The website Yardbarker recently updated its list of the 20 best films about pilots.
The usual suspects are on the list, such as “The Right Stuff,” “Sully,” “The Aviator,” and “Top Gun” (but not its sequel “Top Gun: Maverick”).
Check out the list here, then let us know which movies they missed in the comments below.
Dakota. Hard to find, subtitles needed unless you speak Dutch. But hands down a great flying movie.
Fate is the hunter
I’m missing Chevalliers du Ciel. Most impressive on-screen flying I’ve seen.
How about The Tuskegee Airman. The true story of how a group of African American pilots overcame racist opposition to become one of the finest US fighter groups in World War II.
STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND,
HIGH AND THE MIGHTY,
AIRPORT,
TOWARD THE UNKNOWN
ACE ELI AND RODGER OF THE SKIES. Most haven’t heard of or seen this 1973 movie. Starred real life pilot Cliff Robertson. First movie story written by Steven Spielberg.
Right Footed about Jessica Cox, the armless pilot.
By far, the greatest “flying” scenes/flying in a motion picture (aside from Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick is William Wellman’s “WINGS”. It was the very first movie to win an Oscar. This is a silent film, and before any regulations/union protection existed. The dogfights were the real deal. If you have never seen it, do a search. It also is on DVD. I had the great fortune of hosting William Wellman, Jr. (a star, producer, director, author in his own right), for a showing of WINGS at the restored 1929 Loew’s Theater in Jersey City’s Journal Square , with live pipe organ for the film’s score. Over 500 attended. The stories behind the making of the film, are just as wild, as “Wild Bill” himself. The film’s director, was a pilot in WWI’s Lafayette Flying Corps. https://www.williamwellmanjr.com/william-wellman-sr
Another favorite of mine is SKYWARD, starring Bette Davis, a made for tv picture, 1980. Very hard to find it streaming or DVD, but it is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ij6HC2n-tM
I chose SKYWARD, not for its accuracy, because there are inaccuracies. I chose it because of its spirit in recognizing the disabled achieving goals. This film will lift your spirits. The cast has big names besides Bette Davis. (The last film she made before she got a stroke.) many were cast in “Happy Days” and one in “WKRP in Cincinnati”, Ron Howard directed…but it also recognized and featured real glider pilots who just happened to be wheelchair bound, not the actress, but pilots featured later on in the picture. I included a link, so you may check it out.
PS I love all the movies previously mentioned, too! I am a flying movie junkie!
Flight of the Intruder
What about all the good English movies?
Reach for the sky, Douglas Badger.
The Dam Busters.
Always
Lazy writing using a link with someone else bad work. Make you own list with movies like The Flight of the Phoenix, the original with Jimmy Stewart and the others mention in the comments.
Wm from NC
Some of us are old enough to remember SKY KING. Saturday morning episodes made many a kid aspire to fly.
Some they got right some they got wrong. They left out ” The Blue Max”, which in my humble opinion is better than Independence Day, but I’m a big fan of that movie and use it as a prime example in Human Factors, showing how being obsessed with being the best at any cost will cost you or others their lives. My two cents.
The ‘Spirit of St. Louis’, starring Jimmy Stewart as ‘Lucky Lindy’.
Several movies on this list are hardly aviation films and barely watchable. Missing are “Strategic Air Command”, “Flight of the Phoenix”, and “Spirit of St Louis” with the great great Jimmy Stewart. Dreyfus in “Always” is a very good flying flick. It was a remake of “A Kid Named Joe”. Cagney in “Captains of the Clouds” is a little smalzy but has great flying. “Midway” and John Wayne as Spig Wead in “Wings of Eagles” are classics. Wayne also starred in “Flying Tigers”, Flying Leathernecks”, “Island on the Sky”, “The High and the Mighty”, and “Jet Pilot”. Then there’s “Above and Beyond” about Paul Tibbets, “The Dawn Patrol”, “Twelve O’Clock High” and bunch more. I could go on…. Need a better list next time.
Flight of the Phoenix
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Air Force (1943)
Both of these were directed by Howard Hawks. He made several others, as well, but the two above are the most famous.
Twelve O’Clock High, directed by Henry King in 1949, is another great one. So many good aviation flicks were made in the 1930s and 1940s alone.
Devotion
The High and the Mighty