The Aviator (2004)

All Critics (214) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (195) | Rotten (27) | DVD (40)

This handsome movie is an oddly well-behaved one to come from the preternaturally energetic Scorsese.

February 3, 2010 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

This almost-great epic has one foot in legend: it's a vision of an American titan that could have sprung from the insides of Hughes's own obsessive, perfectionist head.

November 1, 2007 Full Review

David Ansen

Newsweek

Top Critic

Despite a pacy, technically brilliant but otherwise slightly ordinary first half-hour or so, Scorsese's Howard Hughes movie is his best since The Age of Innocence.

June 24, 2006 Full Review

Geoff Andrew

Time Out

Top Critic

Its primary appeal is its speed: It rushes along, from scandal to air crash to movie romance to Senate hearing, each anecdote well realized but never tarried over.

May 20, 2005 Full Review

Stephen Hunter

Washington Post

Top Critic

This undoubtedly is the movie Scorsese set out to make, and he made it exceedingly well. Still, we can fault him for choosing to celebrate its subject instead of examining him.

April 21, 2005 Full Review

Eric Harrison

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

By and large I think this movie's chief function is to give Scorsese an opportunity to indulge in the pleasures of big-time filmmaking and to treat the audience to a heady dose of glamour.

December 27, 2004 Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Good but not great, and not for younger kids.

December 28, 2010 Full Review | Comments (8)

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

It's all rather sprawling and a bit disjointed, but Scorsese's vigorous pacing and eye for detail hold it all together and provide a vivid setting for DiCaprio's masterful performance (his best work yet).

August 7, 2008 Full Review

Jim Lane

Sacramento News & Review

...too long and disjointed to be a great film, but it is entertaining in bits and pieces. (HD DVD Edition)

November 5, 2007 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

Scorsese's most engaged and engaging filmmaking in a while.

July 23, 2007 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

Its plot moves from event to event without a story driving it and the audience is left drifting along.

July 14, 2007 Full Review | Comments (3)

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

All tabloid style gloss accessorized with brassy special effects, and bloated storytelling based loosely on period gossip.

February 8, 2007 Full Review | Comments (4)

Prairie Miller

WBAI Web Radio

full review in Greek

October 3, 2006 Full Review | Comments (2)

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

It's almost predictable in the way it delivers the cinematic goods, yet there's no denying that it is a compelling and entertaining look at a larger-than-life individual.

September 1, 2006

Russ Breimeier

Christianity Today

The Aviator feels like old-fashioned Hollywood with a bracing jolt of Scorsese's cinematic flair

August 19, 2006 Full Review

Jay Antani

Cinema Writer

Scorsese gives us a lot more than the Charles Foster Kane of the clouds. He keeps focus on Hughes, the dreamer, who continually reached out, grabbed the future and pulled it toward him.

January 17, 2006 Full Review

Jim Schembri

Sydney Morning Herald

It's a measure of The Aviator's complexity and ambiguity that it can be read equally as a celebration of rugged, capitalist individualism and as a leftist critique of cutthroat free-market competition.

September 26, 2005 Full Review

Nathan Rabin

AV Club

• 1. Howard Hughes: You want to go to war with me?
  2. Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: It's not me, Howard. It's the United States Government. We just beat Germany and Japan. Who the hell are you?
  – Submitted by MarieBella C (8 months ago)
• 1. Noah Dietrich: I've gotta tell you, the board over in Houston has been getting a little concerned about the cost of this operation out here.
  2. Howard Hughes: Ah! would you stop showing them the books, Noah?
  3. Noah Dietrich: That be illegal Howard
  4. Howard Hughes: Well, maybe it's a little naughty.
  – Submitted by MarieBella C (8 months ago)
• 1. Katharine Hepburn: I've been famous - for better or worse - for a long time now... I wonder if you know what that really means.
  2. Howard Hughes: Yeah, I got my fair share of press on Hell's Angels. I'm used to it.
  3. Katharine Hepburn: Are you? Howard, we're not like everyone else. Too many acute angles. Too many eccentricities. We have to be very careful not to let people in or they'll make us into freaks.
  4. Howard Hughes: Kate, they can't get in here. We're safe.
  5. Katharine Hepburn: Oh they can always get in. When my brother killed himself there were photographers at the funeral. There's no decency to it!
  6. Howard Hughes: You know I get these ideas Kate these crazy ideas about things that might not be there.
  7. Katharine Hepburn: Yeah
  8. Howard Hughes: Sometimes I truly feel like I'm losing my mind and if I did it would be like flying blind.
  9. Katharine Hepburn: You taught me to fly Howard, I'll take the wheel.
  – Submitted by MarieBella C (8 months ago)
• 1. Howard Hughes: The way of the future, the way of the future, the way of the future...
  – Submitted by Nova Q (9 months ago)
• 1. Howard Hughes: Good, and you made what, $5200 dollas a year at your last job? I'll pay you ten thousand.
  2. Noah Dietrich: I guess i'll be working teice as hard.
  3. Howard Hughes: You'll be working four times as hard. I just got you at half price.
  – Submitted by kateo l (9 months ago)
• 1. Howard Hughes: Don't tell me I can't do it. Don't tell me it can't be done.
  – Submitted by kateo l (9 months ago)