Air Force One is wheels up once again—this time for free. The high-flying 1997 action-thriller starring Harrison Ford has landed on Pluto TV as part of its July 1 streaming drop, bringing with it one of the actor’s most iconic roles and a line that Ford himself still loves to quote in everyday life. Yes, that line: “Get off my plane!” The movie wasn’t just a hit—it was a full-throttle blend of two of the biggest trends in ’90s cinema: action movies set aboard commercial aircraft (Passenger 57, Executive Decision) and fictionalized takes on the American presidency (Dave, The American President, and Independence Day).
Air Force One mashed both genres into one red-white-and-blue blockbuster and delivered a perfect star vehicle for Ford, who by that point had played both Han Solo and Indiana Jones and was more than ready to take on the role of the President of the United States. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen—a thriller legend known for Das Boot and In the Line of Fire—and written by Andrew W. Marlowe, who’d go on to create Castle. It pulled in a massive $315.2 million at the box office on an $85 million budget, proving that audiences were more than ready for President Ford to deliver action and diplomacy at 30,000 feet.
What Is ‘Air Force One’ About?
Ford stars as President James Marshall, a decorated Vietnam vet who’s just overseen the capture of General Radek (played by Jürgen Prochnow), a bloodthirsty post-Soviet dictator. But no sooner has he left a diplomatic banquet in Russia than Air Force One is hijacked by a group of Radek loyalists, led by Gary Oldman’s steely-eyed terrorist Ivan Korshunov. With the help of a mole inside the Secret Service (Xander Berkeley), the terrorists take over the plane—and it’s up to Marshall to stop them, Die Hard-style.
The twist? The terrorists think Marshall has already escaped via escape pod. But in true Harrison Ford fashion, the President has actually gone full rogue hero, hiding aboard and planning his one-man counterattack. As he stealthily takes out the hijackers, his Vice President (Glenn Close) faces immense pressure from the Attorney General (Dean Stockwell) to invoke the 25th Amendment. That tension between power in the sky and politics on the ground keeps the stakes sky-high until the last, famously CG-clunky action beat, that made all of us think “at least we could zipline to another plane if ours was broken”. Ah, movies.
Air Force One is now streaming for free on Pluto TV.