The best travel movies ever made is a mix of life up in the air (the art of traveling) and life on the ground (human drama unfolding in interesting places around the globe). The list of best movies about travel weighs heavily towards planes and airports but I’ve also given some thought to being in an unfamiliar place and growing as a person because of the places you’ve been.
I try to give a brief take on why each film is one of the best travel movies. Some of the ones on the list may not have been so well received.
It is obvious that Up in the Air is the best travel movie of all time, even if Die Hard 2 is better than the business plan for Washington Dulles' Independence Air. Was Kris Kristofferson a better air crash investigator than the rest of the cast?
Here are my favorite travel movies. Do you have yours? I don't know what I'm missing.
- Up in the Air. The movie was not in any way related to the book, which I read on a United Washington Dulles – San Francisco flight in 2001. The two female leads in the film didn’t even exist in the book (Vera Farmiga kind of sort of did). But George Clooney plays us, they go through security and throw down elite status cards and Clooney is on a quest to pad his mileage balance.
When the film was released in 2009, the Great Recession was at its lowest point. It's a fundamental mistake to rent a car. The airport and flight scenes are amazing. It is important to know me. There is a deleted scene that you might not know about.
- Die Hard 2. A year after taking down terrorists at Los Angeles’ Nakatomi Building, Bruce Willis’ John McClane battles terrorists again — this time at Washington Dulles airport.
The pay phones at the airport say that this isn't Dulles. I have never been able to figure out why planes in a holding pattern that were running out of fuel never tried to divert. The late Fred Thompson ordered all inbound aircraft to be held by declaring, "Pack 'em, stack 'em, and rack 'em"
- Flight. Denzel Washington as an alcoholic pilot. Most of the movie is Washington (not) dealing with his addiction but the controlled crash scene is incredible.
- Airplane!. Over Macho Grande? I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.
Airplane is similar to Zero Hour! if you prefer to watch it as a drama. The Zero Hour script was purchased by the writers and they made a comedy version of the 1957 film.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two films.
- Before Sunrise (Vienna) Before Sunset (Paris) Before Midnight (Greece). Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy walk and talk — with youthful idealism masked as cynicism in Vienna, reconnecting years later through the streets of Paris, and dealing with the challenges of their relationship and doubts about life on an island in Greece.
The acting is believable and we get a taste of Europe in each film.
- National Lampoon’s Vacation and European Vacation (but not Christmas Vacation). The first film was the classic family road trip as Chevy Chase takes his clan on a journey through its own history, his own mid-life regrets, and his deeply committed quest to be a good father — taking everyone to Wally World and flirting with Christie Brinkley along the way.
- The Terminal. Tom Hanks is on a quest that brings him to New York, but he can’t leave the airport because his passport is invalidated by a coup in his home country. It’s based on the true story of an 18 year stay at Paris Charles de Gaulle.
- Lost in Translation. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are lost and detached from their lives, and explore Tokyo together. They see the city as foreigners, they’re foreign to each other and to themselves, and the story revolves as much around the Park Hyatt Tokyo as it does Japanese karaoke.
The Park Hyatt is a great place to stay, but the movie makes it special, and the property helps make the movie special. I have not been able to sleep in Shinjuku because I found myself at the Denny's instead of the New York Bar. It was the best Dennys I have ever been to.
- Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Holiday travel is rough. I hate flying on ‘amateur days’. It’s far worse during irregular operations. But if you’re determined enough, you can get where you’re going — even if it takes changing from a plane to a train and circumstances force you to drive across much of the country.
I prefer the Charles Grodin version.
- Airport. This 1970 film was the first of a series, and a classic disaster movie that intertwines the lives of people dealing with keeping an airport open during a major weather event while a bomber plots to blow up a plane.
- Millennium. Ok, so this movie only has an 11% ‘Fresh’ rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Kris Kristofferson plays an NTSB investigator looking into the collision of a Boeing 747 and a DC-10 where all the passengers of the 747 appeared to be dead prior to ground impact, even though the plane caught fire only once it hit the ground. Because, time travel.
- Pushing Tin. John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton are air traffic controllers. It’s dark, and probably not a great movie, but the scenes at New York TRACON are awesome.
- Boeing Boeing. Tony Curtis is an American in Paris dating 3 different flight attendants — for Air France, Lufthansa, and British United Airways — whose international routes never have them in town at the same time. They all live with him whenever they’re in Paris, with photos and personal touches swapped out to match each one of them.
hijinks occur when technology intervenes: faster planes mean schedule changes so that all of their schedules overlap.
I considered more than one film for this list. The whole movie was just an excuse for an amazing flight sequence, but you can't sell an evening's entertainment that lasts just a few minutes. The re-creation of US Airways 1549 was amazing.
I thought she was out of my league. The TSA screener is the worst job. You have to wear rubber gloves because the work environment is gross and you have to pat down grandma. It is possible for Hollywood to give the men and women in blue a victory.
I didn't think about soul plane.
One of the best travel movies.
