The 10 Best Movies About Airlines or Airports

by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 6:00 AM ET, Wed July 16, 2014

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

Though they don't quite get the same respect as other genres, or even other film settings, using airlines and airports as a plot device or backdrop is time-honored in Hollywood.

After all, the silent film "Wings" won the Best Picture Award at the first-ever Academy Awards in 1929.

So without further delay, we hereby present this very subjective list of the Top 10 movies of all-time about airlines and/or airports.

10. SNAKES ON A PLANE
Completely preposterous and yet delightfully enjoyable, this 2006 film has absolutely no pretense. There's a plane. And somebody loads it with venomous snakes. And Samuel L. Jackson gets PO'd, delivering one of the great campy and oft-quoted lines of all time: "I'm tired of these ************* snakes on this ************* plane!"

9. THE TERMINAL
The premise you can get - fish-out-of-water tale about a sort-of-Russian whose country is in disarray and doen't have the proper paperwork to leave the airport. But as played by Tom Hanks with a fake accent? And he gets Catherine Zeta-Jones? Let's just say the great supporting roles of actors and actresses portraying airport workers really makes this work.

8. PASSENGER 57
Terrorist Charles Rane - the Rane of Terror, get it? - is captured by the FBI and is being flown to Los Angeles. Why one of the world's most dangerous men is being transported on a commercial airline is beyond us, but it would ruin the plot otherwise. Unfortunately, some of Rane's boys are on the flight. Fortunately, so is airline security expert John Cutter, played by Wesley Snipes, who was as red-hot as you could get in the early 1990s with turns in "Jungle Fever" and "White Men Can't Jump."

7. AIR FORCE ONE
Harrison Ford as the President of the United States. Air Force One is compromised. Ford gets all tough-guy and saves the day by throwing the bad guy out of the back of the plane.

6. DIE HARD 2
Oh that John McClane, just can't keep his nose out of trouble. Thank goodness. The sequel to "Die Hard" puts NYC cop Bruce Willis at Dulles airport in Washington waiting for his wife to arrive when he begins to notice some suspicious activity. Fast forward to the end when he not only fights off the dad from "Good Times" on the wing of a plane, but manages to blow the thing up with all the bad guys on board.

5. AIRPORT
Burt Lancaster as the airport operations manager. Dean Martin - Dean Martin! - as a pilot for Trans Global Airlines. A young Jacqueline Bisset as a sexy flight attendant having an affair with Dino. George Kennedy as the cranky airport maintenance chief. Helen Hayes in a funny turn as a nice little old lady who happens to be a fantastic stowaway. Oh, and a bomb.

4. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Based on a true story of one of the world's great forgers who somehow lies his way through being a pilot for Pan Am, this flick starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks as the relentless FBI agent who pursues him.

3. UP IN THE AIR
What this did for American Airlines was amazing. George Clooney plays a man whose job it is to fly around the country and fire people for big corporations. He is a member of American's frequent flyer program and is closing in on the magical 10 million miles flown, which only seven people have done.

2. THE AVIATOR
We're being serious here when we say it's criminal that Leonardo DiCaprio hasn't won an Academy Award, especially for this Martin Scorcese-directed flick about the early life of famed aviator and eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. DiCaprio was spot on, as was the research, portraying one of the most influential men in aviation history. Cate Blanchett was brilliant as Katharine Hepburn, Kate Beckinsale equally so as Ava Gardner and Alec Baldwin was terrific as Juan Tripp, head of Pan Am.

1. AIRPLANE!
Campy, goofy, stupid … but hysterical. Airplane! was not only one of the first great spoofs in film history, but it spawned more great lines that are still quoted to this day than perhaps any other film.