The 7 Best Movies to Watch on a Plane, Whatever Your Mood

Let’s face it: flying can be stressful. Even under the smoothest circumstances, the anticipation of getting to your destination can make time in the sky feel like it’s dragging. Fortunately, most airlines now offer an abundance of entertainment options to make even the longest flight, well, fly by. Queue up a great movie (or several) from the list below—whether you’re in the mood for a good cry or just need something playing in the background while you sneak in a nap, mile-high.

Best Movie to Cry To: Carol

We’ve all been there: something has upset you, but you still have a nonrefundable flight to catch, so you board the plane, eagerly wanting to excavate the feelings bubbling inside you before you reach your destination, where you hope your emotional state can return to some form of equilibrium. When that happens, turn on Carol, Todd Haynes’s career-high film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, which follows the lesbian love story of a married woman (Cate Blanchett) and the struggling shopgirl (Rooney Mara) she runs into while Christmas shopping. A sweeping romantic drama with an all-timer of an ending, it will definitely get those tears flowing. I’d just make sure you leave ample time to take a trip to the bathroom and dab your eyes before you deboard.

Best Movie to Watch With Your Seatmate: One of Them Days

If you can’t go to the theater with your bestie because, well, you’re on a plane, don’t worry—you both can choose the same film and watch it side-by-side instead. One of Them Days, one of the funniest comedies in recent memory, is the perfect dual watch. Following Keke Palmer and SZA (in her film debut) as two best friends and roommates who are forced to spend a chaotic day desperately trying to secure enough money to pay their rent before they’re evicted, the fast-paced, outrageous farce takes cues from classics like Friday and House Party for a movie that’s guaranteed to keep you and your friend giggling from your respective seats. Just make sure you aren’t laughing too loudly. Your fellow passengers might not like that.

Best Movie for a Long Flight: Titanic

Nothing helps the time pass by quicker than a similarly long film to sink into (no pun intended). James Cameron’s Best Picture-winning epic about a love story that blossoms aboard a 1912 luxury ocean liner clocks in at nearly 3.5 hours, and with its exploration of class, greed, death, and grief, it’s the perfect movie to take your mind off the slow-moving passage of time as you await your descent. Sure, there might be something slightly unnerving about watching a supposedly infallible transportation vehicle succumb to disastrous natural elements, but let’s be clear: Titanic is about a ship. It’s not like I’m recommending Snakes on a Plane.

Best Movie to Watch Over Someone’s Shoulder: Flow

When an airline’s endless selection of films becomes too overwhelming, nothing sates the appetite for cinema quite like settling in for whatever film is playing on the screen attached to the seat in front of you. There’s something appealing about watching a movie over a stranger’s shoulder—the only downside, of course, being the lack of sound. Sometimes, you can luck out with subtitles, but to circumvent that completely, why not watch Flow, a silent film that follows a ragtag group of animals as they scramble for safety amidst a flood that has destroyed their homeland? With its gorgeous animation, this Oscar-winner can be understood (and fully appreciated) without hearing anything.

Best Movie to Watch In Between Intermittent Naps: Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning

The great thing about The Final Reckoning, the last entry in the decades-spanning Mission: Impossible franchise, is that its convoluted plot doesn’t entirely make sense, even if you’re paying full attention. But that’s what makes it such great airplane fare. Beyond the lore-heavy first act, which is really just a walk down memory lane, reminding viewers of essential moments from the first seven M:I films, it’s the perfect movie to doze off to before a mild bit of turbulence jolts you back awake 40 minutes later. Yes, you might miss out on a few crucial details, but Mission: Impossible has never been a franchise too concerned with plot minutiae. These films are ultimately about their huge action setpieces, which The Final Reckoning has aplenty. Where else can you find Tom Cruise maneuvering through a sunken submarine?

Best Movie to Hype You Up For a Vacation: Girls Trip

It might be a little on the nose, but few things can prepare you more for a fun vacation with your friends than a movie about a bunch of friends having fun on vacation. One of the best of the bunch is Girls Trip, Malcolm D. Lee’s riotous romp about four college friends reuniting for a trip to New Orleans for Essence Fest. Packed with an equal amount of hilarious hijinks and touching moments of tenderness, it’s the perfect blend of laugh-out-loud fun and tear-jerking sentimentality. Watching it can be educational as you gear up for your group trip: it’ll get you excited for the debaucherous revelry to come while preparing you to navigate those harder challenges, too.

Best Movie to Unwind With After a Stressful Trip: Paddington 2

Personally, I think Paddington 2 is the perfect movie for any occasion. Want to laugh? Cry? Zone out? Lock in? Paddington 2 has something for everybody. Continuing the adventures of a talking Peruvian bear that finds community with a well-meaning British family, this feel-good sequel follows as Paddington is framed for a crime he did not commit and winds up in jail alongside a slew of grizzled prisoners. But this is the Paddington Bear we’re talking about, so of course, he finds a way to bring joy and light into the prison—and what can be a better cure after a stressful trip than that? After a particularly hectic trip, nothing will feel more soothing than watching this impossibly optimistic bundle of joy turn an entire prison of men into marmalade-making chefs.