Top Gun Is One Of The Most Iconic Movies Of The Eighties. It Has Tom Cruise, Fighter Jets, Great Music, And Enough Action To Make It A Classic That Still Holds Up Today. This Is One Of Those Movies That Became Bigger Than The Story It Was Telling.
Top Gun came out in 1986 and quickly became one of the defining movies of the decade. Even if you have never watched the entire movie, you probably know the look of it, the music, the sunglasses, the leather jackets, the motorcycles, and of course the F 14 Tomcats flying through the sky. It is one of those movies that became part of American pop culture almost immediately.
Tom Cruise is the biggest reason the movie works as well as it does. He plays Pete Mitchell, better known as Maverick, a young Navy fighter pilot who is extremely talented but also reckless and full of confidence. Cruise was already becoming a star, but Top Gun turned him into a massive movie star. There is just something about his performance that makes Maverick impossible not to watch.
Anthony Edwards plays Goose, Maverick’s radar intercept officer and best friend. Goose is one of the most important characters in the entire movie because he gives Maverick someone to trust and someone who can keep his ego under control. Their friendship also gives the movie a lot of its emotional weight, especially when the story takes a much darker turn.
Val Kilmer plays Tom Kazansky, better known as Iceman, and he is basically the perfect rival for Maverick. Iceman is confident, disciplined, and completely convinced that Maverick is too dangerous to be trusted in the air. Their rivalry gives the movie some of its best scenes because neither one of them wants to back down.
The cast also includes Kelly McGillis as Charlotte Blackwood, who becomes Maverick’s love interest, and Meg Ryan in one of her early memorable roles as Goose’s wife. You also get Tom Skerritt as Viper, Michael Ironside as Jester, and James Tolkan as Stinger. There are a lot of recognizable faces throughout this movie, which makes the cast feel much bigger than just Tom Cruise.
Tony Scott directed Top Gun, and his visual style is a huge part of why the movie became so memorable. The aerial sequences look incredible, especially considering this was made in 1986. The use of real Navy aircraft and actual flying footage gives the action a sense of weight that a lot of modern computer generated effects sometimes struggle to recreate.
The story itself is pretty straightforward. Maverick and Goose are selected to attend the Navy’s elite Top Gun flight school, where they compete against some of the best pilots in the service. Maverick has the natural talent to be one of the best, but his attitude and willingness to take risks constantly put him at odds with his instructors and fellow pilots.
The movie is really about Maverick learning that being the best pilot is not just about having incredible instincts or being willing to take crazy chances. He has to learn how to trust other people, control his ego, and understand that his decisions in the air affect everyone around him. That gives the movie more substance than just being a two hour advertisement for fighter jets.
And then there is the soundtrack. Top Gun has one of the best soundtracks of the eighties. Kenny Loggins with Danger Zone, Berlin with Take My Breath Away, Cheap Trick with Mighty Wings, and Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem all became connected to the movie. You could hear the opening notes of Danger Zone today and immediately know what movie it belongs to.
One of the things I really like about Top Gun is how much personality it has. This is not a movie that is trying to be subtle. Everything is turned up. The jets are loud, the music is loud, the personalities are big, the romance is dramatic, and Maverick spends half the movie looking like he just stepped out of a magazine advertisement for the coolest guy alive.
But underneath all of that style is a pretty good character story. Maverick starts the movie believing that his talent can get him through anything. By the end, he understands that talent is not enough. He has to deal with loss, responsibility, fear, and the consequences of his choices. That makes his journey much more satisfying.
The movie also deserves credit for making people care about naval aviation. Top Gun became such a cultural phenomenon that it influenced how an entire generation viewed fighter pilots and the military. It made the F 14 Tomcat one of the most recognizable aircraft in movie history and helped create an image of military aviation that is still associated with the eighties.
Is Top Gun perfect? Probably not. Some of the romance feels dated, some of the dialogue is extremely eighties, and the story is pretty simple when you break it down. But honestly, that is part of the charm. Top Gun is not trying to be complicated. It wants to entertain you, make you care about the characters, and put you inside some spectacular fighter jet sequences.
That is why Top Gun remains such a good movie almost forty years later. It has an incredible lead performance from Tom Cruise, a great supporting cast, Tony Scott’s fantastic direction, memorable characters, unforgettable music, and some of the best aviation footage ever put into a Hollywood movie. It is stylish, entertaining, emotional, and completely representative of its era.
Top Gun is also one of those movies where the experience matters just as much as the plot. You watch Maverick climb into that F 14, hear the music start playing, see those jets take off from the carrier, and suddenly you understand exactly why this movie became a phenomenon. It is pure eighties Hollywood filmmaking at its best, and sometimes that is all a great movie needs to be.
