Film

The Concorde... Airport '79

Name: The Concorde... Airport '79
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Released: 1979
Cast: Robert Wagner, Susan Blakely, Alain Delon, Sylvia Kristel, George Kennedy

The Concorde... Airport '79 is a spectacularly unhinged disaster film where a nuclear missile, international espionage, and structural sabotage converge on the world's fastest passenger jet. It's gloriously absurd—part action thriller, part technical marvel showcase, utterly committed to its chaos. For fans of 70s excess and practical stunt work run amok.

TMDb rating

2.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you get a kick out of gleefully silly disaster spectacle, where a roster of familiar faces gets stranded in the sky and the plot piles up with cheerful absurdity.

Skip it if you need grounded realism or real suspense, since the implausible plot and dated stiffness will wear thin fast.

What it asks of you: Running just over two hours, it stretches its setups at a leisurely clip, with long stretches of talk before each jolt, so expect patience before the thrills arrive.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Poseidon Adventure1972

The disaster-film template perfected: an ensemble cast, escalating peril, and practical effects that still astonish. Everything '79 learned, it learned from this.

But Slower-paced than modern blockbusters, and the emotional beats require patience with characters you must care about first.

Airport1970

Burt Lancaster's ground-level thriller that launched the franchise and proved disaster films could be smart, tense, and genuinely gripping about procedure and human error.

But It's largely confined to the airport terminal rather than the air, and the pacing is deliberate rather than propulsive.

The Towering Inferno1974

Newman and Holden in a burning skyscraper with Steve McQueen doing what he does best—solving problems under pressure. The gold standard of the entire genre.

But Nearly three hours long, and the romance subplot hasn't aged gracefully compared to the spectacle.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Concorde... Airport '79

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Thunderbird 61968

Both are films about futuristic aircraft in catastrophic peril, but one uses practical effects and real actors while the other uses strings and foam—same urgent energy, completely different toolbox.

Gerry Anderson's puppet-tech disaster film where International Rescue battles a rogue flying aircraft. It's got the exact same DNA—technical spectacle, impossible odds, earnest heroics—but it's a marionette movie, which makes it weirdly hypnotic.

But The puppets are stiff by design, and if you can't make peace with that aesthetic, the film becomes a distraction rather than an experience.

Earthquake1974

Charlton Heston and George Kennedy in a disaster film that commits fully to the chaos and doesn't pretend catastrophe is dignified. Raw, kinetic fun.

But The plot is thin and the character work is functional—you're here for the destruction, nothing else.

The Hindenburg1975

George C. Scott in a murder mystery wrapped in a disaster film, with technical detail that feels genuinely researched and a mounting sense of dread.

But The mystery element can feel contrived, and the film takes itself more seriously than some viewers will appreciate.

Rollercoaster1977

A killer targets theme park rides while George Segal hunts him. It's tense, briskly paced, and features real amusement park footage that's mesmerizing.

But The plot turns predictable halfway through, and the resolution feels rushed compared to the clever setup.

Black Sunday1977

A taut political thriller where a terrorist plot to weaponize a blimp over the Super Bowl feels disturbingly plausible. Suspenseful and unsettling in the best way.

But It doesn't play as entertainment in the way the Concorde film does; the stakes feel real enough that it can be genuinely uncomfortable.

Sorcerer1977

Friedkin's ambitious survival thriller follows four men driving trucks loaded with unstable dynamite through a jungle. Technical mastery and relentless tension throughout.

But It's slow, methodical, and interested in endurance rather than thrills; modern audiences often find it testing rather than entertaining.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three1974

A subway hijacking with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, crackling with smart dialogue and procedural authenticity. New York grit meets heist movie precision.

But The pacing is episodic and some scenes drag; it rewards patience more than it rewards speed.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three poster

The Italian Job1969

Both films are intoxicated by their own technical ingenuity and the pleasure of seeing a machine do exactly what it's engineered to do, whether that's crossing the Atlantic or navigating Alpine hairpins.

A heist film disguised as a car chase film, where the real spectacle is the coordination, the gadgetry, and the sheer audacity of the plan. It's elegant where Concorde is chaotic, but equally committed to the impossible.

But It's a 1969 British heist comedy, not an action thriller—if you need modern pacing and visual effects, it will feel slight.

Venom1981

Both films feature ensemble casts trapped with a threat (missile vs. cobra) where the scenario is so outlandish that the only way through is commitment and spectacle, and both are more interested in that commitment than in plausibility.

Klaus Kinski, Sterling Hayden, and a cobra in a townhouse during a hostage crisis. It's an enclosed-space thriller with the tension dialed to absurd levels and a cast clearly having the time of their lives.

But It's deeply silly and inconsistently toned; if you need the film to decide whether it's serious or campy, you'll be frustrated.