Long-haul flights are where sanity goes to die. Six to twelve hours can feel like an eternity, especially when the in-flight entertainment (if there is any) promises 400 titles, but somehow has nothing good. On my last transatlantic haul, my mental health survived on one thing–the movies I’d downloaded from before takeoff.
My criteria were simple. Engrossing enough to make the hours disappear, but nothing that would leave me sobbing next to a stranger, too spicy for shoulder-surfing seatmates, and available to U.S. Netflix subscribers as of press time. And absolutely no plane crash movies. It’s also a fantastic time to take in all the niche stuff my family refuses to watch with me. Landing gear up.
The Hunger Games movies
Five movies of Suzanne Collins’ addictive dystopia
The entire Hunger Games saga is now streaming on Netflix—from the first time we ever saw J-Law volunteer as tribute as Katniss Everdeen to Rachel Zegler singing her way through the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
That’s five movies (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay – Part 1 & Part 2, and Songbirds & Snakes) and more than 11 hours of dystopian comfort food—enough to cover the flight out and a decent chunk of the return home. These are beautifully made blockbusters you’ve probably seen before, which is exactly what you want in the air. You can doze off for whole chunks of these movies, and not miss a beat when you wake up. The Capitol’s quirky costumes still look great on a tablet, the arena battles are reliably tense and creative, and the stories are politically complex and dripping in social commentary that they’re good for adults, too.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Take in this Tom Holland’s Spidey before Brand New Day
Added July 1 and already parked in Netflix’s top three, Tom Holland’s first solo outing as Peter Parker is peak repeat viewing. But if you haven’t seen Spider-Man: Homecoming, it’s your first layover (see what I did there?) on route to Brand New Day, which hits theaters July 31.
Michael Keaton’s Vulture remains one of Marvel’s best villains, the ferry battle sequence holds up on a small screen, and the twist ending lands even when you know it’s coming. Holland is excellent in the film as the friendly neighborhood webslinger, it’s funny, light, and perfect for that mid-flight stretch when your brain wants something familiar.
Enola Holmes (1 to 3)
A three-movie mystery marathon you and your teen can watch together
Netflix’s feisty franchise is now a trilogy, and the timing couldn’t be better. Enola Holmes 3 recently hit the service and shot straight to No. 1 in the U.S., which means all three adventures of Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) outsmarting her famous big brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and flirting with Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) are there to download. Of course, the quick-witted young detective must get to the bottom of several twisting mysteries in each instalment, and there may even be a wedding on the itinerary.
The Victorian-era capers are witty, fast-moving, and completely seatmate-safe—no need to angle the screen away from anyone. Watched back to back, the trilogy runs roughly six hours, which is most of an Atlantic crossing’s worth. And when your teen starts whining that there’s nothing good on the seat back in front, you can hand over your tablet and buy yourself some peace.
Memento
A tattoo-riddled puzzle box to wake up your brain
Christopher Nolan’s breakout thriller Memento landed on Netflix on July 5, and it remains one of the director’s best mind-bending puzzlers—I’ve seen it half a dozen times, and I’m still finding new things to chew on. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce in a breakout role) can’t form new memories from the time of his wife’s traumatic murder, so he hunts her killer armed with sticky notes, Polaroids, tattoos, and a sordid story told in reverse, trying to find answers.
Quiz
Name that Christopher Nolan movie
Trivia challenge
From Gotham to the stars — can you match these iconic scenes, characters,
and quotes to the right Nolan film?
CharactersPlotQuotesDirectorsSci-Fi
Which Christopher Nolan film follows a man with short-term memory loss who uses
Polaroid photos and tattoos to hunt for his wife’s killer?
Correct! Memento (2000) tells the story of Leonard Shelby, played by Guy
Pearce, who suffers from anterograde amnesia. The film is famously told in reverse chronological order,
mirroring Leonard’s fragmented perception of reality.
Not quite — the answer is Memento. Released in 2000, it stars Guy Pearce
as Leonard Shelby, a man who cannot form new memories. Nolan’s bold choice to tell the story in reverse
made it one of the most distinctive thrillers of its era.
In Batman Begins, which villain uses a fear-inducing toxin and wears a burlap mask
throughout the film?
Correct! Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow, is played by Cillian
Murphy in Batman Begins. His fear toxin, derived from a rare blue flower, is central to the League of
Shadows’ plot to destroy Gotham City.
Not quite — the answer is Scarecrow. Cillian Murphy plays Dr. Jonathan
Crane, a psychiatrist who weaponizes fear itself. While Ra’s al Ghul is the film’s true mastermind, the
Scarecrow is the more visible mask-wearing villain on the streets of Gotham.
In The Dark Knight, the Joker says ‘Why so serious?’ — but which actor’s portrayal
of the Joker earned a posthumous Academy Award?
