The Top 5 Airplane Movies Of All Time!

#5 – Flight of the Phoenix
This interesting action/drama was released in 1965 and stars Jimmy Stewart and Richard Attenborough. A crash landing in the African desert forces the survivors to rescue themselves in a truly imaginative way.

#4 – Airplane!
One of the funniest comedies ever, and easily the funniest airplane movie is the appropriately titled Airplane! This movie stars Robert Hayes, Julia Hagerty, and Lloyd Bridges. It features many other cameos of notable people too. It was released in 1980 and would be followed two years later by Airplane 2: The Sequel.

#3 – The Great Waldo Pepper
Robert Redford stars with Susan Sarandon in this 1975 film about barnstormer and early flying daredevil Waldo Pepper. A very nice drama that does a good job portraying many facets of the early days of flight.

#2 – The Dawn Patrol
The oldest film to make our list of greatest airplane movies is The Dawn Patrol which was released in 1938. This movie depicts the early days of military aircraft featuring a British fighting squadron during World War I. The stars of the film are Errol Flynn and David Niven as Captain Courtney and Lieutenant Scott, respectively. The movie details the lives of these two airmen who don’t always tackle their jobs the way the higher ups in the military would like them too. Other notable names in the cast include the great Basil Rathbone and Donald Crisp.

#1 – Top Gun
The best, and probably most popular, airplane movie ever though is the 1985 film Top Gun. This film starred Tom Cruise as a United States Navy fighter pilot who is going through training with some of the best airmen and flight instructors in the world. It also stars Kelly McGillis as his love interest and Anthony Edwards as his partner. Val Kilmer and Meg Ryan also play integral roles in this true classic from the 1980s.

1. Tim Matheson, who played Otter in National Lampoon’s Animal House, would later go on to own the National Lampoon magazine when he and a business partner purchased it in the late 1980s.

2. Bravo TV puts Animal House first overall on their list of 100 Funniest Movies.

3. During the filming of Animal House, John Belusi would spend Monday through Wednesday working on the filming of the movie and then fly across country to New York City to work on Saturday Night Live from Thursday through Saturday.

4. The character of Otter was originally offered to Chevy Chase who turned it down.

5. The original filming location of Animal House was supposed to be the University of Missouri, but when officials there read the script they backed off and the University of Oregon accepted the offer.

6. Denver, Colorado was home to the first preview screening of Animal House.

7. A script was written for a sequel to Animal House, it wasn’t received well and after John Belushi’s death it was set aside indefinitely.

Animal House is truly one of the funniest movies ever and was revolutionary at the time of its release. Many subsequent films have followed a similar formula trying to capitalize on its popularity, but there is nothing like the original… there is nothing like Animal House.