Top Gun

In California, the Navy’s best fighter pilots are trained at Miramar Air Station. In 1983, a magazine featured an article about this training programme, entitled Top Guns. An influential film producer read it and came up with the idea of making a film about the lives of these pilots. And so it came to pass. It became a massive box-office hit, full of drama, romance and plenty of spectacular aerial stunts. For lead actor Tom Cruise, this role marked his definitive breakthrough.

Lieutenant Pete Mitchell (Cruise), better known as Maverick, is a US Navy pilot. He is a skilled, but sometimes very reckless pilot. Despite this, he is admitted to an elite pilot training programme, where only the best of the best are trained. At a party, he meets a woman (Kelly McGillis) with whom he immediately falls in love, though he fails to win her over. A day later, he discovers that she is an instructor at his training programme. Meanwhile, he is struggling with the disappearance of his father, a pilot who vanished over Vietnam.