30 Best Aviation Movies (2000-2017)
by ivandjordjevic-43807 | created - 04 Feb 2018 | updated - 04 Feb 2018 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Up in the Air (I) (2009)
R | 109 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Ryan Bingham enjoys living out of a suitcase for his job, travelling around the country firing people, but finds that lifestyle threatened by the presence of a potential love interest, and a new hire presenting a new business model.
Director: Jason Reitman | Stars: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman
Votes: 348,864 | Gross: $83.82M
2. The Wind Rises (2013)
PG-13 | 126 min | Animation, Biography, Drama
Jiro Horikoshi studies assiduously to fulfill his aim of becoming an aeronautical engineer. As WWII begins, fighter aircraft designed by him end up getting used by the Japanese Empire against its foes.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Stars: Hideaki Anno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Miori Takimoto, Masahiko Nishimura
Votes: 98,054 | Gross: $5.21M
3. Flightplan (2005)
PG-13 | 98 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet, the child vanishes, and nobody will admit she was ever on the plane.
Director: Robert Schwentke | Stars: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, Kate Beahan
Votes: 171,420 | Gross: $89.71M
4. Non-Stop (2014)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller
An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages demanding $150 million into an off-shore account, or someone will die every 20 minutes.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra | Stars: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery
Votes: 276,161 | Gross: $92.17M
5. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
PG-13 | 141 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Barely 17 yet, Frank is a skilled forger who has passed as a doctor, lawyer and pilot. FBI agent Carl becomes obsessed with tracking down the con man, who only revels in the pursuit.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen
Votes: 1,089,617 | Gross: $164.62M
6. The Red Baron (2008)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
German biopic loosely based on the World War I fighter ace Manfred Von Richthofen, nicknamed the Red Baron by friend and foe alike.
Director: Nikolai Müllerschön | Stars: Matthias Schweighöfer, Lena Headey, Til Schweiger, Joseph Fiennes
Votes: 13,130 | Gross: $0.04M
7. Sully (2016)
PG-13 | 96 min | Biography, Drama
When pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger lands his damaged plane on the Hudson River in order to save the flight's passengers and crew, some consider him a hero while others think he was reckless.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Valerie Mahaffey
Votes: 296,964 | Gross: $125.07M
8. The Terminal (2004)
PG-13 | 128 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An Eastern European tourist unexpectedly finds himself stranded in JFK airport, and must take up temporary residence there.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chi McBride, Stanley Tucci
Votes: 493,666 | Gross: $77.87M
9. Pearl Harbor (2001)
PG-13 | 183 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A tale of war and romance mixed in with history. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, William Lee Scott
Votes: 350,930 | Gross: $198.54M
10. Dark Blue World (2001)
R | 112 min | War, Drama, Action
The friendship of two men becomes tested when they both fall for the same woman.
Director: Jan Sverák | Stars: Ondrej Vetchý, Krystof Hádek, Tara Fitzgerald, Charles Dance
Votes: 6,076 | Gross: $0.26M
11. The Aviator (2004)
PG-13 | 170 min | Biography, Drama
A biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes' career from the late 1920s to the mid 1940s.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly
Votes: 383,181 | Gross: $102.61M
12. Flyboys (2006)
PG-13 | 140 min | Action, Drama, History
The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.
Director: Tony Bill | Stars: James Franco, Jean Reno, Jennifer Decker, Scott Hazell
Votes: 44,333 | Gross: $13.08M
13. United 93 (2006)
R | 111 min | Action, Drama, History
A real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on September 11th, 2001 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
Director: Paul Greengrass | Stars: David Alan Basche, Olivia Thirlby, Liza Colón-Zayas, J.J. Johnson
Votes: 110,751 | Gross: $31.57M
14. Amelia (2009)
PG | 111 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world.
Director: Mira Nair | Stars: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Votes: 13,586 | Gross: $14.24M
15. Flight (I) (2012)
R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller
Troubling questions arise after airline pilot Whip Whitaker makes a miracle landing after a mid-air catastrophe.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Denzel Washington, Nadine Velazquez, Don Cheadle, John Goodman
Votes: 375,285 | Gross: $93.77M
16. Red Tails (2012)
PG-13 | 125 min | Action, Drama, History
A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
Director: Anthony Hemingway | Stars: Cuba Gooding Jr., Gerald McRaney, David Oyelowo, Andre Royo
Votes: 37,172 | Gross: $49.88M
17. Into the White (I) (2012)
R | 104 min | Action, Biography, Drama
World War II: After an aerial battle over Norway, British and German airmen find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Finding shelter in the same cabin, they realize the only way to survive the winter is to set aside the rules of war.
