman biplanes, and the sequence took months of flying to shoot. At 2 hours 49 minutes, the aerial scene is the part to watch.

Director

John Travolta

Starring

John Travolta, Clark Shotwell, Kelly Eviston-Quinnett

Travolta, a licensed pilot himself, wrote, directed and narrates this Apple TV film based on his 1997 book. A boy and his mother take a cross-country flight to Hollywood in the golden age of air travel. It premiered at Cannes in 2026 and is gentle, nostalgic and built for people who love old airliners.

Director

J.A. Bayona

Starring

Enzo Vogrincic, Agustin Pardella, Matias Recalt

In October 1972 a charter carrying a Uruguayan rugby team crashed in the Andes, and the survivors lasted 72 days on the mountain. It is harrowing, beautifully made and the most honest telling of that story so far. The 1993 film Alive covers the same crash.

Director

Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring

Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson

A young TSA officer is blackmailed into letting a package through on Christmas Eve, and the airport becomes his whole world. It is a slick Netflix thriller set around Los Angeles International. For the real weather at that airport, see our LAX weather by month page.

Director

William A. Wellman

Starring

Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen

A silent film about two rivals in love with the same woman and flying for the same air service in the First World War. It won the first Best Picture Oscar, and the aerial scenes were shot with real aircraft. Wellman had been a pilot in the war himself.

Director

Billy Wilder

Starring

James Stewart, Murray Hamilton

James Stewart plays Charles Lindbergh on his 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris, which took about 33 and a half hours. Much of the film is one man in a tiny cockpit, and it works.

Director

George Roy Hill

Starring

Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Bo Svenson

Robert Redford plays a barnstormer in the 1920s who missed the First World War and wants to prove he could have been an ace. A beautiful, melancholy film about what flying was like before airlines.

Director

Philip Kaufman

Starring

Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid

Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier and the Mercury Seven go to space. A long film, over three hours, and an affectionate portrait of test pilots and their egos.

Director

Martin Scorsese

Starring

Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes, the film-maker and aircraft designer behind the giant wooden H-4 Hercules flying boat that the press nicknamed the Spruce Goose. The film covers his rise and the long slide into obsession.

Director

Mira Nair

Starring

Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor

A biography of Amelia Earhart, from her fame as an aviator to her disappearance over the Pacific in 1937 while trying to fly around the world.

Director

Steven Spielberg

Starring

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken

A young con man poses as a Pan Am pilot to fly free around the world while an FBI agent chases him. The story is loosely based on Frank Abagnale and has long been argued over, but the 1960s airline glamour is great.

Director

Kerry Conran

Starring

Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie

A pulp adventure shot almost entirely in front of blue screens, with giant robots over a 1930s New York. It looks like nothing else, and the aircraft are the best part.

Director

Joe Johnston

Starring

Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton

A stunt pilot finds a jetpack in 1938 Los Angeles and ends up racing Nazi spies through the sky. A cheerful throwback with a great look.

Director

Steven Spielberg

Starring

Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Audrey Hepburn

Pilots who fly firefighting planes over burning forests, a ghost and a love story. It is a flawed film with wonderful aerial photography, and Audrey Hepburn's last role.

Director

Carroll Ballard

Starring

Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels

A girl raises orphaned geese and teaches them to migrate by leading them in an ultralight aircraft. It is based on a true story and it is the best aviation film to watch with children.

Director

Klay Hall

Starring

Dane Cook (voice), Stacy Keach (voice)

A crop duster named Dusty dreams of racing in a round-the-world rally. A Disney cartoon that kids ask to watch again and again, and adults tolerate better than most.

Director

Ken Annakin

Starring

Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, James Fox, Terry-Thomas

A big, cheerful comedy about the 1910 air race from London to Paris. The replica aircraft are the stars, and several of them actually fly.

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Format

Voices of Shuichiro Moriyama and Michael Keaton (English)

Studio Ghibli's tale of a First World War ace turned pig who hunts air pirates over the Adriatic. The seaplanes and the love of flying come straight from Miyazaki, whose family business built aircraft parts.

Director

Jack Gold

Starring

Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, John Gielgud

A First World War squadron loses pilots faster than it can replace them, seen through the eyes of a young new arrival. A grim, thoughtful film, adapted from the play Journey's End.

