15 Greatest Air Force Movies Of All Time

Summary

• Iconic Air Force movies vary in style and substance.
• Notable films like Iron Eagle, Firefox, and Hot Shots! blend action, humor, and character depth.
• Dunkirk stands out as a modern masterpiece, rewriting traditional war movie approaches.

Movies about the military, and especially the Air Force, tend to excite audiences by providing thrilling action scenes, feats of bravery, and cutting-edge special effects. The best films in the genre also feature compelling storylines, character depth, and, of course, flight scenes, among many other factors that go into making an excellent movie.

When movie fans think of classic flying films, the Top Gun franchise may come to mind, especially with the fairly recent release of Top Gun: Maverick. However, Maverick and his comrades are part of the Navy rather than the Air Force. Still, focusing solely on films about the Air Force branch of the military offers plenty of options for entertaining watches.

15 Iron Eagle (1986)

Style, But A Slight Lack Of Substance

Sidney J. Furie’s Iron Eagle is an Air Force movie that centers around Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick), a mediocre pilot who needs to listen to music in order to fly well. He embarks on a daring mission to rescue his father, a veteran who has been shot down in the Middle East. Iron Eagle certainly has itsfair share of excellent action sequences, particularly as Doug attacks a base while listening to “One Vision” by Queen. However, its mediocre dialogue and lack of real characterization prevent it from reaching its full potential.

14 Firefox (1982)

Groundbreaking Special Effects

Firefox is directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the movie as Mitchell Gant, a veteran Air Force pilot who is tasked with stealing a high-tech Soviet fighter plane. Firefox had an estimated budget of $21 million, of which $20 million was reportedly spent on special effects (via GoSocial). The result is a movie about the Air Force that looks amazing, especially the sequences involving the titular “Firefox” fighter. Nevertheless, it suffers a similar fate to Iron Eagle, creating a movie that is largely devoid of any real soul but is awesome to look at.

The movie was based off of Craig Thomas’ 1977 thriller novel of the same name.

13 The Shamrock Spitfire (2024)

Heartwarming And Grounded

The Shamrock Spitfire focuses on the life of Brendan “Paddy” Finucane, a real-life pilot for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) who became the youngest Wing Commander in its history at 21, the age at which he was also killed in action. This movie provides a heartfelt narrative about the Air Force and Paddy that is respectful to the true history of the pilot and World War II. However, the low budget means that the CGI on display often leaves a lot to be desired, with the film also heavily using archive footage from fellow WW2 movie Battle of Britain.

12 Hot Shots! (1991)

Airplane! With Jet Fighters

Utterly ridiculous but undoubtedly hilarious at times, Hot Shots! is an Air Force movie that acts as a direct parody of Top Gun. Charlie Sheen plays Sean “Topper” Harley, a pilot who is grappling with the ghost of his father. He is sent on a mission that sees him attack an Iraqi power plant and drop a bomb directly onto a sunbathing Saddam Hussein. With gags including roasting hot dogs on jet engines, using a valet service for fighters, and a pilot being mistaken for a deer, Hot Shots! is funny and outrageous, if slightly bland in its execution.

11 The Dam Busters (1955)

Iconic, If A Bit Dated

A staple of British Air Force cinema, The Dam Busters tells the real-life story of Operation Chastise, a 1943 mission that saw the RAF attack multiple German dams using the brand-new bouncing bomb technology. The movie isundoubtedly iconic and is heavily credited with influencing the trench run sequence in Star Wars. At the time of its release, The Dam Busters was unlike any Air Force movie ever seen. By today’s standards, the effects and flight scenes are heavily dated, but this does not detract from the legendary storytelling and historical detail on display in the movie.

10 Good Kill (2014)

Chilling, Gritty, and Human

Ethan Hawke plays Thomas Egan in Good Kill, a former pilot for the U.S. Air Force who is currently assigned to fly unmanned drones during the War on Terror, a job that begins to take its toll on his mental well-being. A nuanced look at the brutal realities of modern warfare and indiscriminate killing, Good Kill is an Air Force movie that explores morality quite unlike any other. However, its slightly repetitive nature, monotonous pace, and heavy plotline have the potential to make it a difficult watch for many audiences.

9 The Tuskegee Airmen (1995)

A Tale That Needed Telling

Focusing on the titular real-life group of the first African-American pilots in the U.S. Air Force, The Tuskegee Airmen is a film centered around the pilots’ mission for equal respect and dignity from their white counterparts. While its historical accuracy and pacing are questionable, it is a movie that was groundbreaking when it was released. At a time when many war movies, and Air Force movies in particular, had very few Black characters, The Tuskegee Airmen arguably broke the mold of movie-making forever.

