We know you love drones as much as we do, but sometimes you can’t get out to fly, particularly since only authorized pilots can fly at night. Let’s remedy the hum-drums, let’s schedule ourselves something to do on those days where we can’t leave the house, let’s watch a fun drone movie. (Haha, we’re going to stick with that sentence, even though we’ve all been at home for a while now. Hope the pandemic years were not too rough on you.)
These may not be the best of the best, we’ll let you tell us which are the best in the comments below, we’re just here to list a few prominent and fun drone movies, or at least movies that have some cool drones in them.
Update: We had to remove Top Gun: Maverick. We were told that drones would be the enemy, but that just wasn’t true.
Drone movies
Stealth
Released in 2005, an AI driven, highly-advanced fighter jet-drone begins thinking for itself. The ensuing air battle between human and machine makes for a fun action movie.
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Released in 2019, spoiler alert, drones are part of the core of this movie. Combining some serious drone swarm technology with some impressive futuristic tech, the bad guys almost rule the world. A movie worthy of awards for visual effects.
Blade Runner 2049
Released in 2017, a different kind of future puts law enforcement drones in the hands of police officers. Voice activated drones are a part of the flying squad cars.
Eye in the Sky
Released in 2015, bugs, birds and a full sized military strike drone all play a part in an intense political situation: How many civilian causalities are acceptable to stop terrorists?
Drone
Released in 2017, life as a modern military drone pilot is easy, but while it’s just a video screen to the pilot, there are consequences for what that drone does in the sky.
Good Kill
Released in 2014, would you question the ethics of dropping bombs using drones? This Air Force pilot does.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Released in 2017, with the help of the tools from his Iron-mentor, Spider-Man deploys an advanced insect-sized drone, able to go places the life-size super hero can not.
Back to the Future part II
Released in 1989, this is not a drone movie. There’s just one drone scene that intrigues us, and it’s more realistic than we might like to admit: a news station deploys a drone to capture footage of the police making an arrest.
Don’t miss: The Circle, shot entirely on the DJI Inspire 2
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do you include movies that aren’t really about drones?
Just because a movie isn’t based around a drone specifically, we’re still interested in any fun machines they happen to show off. It would be great if there were dozens of great movies out there that focus solely around drones, but that’s just not in the cards so far.
“Drones” are a broad topic, what kind of drones can I buy?
In the early days of quadcopters, it was common to find a poster at the local hobby shop with a picture of a military drone and a saying like “This is a drone!” There is no law against you owning one of those military drones, but there are laws prohibiting the companies from selling them to you, and you are still subject to the 55lb weight limit and visual line of sight rule, so it’s really not worth trying. These days, drones are probably either fast racing machines or productive camera drones, making all the fun things we see in the movies all the more interesting.
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