Stunning aerial footage still best thing about Top Gun at 40

Key points

• When the action film Top Gun hit the big screen in 1986, critical reviews were mixed, but audiences were thrilled.
• The film racked up $358 million globally, making it the highest-grossing film of that year.
• Its success spawned a few video games and a critically acclaimed blockbuster 2022 sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, and the eye-popping flight sequences definitely boosted enlistment numbers for the US Navy.
• Those scenes are still the best thing about Top Gun, 40 years later.
• (Spoilers below because it’s been 40 years.) The film was inspired by a 1983 article in California magazine detailing the lives of fighter pilots at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego (aka “Fightertown USA”) and featuring plenty of aerial photography alongside the text.