Following on from The Rock, this was the film that cemented Nicolas Cage's reputation as one of Hollywood's most unlikely action heroes. It's a top-notch thrill-athon, with Cage as an ex-Army Ranger jailed for a murder he committed in self-defence, whose release is interrupted when his flight home is hijacked by a bunch of America's most dangerous felons. Cage's impossibly cool macho posturing is irresistible, as is John Malkovich's sneering, tongue-in-cheek turn as super-criminal Cyrus "the Virus" Grissom. John Cusack and Ving Rhames lend snappy support, while Steve Buscemi steals nearly every scene he is in with an inspired pastiche of Hannibal Lecter. Armed with an entertaining script by Scott Rosenberg, director Simon West has delivered a dynamic debut that's nearly impossible to dislike. The public certainly found it a winning formula - it went on to take more than $200 million around the world.

Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.