The Aviator

The Aviator is an Academy Award-winning 2004 biographical drama film, directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a biopic of the aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, following his life from the late 1920s through the 1940s, a time when Hughes was directing and producing Hollywood movies as well as test piloting his own groundbreaking new aircraft.

Howard Hughes

• Show me all the blueprints.

• If the Hercules does not fly, I will leave America and never come back again, and I mean it.

• He owns Pan-Am. He owns Congress. He owns the Civil Aeronautics Board. But he does not own the sky.

• Quarantine. Q-u-a-r-a-n-t-i-n-e. Quarantine.

• I'm Howard Hughes, the aviator.

• Sometimes I truly fear that I... am losing my mind. And if I did it... it would be like flying blind.

• Find me some clouds!

• The way of the future.

• I sleep...in this room...in the dark. I have a place I can sleep. I have a chair. That's just beautiful. Oh, yeah. I like the desert. It's hot there in the desert, but it's clean. It's clean. I need to sleep. I should drink something first. I should drink something first. Wait a minute. What if that milk is sour? That milk is bad. I shouldn't pick up the bottle of milk with my right hand. And I shouldn't take the top off with my left hand...put it in my pocket. My left pocket.

• Tell Jimmy I want ten chocolate chip cookies, medium chips, none too close to the outside.

• Orange juice has... nutritional value. Flies outside the window, though. Little Howard loves orange juice, doesn't he just?

• You come out of the blue and let me down, and have the nerve to expect graciousness.

• When I grow up, I'm gonna make the biggest movies, fly the fastest planes ever built, and be the richest man in the world.

Katharine Hepburn

• Do your worst, Mr. Hughes!

• You see, Howard, we're not like other people. Too many acute angles. Too many... eccentricities. We have to be very careful who we let in or they'll make us into freaks.

• Ha! Men can't be friends with women. They must possess them or leave them be. It's a primitive urge from caveman days. Hunt the flesh. Kill the flesh. Eat the flesh. That's the male sex all over.

• Can't you eat ice cream out of a bowl like everyone else?!

Noah Dietrich

• Everybody works for you, Howard.

• You just placed the largest order for airplanes in the history of the goddamned planet, Howard!

Dialogue

Katharine: Howard's building a new aeroplane.

Ms. Hepburn: Luddie built a birdhouse once!

Cast

• Leonardo DiCaprio — Howard Hughes
• Cate Blanchett — Katharine Hepburn
• Kate Beckinsale — Ava Gardner
• John C. Reilly — Noah Dietrich