The Flight of the Phoenix – The Criterion Collection: James Stewart, Hardy Krüger, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, and Ernest Borgnine star in this saga of a group of men who are stranded in the Sahara when their plane crashes. A rescue is unlikely, and their numbers are already starting to dwindle. Now, their only chance of making it out of the desert alive rests with the long shot plan of cobbling together a working aircraft out of what’s left of theirs. Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser co-star; based on the novel by Elleston Trevor.
A downed airplane is a motley group of men’s only protection from the relentless desert sun, in this psychologically charged disaster epic, one of the all-time great survival movies.
James Stewart is the veteran pilot whose Benghazi-bound plane—carrying passengers played by an unshaven ensemble of screen icons including Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Dan Duryea, Peter Finch, and George Kennedy—crash-lands in the remote Sahara.
As tensions simmer among the survivors, they find themselves forced to trust a coldly logical engineer (Hardy Krüger) whose plan to get them out may just be crazy enough to work—or could kill them all. Directed with characteristic punch by Hollywood iconoclast Robert Aldrich, The Flight of the Phoenix balances adventure with human drama as it conducts a surprising and complex examination of authority, honor, and camaraderie among desperate men.