Film

Sully

Name: Sully
Genre: Drama, History
Released: 2016
Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany, Mike O'Malley

Clint Eastwood strips a genuine miracle down to its bones: 208 seconds of crisis followed by weeks of bureaucratic suspicion. Hanks plays Sullenberger as a man haunted rather than heroic, quietly furious at being disbelieved. It's a tight, unshowy film more interested in institutional doubt than triumph — for people who like their true stories told plainly and their heroism understated.

TMDb rating

7.2

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Flight2012

Denzel Washington as a pilot who lands a doomed plane brilliantly, then gets investigated for everything else about him. Same premise as Sully, darker conclusions about heroism and truth.

But It's much bleaker than Sully — this is a character study of addiction wearing a disaster movie's clothes.

Apollo 131995

Tom Hanks again, this time as an astronaut solving impossible problems in real time while ground control debates his fate. Same calm-under-fire engine, same faith in competence.

But You already know how it ends, and it leans harder into technical procedure than personal drama.

Captain Phillips2013

Hanks as another ordinary professional thrust into extraordinary danger, praised afterward but visibly shaken by what it cost him. Paul Greengrass shoots it with documentary-grade tension.

But It's more of a hostage thriller than a courtroom drama — the aftermath gets far less screen time than the crisis.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

12 Angry Men1957

Sully's hearing is essentially a jury room: instinct and experience versus cold data. This 1957 chamber piece is the original, definitive version of that argument, stripped of everything but conviction.

One room, twelve men, and a single holdout insisting that human judgment matters more than the tidy story the evidence seems to tell. It's the purest version of Sully's real subject.

But No plane, no crash — just people talking in a hot room, and you have to find that gripping on its own terms.

United 932006

Real-time reconstruction of another catastrophic flight, told with almost unbearable procedural restraint. If you liked Sully's cockpit sequences, this is that instinct taken to its extreme.

But It is genuinely harrowing rather than reassuring — no miracle landing waiting at the end.

Bridge of Spies2015

Hanks, Spielberg, and another ordinary man doing the right thing while institutions circle him with suspicion. Same quiet-decency-versus-bureaucracy shape as Sully, in a Cold War coat.

But It's slower and more talkative — a negotiation drama, not a disaster film.

Deepwater Horizon2016

Another true disaster, another investigation hunting for someone to blame afterward. Visceral, well-crafted, and angry in a way Sully only hints at.

But Louder and more special-effects-driven than Sully — less interested in psychology, more in spectacle.

Argo2012

A true story built entirely on tension, competence, and bureaucratic obstruction, with a lead performance built on quiet confidence rather than swagger.

But It plays looser with the facts than Sully does, and the crisis is diplomatic rather than physical.

World Trade Center2006no page yet

Oliver Stone's account of survival and rescue on a day of real catastrophe, focused on endurance rather than blame. A gentler companion piece in tone to Sully's second half.

But Heavier and more overtly emotional — less procedural, more about grief and faith.

The Perfect Storm2000

A true story of professionals making impossible calls against nature, with a captain whose judgment is second-guessed after the fact. Similar bones, saltier setting.

But It's more disaster-movie spectacle than character study, and considerably less hopeful.

Airplane!1980

Airplane! parodies the earnest cockpit-crisis genre Sully belongs to, right down to the composed captain and the tribunal-like scrutiny. Same skeleton, opposite register — proof the formula is sturdy enough to survive total demolition.

The gold standard of disaster-movie parody, built from the exact same bones as Sully — crippled plane, panicking passengers, a pilot everyone doubts. It is relentlessly, stupidly funny.

But If you want gravity and true-story weight, this delivers precisely none of it — it's pure absurdist comedy.

The High and the Mighty1954no page yet

This is the film that established the aviation-crisis-and-quiet-heroism formula Sully draws on. Watching the 1954 original makes clear how much of Eastwood's film is a conversation with sixty years of the same story.

John Wayne as a co-pilot talking a damaged plane and a panicking crew back down to earth, decades before Sullenberger existed. It essentially invented the calm-captain-saves-everyone template.

But Dated pacing and dialogue, and the effects show their age badly — this is one for genre archaeologists.