top aviation movies

There have been many films made over the years celebrating mans gift of flight. Some showing the turbulent side of life, others happier times when all we could do is dream of one day soaring like an eagle.

Some of the greatest cinematic moments have been seen through the lens and displayed on screen for all to admire.

Here is a growing collection of some of the most talked about pieces of work ever to be released by the motion picture industry.

Stories told in such a way it leaves us all gasping for air at the thrills and spills of the aviator. Aviation has come along way since the Wright Brothers and you can now reminisce and take a look back in time to these magnificent men in their flying machines.

The movie now showing (left) was a 1965 British comedy film directed by Ken Annakin. Based on an original screenplay titled Flying Crazy, the story is set in 1910, when Lord Rawnsley, an English press magnate, offers a prize of £10,000 to the winner of the Daily Post air race from London to Paris to prove that Britain is "number one in the air".

Although Director Ken Annakin was not an aviator, he had always been interested in aviation from his early years when pioneering aviator Sir Alan Cobham had given him a first flight in a biplane. Annakin pitched the idea of recreating an actual event from the dawn of aviation to Darryl F. Zanuck, his producer on the wartime opus.

Zanuck agreed to bankroll an "epic" that would be faithful to the era, even deciding upon the name Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.

The rest is history as they say!