Forget 'Slow Horses,' Gary Oldman's $315 Million Action Classic Is Officially on Netflix

Gary Oldman has spent much of his career playing characters who are either intelligent, unhinged, or flatulent. He can often perform a masterclass of appearing to be what looks like the smartest man in the room and also the smelliest. What a talent that is. Audiences these days know him as the phantom farter in Slow Horses, but nearly 30 years ago, Oldman was making life miserable for a very different kind of government official.

This time, he had Harrison Ford stressing like hell and that movie is Air Force One, the 1997 action thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen, which is now streaming on Netflix. The movie became a huge commercial success when it first arrived in theaters, earning approximately $315.2 million worldwide against a reported $85 million production budget.

The film sees President James Marshall (Ford) on his way home, just trying to catch up on some recorded sports action after a successful sojourn to Russia where his big speech has been hailed a great success. It would, therefore, be a real shame if his plane were to be hijacked by a gang of terrorists, led by the craziest man alive (Oldman, naturally). It’s a very straightforward premise, but the leading duo are just so utterly magnetic that it elevates the entire thing into the territory of iconic action cinema.

The cast is led by Ford (Indiana Jones) and Oldman (Slow Horses) as Ivan Korshunov, alongside Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction) as Vice President Kathryn Bennett, Wendy Crewson (The Santa Clause) as Grace Marshall, Liesel Matthews (A Little Princess) as Alice Marshall, William H. Macy (Fargo) as Major Norman Caldwell, Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) as Defense Secretary Walter Dean, and Xander Berkeley (24) as Secret Service agent Gibbs.

• He reads ground the way other people read a room.
• He will stand between you and the worst of it without discussing it.
• He says almost nothing, and never the wrong thing.

• The 1982 original came from David Morrell’s 1972 novel, which ends very differently.
• Stallone cut most of his own dialogue in the edit to make the character nearly silent.
• Five films across thirty-seven years, from 1982 to the fifth in 2019.

• He is better in the room than he is on paper, and he is excellent on paper.
• He will not explain the plan, and the plan will work.
• He treats charm as a tool, and it is a remarkably effective one.

• Eon has made twenty-five Bond films since Dr. No in 1962, across six actors.
• Denis Villeneuve is directing the next one for Amazon MGM, which took creative control in
  2025.
• The search for the new 007 was still running through 2026, with screen tests under way.

• He has read the thing nobody else thought to read.
• He will risk the whole plan for the artifact, and be right about half the time.
• He improvises better than most people prepare.

• The Cairo swordsman scene was improvised on the day because Harrison Ford had dysentery.
• Raiders was filmed in about 73 days, which was fast even in 1981.
• Dial of Destiny in 2023 was Ford’s fifth and last outing, at the age of eighty.

• He turns whatever is in the room to his advantage.
• He is funniest when things are at their worst.
• He has never once agreed that it is over.

• Die Hard came from Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to a book
  filmed in 1968.
• Nakatomi Plaza is Fox Plaza, which was the studio’s own headquarters at the time.
• Bruce Willis was a television comedy actor then, and a long way down the casting list.

• He takes the risk himself rather than assigning it.
• He is three moves ahead and will not say which three.
• He treats your survival as the actual objective.

• Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M at a thousand feet for the opening of Rogue
  Nation.
• The HALO jump in Fallout took 106 takes, filmed at dusk for the light.
• The Final Reckoning in 2025 was the eighth film, and was sold as the last.

Was ‘Air Force One’ a Success?

Air Force One began its opening weekend with $37.1 million domestically before finishing its North American run with $173 million, while overseas audiences contributed another $142.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to approximately $315.2 million. The movie holds a 78% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a 66% audience score, with particular praise going to Ford’s commanding performance and Oldman’s wonderfully over-the-top villain. And over-the-top is probably the best compliment you can give him, because he is demented in this film and it works so well.

Air Force One is streaming on Netflix.

Air Force One

Communist radicals hijack Air Force One with the U.S. President and his family on board. The Vice President negotiates from Washington D.C., while the President, a veteran, fights to rescue the hostages on board.