Film
The Rocketeer
A gleeful, old-fashioned matinee adventure built around one irresistible gadget: a jetpack that turns a broke stunt pilot into a rocket-suited hero. Set in 1930s Hollywood with Nazi spies, gangsters, zeppelins and a plucky leading lady, it moves fast, grins wide, and never pretends to be more than a Saturday-serial thrill ride — perfect for anyone craving pure, uncomplicated pulp fun.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love old-fashioned pulp adventure with a sunny, wide-eyed heart, where the swagger of 1930s serials and a gleaming retro-future feel like the main attraction rather than a costume.
Skip it if you need a fast, relentlessly modern action picture; this one ambles through its romance and its bad-guy scheming at a gentler, more leisurely clip than today's blockbusters.
What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty-eight minutes and asks for easy, good-natured attention, with a light touch on danger and no need to track a complicated plot.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Captain America: The First Avenger2011
Same wide-eyed 1940s heroism, same Nazi-occult villains, same earnest hero who just wants to do right — Joe Johnston directed both, so the propeller-driven optimism and pulp spectacle feel like family.
But Bigger budget, more CGI spectacle, and tethered to a decade-spanning franchise you'd need buy-in for.
Raiders of the Lost Ark1981
The blueprint for everything Rocketeer loves — a square-jawed hero, Nazi treasure hunters, breathless setpieces, and a script that never stops moving. If you want the source code for pulp adventure done perfectly, start here.
But It's more grounded and a touch more menacing than Rocketeer's cartoonish, family-friendly fun.
Dick Tracy1990
Same era, same comic-strip primary colors, same gleeful villain theatrics — Warren Beatty's detective picture is a garish, candy-colored cousin with just as much affection for old pulp iconography.
But The stylization is more extreme — flatter performances, deliberately artificial sets — which some find charmless rather than charming.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Rocketeer
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
King of the Rocket Men1949
Its rocket-suited hero is the literal template Dave Stevens drew on when creating the Rocketeer — same helmet silhouette, same stolen-weapon plot, decades earlier and dirt cheap.
This cheap, thrilling Republic serial gave the world the actual rocket-suit-and-helmet hero Rocketeer lovingly resurrects — cliffhangers, rope-and-pulley flying, and a scientist's stolen invention, decades before Cliff Secord ever strapped one on.
But Black-and-white, chopped into episodic chapters, with visible wires and a budget that couldn't buy a single explosion Rocketeer takes for granted.
More like this (8)
The Shadow1994
A genuine pulp-hero cousin nobody remembers: same period detail, same secret-identity swagger, same delightfully overripe villain. If Rocketeer left you hungry for more 1930s vigilantes, this is your next stop.
But The pacing sags and the tone can't juggle camp and sincerity as gracefully as Rocketeer does.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow2004
A love letter to the same retro-futurist matinee aesthetic — biplanes, ray guns, art-deco skylines — built almost entirely from digital backlots, for anyone who wants the visual dream turned up further.
But The green-screen artifice can feel airless, and the story is thinner than the visuals promise.
Hellboy2004
Nazi occultists, pulp-hero derring-do, and a director who clearly grew up on the same serials — it's Rocketeer's monster-movie sibling, funnier and grubbier around the edges.
But Heavier on gothic horror imagery and gore than anything in Rocketeer's sunnier world.
The Mummy1999
Swashbuckling romance, wisecracking hero, over-the-top villains, and an era-appropriate adventurous sweep — it's got the same just-here-to-have-a-blast energy, transplanted to Egypt instead of Hollywood.
But Leans harder into horror-comedy and CGI spectacle than Rocketeer's practical, matinee charm.
The Phantom1996
A genuinely obscure pulp-hero throwback from the same wave of '90s revivals — purple tights, jungle temples, and a plot that wouldn't embarrass a 1930s serial writer.
But Cheesier and clumsier than Rocketeer, with a smaller budget's seams showing throughout.
Batman1989
Tim Burton's stylized, art-deco Gotham and Jack Nicholson's gleefully theatrical villain share DNA with Rocketeer's period sheen and charismatic bad-guy energy.
But Considerably darker and moodier — this is gothic spectacle, not sunny pulp adventure.
The Iron Giant1999
Same director, same fascination with an ordinary person and a wondrous flying machine, same Cold-War-adjacent American nostalgia — but rendered as tender animation instead of pulp spectacle.
Joe Johnston, the same director, made this gentle animated gem eight years later — another story about an ordinary person and a mysterious flying machine, set in the same golden-age American optimism, but aimed at the heart instead of the box office.
But It's a quiet, melancholy children's film with long stretches of almost no action — nothing like Rocketeer's breathless chase-and-punch momentum.
L.A. Confidential1997
Both are set in the manufactured glamour of golden-age Hollywood and use a movie-star villain as the mask over something ugly — Rocketeer plays it as pulp fun, this plays it as noir indictment.
Same gilded, corrupt Hollywood that Neville Sinclair struts through — glamorous surfaces hiding rot, tabloid scandal, studio-system machinery — except here nobody gets a jetpack, and the violence has real teeth.
But It's a hard-boiled, morally bleak crime drama with no heroics, no rescue, and none of Rocketeer's boyish joy — a genuinely different evening.
People
Cast
Billy CampbellCliff Secord
Jennifer ConnellyJenny Blake
Alan ArkinA. 'Peevy' Peabody
Timothy DaltonNeville Sinclair
Paul SorvinoEddie Valentine
Terry O'QuinnHoward Hughes
Ed LauterFitch
Jon PolitoBigelow
James HandyWooly
Tiny RonLothar / Good Old Boy
William SandersonSkeets
Margo MartindaleMillie
Directing
- Joe JohnstonDirector
Writing
- Dave StevensGraphic Novel
- Danny BilsonScreenplay
- Paul De MeoScreenplay
- Danny BilsonStory
- Paul De MeoStory
- William DearStory
Production
- Nancy FoyCasting
- Larry FrancoExecutive Producer
- Charles GordonProducer
- Lawrence GordonProducer
- Lloyd LevinProducer
Recommended by
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Superman II, Superman, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, Innerspace, Captain America: The First Avenger, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Batman, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Flubber, Dick Tracy, The Shadow, The Phantom, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, Darkman, The Fantastic Four, The Spider's Web, Fantastic Four, The Masked Marvel, Thunderbirds, Adventures of Captain Marvel, The Incredible Hulk Returns, Wild Wild West, Mr. India, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Black Scorpion, Captain America