Once upon a time, flying movies were a staple of Saturday matinee cinema. Along with wrestling flicks and westerns, they have sadly for the most part gone the way of the fifty cent double feature. There have been some great military aviation movies over the years, however, including a few from the not too distant past. Here’s our top ten list of the best military aviation movies of all time.

10. Iron Eagle, 1986

It’s got an embarrassingly cheesy and far fetched story about a teenager flying into a freedom hating middle eastern country who has kidnapped his father, with poor acting and dialogue to boot. However thanks to the cooperation of the Israeli Air Force, there are some pretty cool scenes of F-16s and Mirage fighters, which along with great songs like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, make the film a guilty pleasure.

9. Flyboys, 2006

This movie stunk it up at the box office, and with low watt stars like James Franco, it’s really no wonder. Still it does tell the story of the American volunteers who came to fight for France in World War I, before the official American entry into the war. The flying scenes are a tad too CG intensive, but do include a few actual World War I era craft doing spectacular maneuvers. It makes the list for no better reason than that it is the best, if only World War I aviation movie of the last thirty years.

8. Memphis Belle, 1990

Memphis Belle tells the actual story of the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress which beat the odds to fly 25 missions over Germany in World War II. It’s pretty typical Hollywood schmaltz, but the tension and danger of the bombing raids is well captured.

7.Flight of the Intruder, 1991

While nobody would call it a classic, Flight of the Intruder is the only movie we can remember about carrier operations during the Vietnam War, and for that it earns a spot on our list. A pair of A-6 pilots, disillusioned by the restrictions placed on their missions bombing North Vietnam, plot a rogue attack on a SAM installation in the middle of Hanoi. Most of the flying scenes look like they were done using models, and the acting and writing are corny, but it is about an overlooked era in military aviation history.

6. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944

This movie tells the story of James Doolittle’s daring B-25 raid on Tokyo just five months after the Pearl Harbor attack thrust the US into World War II. It’s first and foremost a propaganda flick, produced while the war was still ongoing, but it’s earnestly done. The bombing sequence, which intersperses actual footage of the Tokyo raid with recreations, won an Academy Award for special effects.

5. Hell’s Angels, 1930

This is the film that almost ruined its director/producer millionaire Howard Hughes, as seen in Scorceses’ “The Aviator” a few years back. Anyone interested in classic aviation though will be thrilled by the film’s two set pieces, as literally dozens of vintage World War I aircraft— the real things not models— fly through the air enacting death defying maneuvers in simulated dog fights. Some question as to whether this movie is palatable to modern audiences, what with the rather tedious love triangle plotline (although Jean Harlow, in her first role is every bit the sexy siren), and at times ludicrous acting and dialogue, but those flying scenes stand up even now, almost 80 years later.

4. Pearl Harbor, 2001

For the most part the movie is a testament to how much big budget epics have degraded over the last twenty years, with the strategic sweep and perspicacity of Tora! Tora! Tora! replaced by a rote love triangle and mindless jingoism. The attack scenes though, while perhaps too reliant on CG, are awesome, with countless aircraft including actual rebuilt Japanese Zeroes.

3. Battle of Britain, 1969

First of all you can’t argue with the cast, acting royalty in a young Michael Caine, and Laurence Olivier. While at times a bit slow, the movie does a good job of recounting those dark days of Britain undersiege in 1940, the strategic decisions by Generals on both sides, and most of all the plucky heroism of the RAF in stemming the Luftwaffe attacks. The flying sequences are fantastic with actual Spitfires and Messerschmitts captured by the lens of legendary cinematographer Freddie Young, of Lawrence of Arabia fame.

2. Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1970

A far more nuanced and even handed look at the run-up and execution of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Tora! Tora! Tora! can at times be a bit of a slog. But the pace quickens in the brilliant battle scenes, with more than 70 vintage Japanese and American planes squadrons recreating the attack.

1. Top Gun, 1986

Yes, certain technical aspects of modern air combat depicted in the film are somewhat cringe-worthy. F-14’s equipped with “over the horizon” capable AIM-54 Phoenix missiles wouldn’t be likely to engage in close range acrobatic dog fights (at that point it would have been bye-bye carrier.) And the black painted F-5s- called “MiG-28s”- which are supposed to be a formidable adversary to a plane? C’mon. You either love or hate the over-the-top dialogue (“I feel the need…the need for speed!”) and the same goes for the Kenny Logins heavy soundtrack. We’ll leave it to Quentin Tarantino to explore the film’s homoerotic subtext. Where the film succeeds, and why it earns the top spot on this list, is in its pure and riveting depictions of flight itself. However inaccurate the dog fighting scenes may be, no other movie comes close in terms of being able to capture the power and grace of these machines, locked in a mortal pas de deux, as they scream across the sky.

Did we miss any? Sound off in the comments with your top ten list.