Director

Tony Bill

Starring

James Franco, Martin Henderson, Jean Reno

Young Americans join the French Lafayette Escadrille before their own country enters the First World War. The dogfights are the main attraction, and the replica biplanes look great.

Director

Nikolai Muellerschoen

Starring

Matthias Schweighoefer, Lena Headey

The story of Manfred von Richthofen, the German ace credited with 80 victories in the First World War. The German production was filmed in English and flies real replica aircraft.

Director

David Blair

Starring

Iwan Rheon, Milo Gibson

Polish pilots who escaped to Britain fly Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain as the famous No. 303 Squadron, one of the highest-scoring units of the battle. A solid film about people who had already lost their country.

Director

Guy Hamilton

Starring

Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer

The production gathered an enormous fleet of real Second World War aircraft, and it shows. The aerial scenes still look better than most modern efforts, and the cast is a who's who of British acting.

Director

Michael Anderson

Starring

Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave

The 1943 raid on German dams by Lancaster bombers carrying bouncing bombs. The film has a famous theme tune and a very British sense of understatement.

Director

Henry King

Starring

Gregory Peck, Dean Jagger

A bomber group in England cracks under pressure and a tough new commander tries to save it. Gregory Peck is superb, and the film is still used in leadership courses.

Director

Michael Caton-Jones

Starring

Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Sean Astin

A B-17 crew flies its 25th and final mission over Germany. It is based on a real aircraft and a 1944 documentary of the same name, and the B-17 scenes are the draw.

Director

Anthony Hemingway

Starring

Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Nate Parker

A film about the Tuskegee Airmen, the Black fighter pilots who escorted bombers in P-51 Mustangs during the Second World War. George Lucas produced it, and the story deserves the attention.

Director

Christopher Nolan

Starring

Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance

Tom Hardy flies a Spitfire for much of the film, low on fuel and silent behind an oxygen mask. Nolan used real Spitfires and cameras in the cockpit, and the aircraft sounds are worth turning up.

Director

Roland Emmerich

Starring

Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson

The 1942 Battle of Midway, told through Navy dive bomber pilots and their commanders. It has more CGI than purists like, but the bombing runs are exciting.

Director

Tony Scott

Starring

Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards

Maverick, Goose, Iceman and a lot of F-14 Tomcats. It is a film about a hotshot who needs to learn teamwork, and still the reason many pilots say they started.

Director

Sidney J. Furie

Starring

Louis Gossett Jr., Jason Gedrick

A teenager steals an F-16 to rescue his father, shot down over the Middle East, with a rock soundtrack and an Air Force colonel who plays along. Absurd and very fun.

Director

Roger Spottiswoode

Starring

Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr.

Pilots for a CIA-owned airline fly cargo and secrets in Laos during the Vietnam War. Part comedy, part action film, and loosely based on the real airline.

Director

Clint Eastwood

Starring

Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney

The January 2009 US Airways flight 1549 ditching in the Hudson River, with all 155 people aboard surviving. The film spends as much time on the investigation as on the landing, and the NTSB simulator scenes are the heart of it.

Director

Paul Greengrass

Starring

Ben Sliney, Khalid Abdalla, Christian Clemenson

A near real-time account of the fourth hijacked plane on 11 September 2001. Several real air traffic control and FAA staff play themselves, including Ben Sliney, who was the FAA's national operations manager that day.

Director

Doug Liman

Starring

Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright

Cruise plays Barry Seal, an airline pilot who became a CIA courier and a drug smuggler. It is fast, funny and loosely true.

Director

Roberta Grossman

Format

Documentary, narrated by Mark Harris

A documentary about the volunteer pilots who helped Israel's new air force in 1948. It uses interviews with surviving pilots and rare footage.

Director

Robert Zemeckis

Starring

Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman

An airline pilot saves a failing plane by flying it inverted, then faces questions about his drinking. It is fiction, but the crash scene is one of the best you will see.

Director

Robert Zemeckis

Starring

Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt

A courier-company cargo plane crashes in the Pacific and one man survives on an island for years with a volleyball for company. The crash sequence is short and memorable.

