My 150 Favorite Movies - #62

Airplane! is arguably, if not the funniest movie ever, then certainly one of the two or three most quotable funny movies, ever. (I myself often find myself spouting the line, "I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!") This tale of an ex-pilot, afraid to fly, being the only person on board capable of landing an aircraft, borrows its plot heavily from Zero Hour!,  but also references at least a half dozen other movies from the golden age of cinema. It also revived the careers of a number of heretofore straight-arrow middle-aged actors, including Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves. This was the first, and best of a long series of spoofs from the writer-directors Jim Abrahams, and Jerry and David Zucker. Compulsively watchable.