8 Independence Day (1996)

Massive In Scale (And At The Box Office)

Potentially the most iconic alien invasion movie ever made, Independence Day focuses on the response of the U.S. Air Force to an extraterrestrial invasion of Earth. A watershed moment for Hollywood blockbusters and Air Force movies alike, Independence Day‘s use of large-scale spectacle to demonstrate the size of the invasion is a thrilling rollercoaster of a story. However, it is full of lackluster dialogue, with the President’s speech in particular failing to register any true emotional reaction, instead being labeled “cheesy” by many.

Independence Day
grossed over $800 million worldwide, becoming the highest-earning film of 1996 (via

BoxOfficeMojo

).

7 Wings (1927)

The Start Of Something Incredible

Wings not only earned the first-ever Academy Award For Best Picture but can also be considered as the first Air Force movie ever. While understandably dated considering its age, it holds an important place in Hollywood history. Set against the backdrop of World War I, the movie presents a realistic depiction of biplane dogfights as well as a crash landing, two types of action that were unthinkable to put to screen before Wings was released. This movie is nothing short of a legendary tale of boldness.

6 Memphis Belle (1990)

A Real Flying Fortress Of A Movie

Based upon the true story of the real B-17 Flying Fortress of the same name, Memphis Belle is an epic tale of the airplane’s role in the U.S. Air Force during WWII. Heroism, bravery, and hopeare on full display in this movie, albeit with a lack of individual characterization. However, this merely adds to the idea of the Memphis Belle’s crew, not as a group of individuals, but as a real team. It may be cliché, but the movie is no less deserving of recognition.

5 Air Force One (1997)

Non-Stop Action

An iconic political action thriller, Air Force One focuses on the U.S. President (Harrison Ford), as he retakes his own hijacked plane. A movie that prioritizes entertainment and thrills as much as Air Force One is likely to always come across as melodramatic, but it is Ford’s excellent performance that makes up for this. He takes the movie incredibly seriously with his performance, elevating the entire film as a result. If you’re a fan of high-octane Air Force thrillers, this is the movie for you.

4 Pearl Harbor (2001)

A Drama Of Epic Proportions

Judging by its 24% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, critics appear to have a distaste for this Michael Bay-led retelling of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor certainly does have a long runtime (over 3 hours) that makes it inaccessible to many audiences, but it is the absolutely massive scale of this underrated modern classic of the Air Force genre that gives the movie its appeal. With razor-sharp special effects at the scale that only Bay can bring, Pearl Harbor may put the dialogue on the back burner, but it turns the action up to an eleven.

3 Battle of Britain (1969)

An Indisputable Classic

The definition of everything a great Air Force movie should be – large in scale and with compelling storytelling and heroic characters – Battle of Britain is a spectacular depiction of the RAF’s defense of Britain during 1940. With realistic dogfights that provided the biggest revolution in Air Force movies since the release of Wings, Battle of Britain‘s production spared no expense in crafting a true WWII classic. The scale of the movie occasionally makes it difficult to become attached to certain characters, but this takes nothing away from the iconic status that Battle of Britain would achieve following its release.

2 Bridge Of Spies (2015)

The Air Force Masterpiece With No Fighting

Set during the height of the Cold War, Steven Spielberg’s Bridge Of Spies depicts the true story of the exchange of U.S. Air Force pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) with KGB spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) after Powers’ U-2 spyplane is shot down over the USSR. A nail-biting storyline accompanied by excellent performances from the entire cast makes Bridge of Spies a true modern classic of the Air Force genre. While its lack of action may seem initially unappealing, the movie has a very important story to tell about the Air Force, espionage, and above all, humanity.

Mark Rylance’s portrayal of Abel won him Best Supporting Actor at the 88th Academy Awards.

1 Dunkirk (2017)

A Modern Masterpiece

Dunkirk is not only the greatest Air Force movie ever, it rewrote the script of traditional war movies as a whole. Telling the story of the evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk during WWII from three different perspectives, Dunkirk‘s depiction of RAF pilots Collins (Jack Lowden) and Farrier (Tom Hardy) is executed with the utmost care. From Collins’ stomach-turning close brush with drowning after he is shot down to Farrier’s noble sacrifice at the end of the movie, Dunkirk is a movie that manages to sustain its massive scale while allowing audiences to emotionally connect with both pilots.

Sources: GoSocial, BoxOfficeMojo, Rotten Tomatoes