Favorite Aviation Cinema -- Best Movies

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
What are your favorite aviation films?

There are plenty and here are two of them:

Flight of the Phoenix (1965) -- gripping survival drama with a model airplane twist. Trust me, if you've only seen the horrible 2004 remake with Dennis Quaid you owe it to yourself to see the original.

The Blue Max (1966) -- World War I fighters with footage of real airplanes. It's epic. Literally. Comes with an intermission.
 

bitogre

Member
As someone who grew up in the 80s, my favorite "aviation" films (though I may be using the term loosely as these are all military aircraft) are Iron Eagle (1986), Top Gun (1986), Fire Birds (1990), and Midway (1976).

I also like the TV show Baa Baa Black Sheep (1976-1978).
 

cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
The Right Stuff.

Apollo 13. Ok it's a space flight movie but the story Hanks tells about trying to land at night during the Korean conflict gets me everytime..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N91ogCGpYl0

Totally with you on the Flight of the Phoenix. Dennis Quaid can't fill a single one of Jimmy's shoes even with both feet.

All three are about perseverance which is what our hobby tests.
 

AircPirateNinsei

airc-pirates.com

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Iron Eagle -- "Attack through the flames!"

Airport 1975 --- Pilots delivered in 30 mins or less.

Right Stuff -- The Alan Shepard prayer and Anthony Muñoz

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines -- Funny and a very cool collection of weird planes.

Lots of good ones.

In the genre of goofy space movies, "Marooned" -- "Blow the hatch aye!"
 
Last edited:

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Totally with you on the Flight of the Phoenix. Dennis Quaid can't fill a single one of Jimmy's shoes even with both feet.

That's true. But the main thing is that the remake was just so lame. In the original they did everything to survive. Charged up their batteries with a hand-cranked generator so that they could work at night. ONLY at night. They distilled engine coolant to get more water.

In the remake they were working at night also. As long as they had enough fuel for their generator. As soon as they ran out of gas, they all just said, "Oh well....I guess we have to work in the daytime now." Utterly ridiculous.
 

Excalibre

Late Learner
The Aviator - Kate Beckinsale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwen Stefani
Top Gun - Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer
Memphis Belle - John Lithgow, Sean Astin, Harry Connick
The Tuskegee Airmen - John Lithgow, Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne
Firefox - Clint Eastwood, Nigel Hawthorne, John Ratzenberger
Pearl Harbor - Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck

To name just a few.........
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
The Aviator - Kate Beckinsale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwen Stefani
Top Gun - Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer
Memphis Belle - John Lithgow, Sean Astin, Harry Connick
The Tuskegee Airmen - John Lithgow, Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne
Firefox - Clint Eastwood, Nigel Hawthorne, John Ratzenberger
Pearl Harbor - Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck

To name just a few.........

That's a pretty good list. I hadn't thought of Firefox in a long time.

You need Tora! Tora! Tora! to go with Pearl Harbor. Real airplanes. No computers.
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Any Amazon Prime users? There's a lot of cool airplane stuff on Prime Video. There are also some of the classic movies available on demand for rent as well.
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission To Prove The Flat-Earth

Now, this is NOT great cinema, but do watch the last 8 minutes or so. This crazy guy launches himself in an overgrown, unguided model rocket. It utilizes a steam rocket motor which is pretty interesting and attains an altitude of about 1,800 feet. Available on Amazon Prime Video.
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Battle of Britain .... Like Tora Tora Tora it was made before computer graphics, so lots of real war planes flying.

Good ones. I was in 7th grade living in Hawaii when Tora! Tora! Tora! came out. Our class took a field trip to see it. In the Ala Moana Shopping Center they had a partially built Zero fuselage on display there. They used 2/3 scale replicas in part if memory serves.
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
Should have done this first.




Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission To Prove The Flat-Earth

Now, this is NOT great cinema, but do watch the last 8 minutes or so. This crazy guy launches himself in an overgrown, unguided model rocket. It utilizes a steam rocket motor which is pretty interesting and attains an altitude of about 1,800 feet. Available on Amazon Prime Video.
 

Thorondor

Active member
I actually haven't seen any classic aviation movies (don't judge) but there are some epic planes from movies that I admire. There was the weird V-22 knockoff from X-Men Apocalypse (horrible movie) with tilting wings as opposed to tilting rotors, the bicopters from Avatar, the incredible Quinjet... Oh, I guess I lied. I have seen Tora! Tora! Tora! and October Sky (if that counts). Tora was absolutely mind-numbing, especially considering that I hate politics, and October Sky had kind of a sad ending but it was the good kind of sad.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
I know they are not movies but the tv shows Baa baa black sheep is good and my favorite tv series with aircraft is 12 oclock high.

Then there is the Talon and EDI from the movie Stealth. I actually started plans for EDI to take to Flite Fest to take with me to challenge Ben Harbor into helping me finish and get in the air. Alas I never got to go so it sits somewhere on my bench and in my head.