Here are our seven favorite movies that take place on planes.
A Note Before We Board
We want to clarify what we mean by “movies that take place on planes.”
We aren’t talking about great movies like Top Gun, Sully and Flight that take place partly on planes, but mostly on the ground.
We’re talking about movies where a plane is the central location, and the action depends on the uniqueness of that location. Planes provide a uniquely uncomfortable combination of enclosed space, great height, and close quarters, making them very well suited to dramatic storytelling — especially when you add some additional variables.
So with that, here are our favorite movies that take place on planes.
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
The hook is in the title of this deliciously dumb movie about, you know, snakes on a plane. The beautifully simple setup is that FBI agent Nelville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) must escort a witness to trial on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles.
But, as sometimes happens, someone releases a crate of deadly snakes in an attempt to kill the witness. That means a wide array of other passengers and crew — including Kenan Thompson, Juliana Margulies, Bobby Canavale and Taylor Kitsch — must band together or die at the fangs of their scaled adversaries.
Besides the smart-stupid brilliance of the setup, Snakes on a Plane is a highly diverting watch because of the rare opportunity to watch some great actors do something that’s just pure fun.
Air Force One (1997)
Another wonderfully simple setup: Russian terrorists hijack Air Force One with the president and his family aboard. Unfortunately for them, the president is James Marshall, played by Harrison Ford, merging the low-key charm of Indiana Jones with the cantankerousness of Han Solo.
It all climaxes in Marshall yelling the film’s signature line — “Get of my plane!” — at the main terrorist, played by Gary Oldman in a typically wonderful, chameleonic performance.
Sadly, the movie doesn’t end there — some bad, ’90s CGI toward the end takes away from the fun… or adds to it, from a certain point of view.
United 93 (2006)
A legitimately great movie, but one that’s also extremely painful to watch, because of the immense tragedy involved.
Paul Greengrass’ impossibly tense drama offers informed speculation about what happened on United flight 93, the only one of the hijacked 9/11 planes that didn’t hit its target.
The film shows, with jittery, documentary-style realism, a group of passengers banding together to stand up to their hijackers, forcing the plane to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Their sacrifice prevents an even greater loss of life that could have occurred had the terrorists successfully carried out their plan.
Passenger 57 (1992)
Back to pure fun. Wesley Snipes is at his all-time best as an ex-cop, soldier and Secret Service agent haunted by the death of his wife, who takes a job as an airplane security specialist.
His flight is hijacked by the cartoonishly evil Charles Rane (Bruce Payne, awesome), to whom Snipes delivers an out-of-nowhere but absolutely brilliant action-movie line.
“Ever happen to play roulette?” he asks Rane over the phone.
“On occasion,” Rane replies, in a where-is-this-going kind of tone.
“Well let me give you a word of advice,” Snipes snipes, as the camera races in for a close-up. “Always bet on black!”
The movie also features Elizabeth Hurley in an early role. It’s one drawback, at least for a list of movies that take place on planes, is a fairly lengthy segment that takes place at a carnival.
Con Air (1997)
Nicolas Cage plays Cameron Poe, an honorably discharged Army Ranger who is inexplicably sentenced to a long prison term for quite understandably killing a man in self-defense to protect his pregnant wife. When he’s finally paroled, he is sent to go meet his family on a prison transport plane.
Now you may be asking, “Since when do prisons fly you home after your sentence?” But then again, who cares, because this far-fetched scenario sets the stage for one of the all-time best action movie setups: Poe is on a plane filled with hardened criminals played by scenery chewers like John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi and Danny Trejo.
The cast is rounded out by John Cusack, Ving Rhames, Colm Meaney, Dave Chappelle, and many more people who will make you say: Is everyone in this movie?
It’s a total delight seeing all these actors match wits in one place, and director Simon West squeezes out every possible drop of emotion and very dark comedy, while delivering all the fireworks you’d expect.
Red Eye (2005)
Red Eye plays out on a much smaller scale than some other movies that take place on a plane, and it’s better for it: It starts off seeming like it might be a romance film between hotel manager between lovable hotel manager Lisa (Rachel McAdams) and pleasant, handsome stranger Jackson (Cillian Murphy), who meet at the airport before a flight to Miami.
But Red Eye is a Wes Craven film, so things take a turn. Jackson isn’t at all what he seems, as Lisa only learns when she’s seated next to him in-flight. Her father (Brian Cox) is in serious peril back home, and she has to save him using only her wits and the very few perks available in coach.
Our only complaint about Red Eye is that everything comes to a climax on the ground. But the takeoff, and mid-flight turbulence, are exquisite to watch.
Airplane! (1980)
Airplane! parodies years of previous disaster movies that take place on planes — most notably the 1957 drama Zero Hour — and adds layers upon layers of jokes involving nuns, autopilots and jive.
The film’s real genius of the film is playing everything straight, no matter how absurd things get. And they get delightfully absurd.
It may be an especially good rewatch if you’ve just seen the new Naked Gun film and want to revisit the comic genius of brothers Jerry and David Zucker and their friend Jim Abrahams, the brilliant minds behind The Naked Gun, Top Secret, Airplane and Kentucky Fried Movie.
This is one of our favorite movies that take place on planes, sure, but also just one of our favorite movies.
Liked This List of Our Favorite Movies That Take Place on Planes?
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Main image: Elizabeth Hurley in Passenger 57. Warner Bros