Director: Petter Næss | Stars: Florian Lukas, David Kross, Lachlan Nieboer, Stig Henrik Hoff
Votes: 22,316
18. American Made (2017)
R | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.
Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons
Votes: 207,144 | Gross: $51.34M
19. Flight Crew (2016)
TV-14 | 138 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Aircraft crew members must put off their differences when a natural disaster threatens to death hundreds of tourists.
Director: Nikolay Lebedev | Stars: Danila Kozlovskiy, Vladimir Mashkov, Agne Grudyte, Sergey Kempo
Votes: 5,981
20. Kandagar (2010)
103 min | Action, Drama, War
Based on the true story of five Russian pilots captured by the Taliban. They are forced to spend three-hundred-seventy-eight days in hell, while facing questions of loyalty, survival and planing their treacherous escape route home.
Director: Andrey Kavun | Stars: Aleksandr Baluev, Yury Belyayev, Bogdan Benyuk, Aleksandr Golubev
Votes: 2,148
21. Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Survivors of a plane crash in the Mongolian desert work together to build a new plane.
Director: John Moore | Stars: Dennis Quaid, Miranda Otto, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibson
Votes: 56,679 | Gross: $21.01M
22. I'm So Excited! (2013)
R | 90 min | Comedy, Musical
When it appears as though the end is in sight, the pilots, flight crew, and passengers of a plane heading to Mexico City look to forget the anguish of the moment and face the greatest danger, which we carry within ourselves.
Director: Pedro Almodóvar | Stars: Javier Cámara, Pepa Charro, Cecilia Roth, Lola Dueñas
Votes: 24,707 | Gross: $1.37M
23. Beautiful Dreamer (2006)
PG | 90 min | Drama
A pilot gets shot down and gets amnesia; later on his grief-stricken wife finds him in a small town, and is shocked that he doesn't remember her.
Director: Terri Farley-Teruel | Stars: Brooke Langton, Colin Egglesfield, James Denton, Barry Corbin
Votes: 686
24. Rendition (2007)
R | 122 min | Drama, Thriller
When a terrorist bombing in North Africa kills 19 incl. an American, an Egyptian chemical engineer flying from South Africa to his wife in USA, is arrested upon arriving USA. He disappears. His wife asks senator for help.
Director: Gavin Hood | Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin
Votes: 58,118 | Gross: $9.74M
25. Dunkirk (2017)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Drama, History
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Votes: 736,519 | Gross: $188.37M
26. Neerja (2016)
Not Rated | 122 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
The story of courageous Neerja Bhanot, who sacrificed her life while protecting the lives of 359 passengers on Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986 when it was hijacked by a terrorist organization.
Director: Ram Madhvani | Stars: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tikku, Abrar Zahoor
Votes: 23,722 | Gross: $1.54M
27. Airlift (2016)
Not Rated | 130 min | Action, Drama, History
When Iraq invades Kuwait in August 1990, a callous Indian businessman becomes the spokesperson for more than 170,000 stranded countrymen.
Director: Raja Menon | Stars: Akshay Kumar, Nimrat Kaur, Kumud Mishra, Prakash Belawadi
Votes: 58,720
28. Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)
PG | 83 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
When Dusty learns that his engine is damaged and he may never race again, he joins a forest fire and rescue unit to be trained as a firefighter, or else his air strip will be shut down.
Director: Bobs Gannaway | Stars: Dane Cook, Ed Harris, Julie Bowen, Curtis Armstrong
Votes: 19,747 | Gross: $59.17M
29. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
PG | 106 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
After New York City receives a series of attacks from giant flying robots, a reporter teams up with a pilot in search of their origin, as well as the reason for the disappearances of famous scientists around the world.
Director: Kerry Conran | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi
Votes: 87,315 | Gross: $37.76M
30. Max & Leon (2016)
98 min | Adventure, Comedy, War
Max and Léon's adventures, two childhood friends idle and party-goer, who are trying to escape the Second World War.
Director: Jonathan Barré | Stars: David Marsais, Grégoire Ludig, Alice Vial, Saskia de Melo Dillais
Votes: 2,639
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