Correct! Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), tragically awarded posthumously after his death in
January 2008. His performance is widely considered one of the greatest villain portrayals in cinema
history.
Not quite — the answer is Heath Ledger. He delivered a haunting,
transformative performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight and was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting
Actor posthumously. Joaquin Phoenix later won for a different Joker film in 2019, but Ledger’s remains
iconic.
In Inception, what is the name of the spinning top that Dom Cobb uses as his ‘totem’
to tell if he is in a dream?
Correct! Cobb’s totem is a spinning top — in reality it falls over, but
in a dream it spins indefinitely. The film’s famously ambiguous final shot of the wobbling top has been
debated by fans for years, leaving Cobb’s true reality an open question.
Not quite — Cobb’s totem is simply called the top, or spinning top. Each
character in the film has a unique totem to detect whether they’re dreaming. The final shot of the film
deliberately cuts before the top falls or keeps spinning, leaving audiences in beautiful uncertainty.
In Interstellar, which planet do the crew visit first, where one hour on its surface
equals seven years on Earth due to time dilation?
Correct! Miller’s planet orbits so close to the black hole Gargantua
that extreme gravitational time dilation makes one hour there equal seven years back on Earth. The crew
pays a devastating price for the brief time they spend on its wave-battered surface.
Not quite — the answer is Miller’s planet. Its proximity to the
supermassive black hole Gargantua causes extreme time dilation. By the time Cooper and the crew return
to the Endurance after just a few hours, decades have passed for those waiting aboard the ship.
Dunkirk depicts the real World War II evacuation of Allied soldiers in 1940.
Approximately how many soldiers were rescued during the actual Operation Dynamo?
Correct! Operation Dynamo, carried out between May 26 and June 4, 1940,
successfully evacuated approximately 338,000 Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk. Nolan’s film
portrays the chaos and heroism of the rescue using a non-linear three-timeline structure.
Not quite — around 338,000 soldiers were evacuated during Operation
Dynamo. What made it remarkable was the involvement of hundreds of civilian ‘little ships’ that crossed
the English Channel to help. Nolan’s film captures that desperate, fragmented experience across land,
sea, and air timelines.
In Tenet, the protagonist learns to manipulate objects moving backward in time
through a process called what?
Correct! In Tenet, ‘inversion’ is the process by which objects — and
people — have their entropy reversed, causing them to move backward through time relative to everyone
else. The concept underpins the entire plot and leads to some of the film’s most mind-bending action
sequences.
Not quite — the process is called inversion. In Tenet, inverted objects
and people experience time in reverse relative to the world around them. Nolan drew on real physics
concepts like entropy and the second law of thermodynamics to craft the film’s complex, looping
narrative.
In Oppenheimer, which actor plays J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist
who led the Manhattan Project?
Correct! Cillian Murphy plays J. Robert Oppenheimer in the 2023
biographical epic. His performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the film itself won
Best Picture. Murphy had previously appeared in smaller roles in several earlier Nolan films.
Not quite — Cillian Murphy plays Oppenheimer. It was a career-defining
role for Murphy, earning him the Oscar for Best Actor at the 2024 Academy Awards. Matt Damon also
appears in the film as General Leslie Groves, the military leader who oversaw the Manhattan Project.
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The Matrix co-stars Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano support, too, and you’re never quite sure if they’re allies of Leonard’s or enemies. Memento demands your full attention—which, conveniently, is the one thing you have in abundance for a long-haul. The 113-minute runtime is deceptive, and you’ll spend an hour afterwards mentally reassembling the movie—and possibly just restarting it immediately.
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
The kaiju classic you can watch guilt-free
Here’s the real long-haul secret—a flight is guilt-free alone time for the movies your family has collectively vetoed, amirite? Netflix just added a batch of Toho classics, including the incredible Rebirth of Mothra trilogy, but the crown jewel is Shusuke Kaneko’s 2001 kaiju masterpiece, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.
This dark standalone entry reimagines Godzilla not as a protector, but as a truly evil and angry monster possessed by the restless souls of Japan’s dead war heroes. It also flips the script on stalwart bad guys Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Baragon (not mentioned in the title for length, apparently), turning them into the guardians. It’s gorgeous, brilliantly cheesy in the best ways, but genuinely eerie, and features some of the best monster action in the franchise’s 70-year history. Nobody in my house will watch it with me. Somewhere over the Atlantic, nobody has to.
Is your seatbelt securely fastened?
Five picks, 10 movies, one sane arrival at your destination. Just remember to download these before you’re off the Wi-Fi, and check that the movies are there—licensing means not every title offers it. For more on what’s worth watching, check out How-To Geek’s streaming section.
- Subscription with ads
-
Yes, $8/month
- Simultaneous streams
-
Two or four
- Live TV
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No
- Price
-
Starting at $8/month
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
