Aces High

Aces High (1976) is a British World War I drama directed by Jack Gold — watch it online on iFILM. It is 1916 on the Western Front, and young RFC lieutenant Stephen Croft arrives at a French airfield carrying every romantic notion about aerial combat that the recruitment posters put there.

Malcolm McDowell plays Croft; Christopher Plummer is his commanding officer, a man long out of illusions. British pilots at that point in the war lasted weeks rather than months, and the film does not flinch from that arithmetic. John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, and Ray Milland anchor the supporting cast. Aces High stands apart from most Great War pictures because it refuses to make the dying look noble. Watch Aces High (1976) online on iFILM.