← Apex Mountain

Airplane!

1980 · directed by Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker and David Zucker · 88 min
27,092 feet · Prominence
83rd of 24,106 films scored
The Rewatchables‘Airplane!’ With Bill Simmons and Bill Hader →

How this film scores

Draw66

Lifetime worldwide gross $83m, re-releases included; about $334m in 2026 money.

Rank1,016 of 11,051In 19807 of 84

How Draw works

Inflation-adjusted worldwide box office, on one global curve, and nothing else. It does not know whether a film was good.

Praise89

Awards claim half the headroom above the critics' score.

Critics88 baseAwards17 signal → +1 lift

Golden Globes1 nominated Best Picture
BAFTAs1 nominated Screenplay
How Praise works

Critics set the score; a tiered award record, Picture and Directing carrying the most weight, claims half the headroom above it. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since. This film is near critically unanimous and barely registers on awards, so there is little headroom for awards to claim. The score is the critics' verdict, nearly untouched.

Legacy85

Judged directly: Registry comedy, quoted more than almost anything.

Verdict85 of 100IMDb7.7 from 285kWikipedia72k views a monthAge46 years

On the listsNational Film Registryevidence, not an input to the score
Scored beside it · 66 of 4,039 films judged

If it does not belong in this company, the number is wrong.

How Legacy works

Legacy is a judgment, not a formula. A film can be adored by critics and culturally quiet, or lightly reviewed and permanently lodged in the culture, and no arithmetic over IMDb numbers tells the difference. Every signal behind it keeps updating.

draw 66 praise 89 legacy 85averages 80, placing it at27,092 ft
How the three become one number

Added, not multiplied, so a film transcendent on one pillar and weak on another is not zeroed out. A compression curve then squeezes the top, because the seven greatest films ever made should not be four thousand feet apart.

Whose apex this is

▲ Robert Hays▲ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

In these careers — elevation for this film

Leslie Nielsen19,380 ftJulie Hagerty18,759 ftRobert Hays18,430 ftLloyd Bridges18,319 ftKareem Abdul-Jabbar18,086 ftJames Hong17,644 ft