Director

Wolfgang Petersen

Starring

Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close

Terrorists take over the president's plane, and the president is on board. Harrison Ford punches his way to a famous line, and the film is as much fun as anything on this list.

Director

Simon West

Starring

Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich

Convicts take over a prison transport plane, and one good man is on board. It is loud, silly and very quotable.

Director

Stuart Baird

Starring

Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, Halle Berry

Commandos board a hijacked Boeing 747 mid-air from a stealth aircraft. The docking sequence is the film's best idea. See what a 747 costs in our Boeing price guide.

Director

Renny Harlin

Starring

Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia

John McClane takes on terrorists who have hijacked the landing systems at Washington's Dulles Airport during a snowstorm. Circling planes run low on fuel while he does his thing.

Director

Wes Craven

Starring

Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy

A hotel manager on a night flight from Dallas to Miami finds her seatmate is part of a plot to kill someone. A tight 85-minute thriller and a nice break from bigger films.

Director

Robert Schwentke

Starring

Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard

A mother's daughter disappears mid-flight, and everyone on the plane says there was no child. Jodie Foster is excellent.

Director

Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring

Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore

An air marshal receives text messages from someone on the plane who says a passenger will die every 20 minutes unless he is paid. Neeson, a plane and a whodunnit.

Director

Patrick Vollrath

Starring

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Omid Memar

A short-haul flight from Berlin to Paris is hijacked, and almost the whole film is set in the cockpit with the first officer. Tense, tight and fully contained.

Director

Mikael Marcimain

Starring

Allison Williams, Alexander Dreymon

Two strangers are on a small plane over the Indian Ocean when the pilot dies, and one of them has to fly it. A decent survival thriller with a lot of dials.

Director

David R. Ellis

Starring

Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Margulies

Exactly what it says on the label. The title went viral on the internet before the film was released, and the studio added extra scenes after fans asked for more. It knows what it is.

Director

James Wong

Starring

Devon Sawa, Ali Larter

A teenager has a vision of his flight exploding and gets off the plane with some of his friends. The plane blows up. Then Death starts to catch up with them.

Director

Tom Holland

Starring

Dean Stockwell, Patricia Wettig

A Stephen King miniseries about passengers of a red-eye flight who wake up to find almost everyone else has vanished. Odd, creepy and a little long.

Director

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker

Starring

Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges

Surely you can't be serious. The best aviation comedy ever made is a non-stop gag machine, spoofing the disaster genre and a 1957 drama called Zero Hour. Every one-liner works, and many pilots can quote it from memory. The 1982 sequel, Airplane II, sends the same crew to the moon and has its moments.

Director

George Seaton

Starring

Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Helen Hayes

A snowstorm closes a Midwestern airport while a man with a bomb boards a flight. The film started the airliner disaster boom of the 1970s, and Helen Hayes won an Oscar as a stowaway granny.

Director

David Lowell Rich

Starring

Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, George Kennedy

A weapons company tries to bring down a Concorde and the supersonic jet has to dodge missiles. Ridiculous, and the Concorde looks wonderful.

Director

Robert Aldrich

Starring

James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Hardy Kruger

Survivors of a crash in the Sahara decide to build a new aircraft from the wreckage. It is a good puzzle for anyone who likes engineering. A 2004 remake with Dennis Quaid moves the story to the Gobi Desert, and the central idea still works.

Director

Mike Newell

Starring

John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie

Two rival air traffic controllers at the New York TRACON compete for who can handle the most planes. It is about the people on the radio, not the pilots, and a rare film to show their stress.

Director

Steven Spielberg

Starring

Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones

A man from a fictional country gets stuck in New York's JFK airport when his passport becomes invalid, and builds a life in the departures hall. The terminal was a huge set. For the real airport, see our JFK weather page.

Director

Clint Eastwood

Starring

Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner

Four ageing former test pilots are sent into space to fix an old Soviet satellite. It is a warm comedy about growing older, and a happy ending for a bunch of old pilots.

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Starring

Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens

A rogue general orders a nuclear strike and a B-52 crew tries to deliver it, while the war room argues. Kubrick's black comedy has Slim Pickens riding the bomb, and the bomber cockpit scenes are surprisingly detailed.