The Aviator (2004)

The Aviator is the kind of big, old-fashioned Hollywood epic that feels newly alive: a soaring portrait of ambition where the glamour of the age and the terror of a restless mind share the same cockpit. Martin Scorsese paints Hughes’s world with intoxicating period detail and propulsive energy, while Leonardo DiCaprio gives a performance that’s both charismatic and quietly unsettling, matched beautifully by Cate Blanchett’s spark and Kate Beckinsale’s steel. The film’s craftsmanship is a constant pleasure—lush design, muscular cinematography, and set pieces that land with real weight—yet it never forgets the human cost behind the headlines. It’s long and intense, and if you’re not drawn to character-driven dramas about obsession and power, it may not be your ride, but if you are, it’s thrilling, tragic, and impossible to shake.

The Aviator is clearly aiming for a big, glossy portrait of Howard Hughes as both a visionary showman and a man quietly unraveling, and Scorsese delivers that sense of scale with real craft. The catch is that it can feel more like an impeccably staged highlight reel than a deeply felt character study, with stretches that lull and an emotional distance that keeps Hughes at arm’s length. If you want a tight, intimate biopic that digs into inner life more than headlines and spectacle, this may leave you admiring it rather than moved by it. Still, DiCaprio is committed, Blanchett is a spark of electricity, and the aviation and crash sequences are genuinely gripping if you’re in the mood for prestige filmmaking over personal warmth.