Airport

Airport (1970) is the disaster movie you can watch online on iFILM — George Seaton's adaptation of Arthur Hailey's bestseller. A blizzard buries a major airport while a desperate passenger boards a Boeing 707 with a bomb in his briefcase.

Airport manager Mel Bakersfeld fights to keep his runways open as the snow piles up and the staff frays. Up in the air, the crew has no idea that one traveler has taken out a fat insurance policy on his family and means to collect it the only way he can. Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset and George Kennedy anchor a story that cuts between ground crews and a cockpit running out of options.

This is the film that set the template the whole genre copied through the 1970s, spawning Airport 1975 and a string of imitators. Kennedy's Joe Patroni proved so popular he returned for all four sequels. Watch it for the blueprint, not the polish — the spectacle here is people under pressure. Stream Airport (1970) online on iFILM.