The last film I watched on a plane was “Finding Nemo.” The critics liked it and the public seemed to like it.
Otherwise the offerings don’t seem worth the price.
Qatar Airlines have great in flight entertainment on their long haul flights. On a trip from Doha to DC I watched all the first season of Mad Men.
The last flight I took was from London to Detroit, and they had a constant loop of movies going all the time.
The only problem was the movies all reset at the same time, so you could only watch a new movie when the movie that was the longest was finished. So once your movie was done you could watch another movie until the end, and then another, and so on until the longest movie was finished.
That would have been fine if the last movie hadn’t been the second Pirates of the Caribbean, and it lasted a full FORTY FIVE MINUTES after every other movie. So basically I can verbatim quote the last 45 minutes of Pirates. A skill I wish I didn’t have.
I always try to watch the movies, unless it’s something I really don’t want to see. I wish my laptop battery lasted long enough to watch a movie though. That would be much better than craning my neck to see the screen or squinting at the seatback in front of me.
I usually take the bus rather than flying, but it just depends what they are showing if I will watch it. That and if my son is all antsy or sleeping.
When we flew to Florida in October we had seat back satellite tv, so I put the children shows on for him and other stuff for me (yay Discovery!). The only movies we had (unless a channel showed one) was a selection of five movies that you could pay per view with your credit card. I ended up watching Hancock on the way back from Toronto because there was nothing otherwise interesting.
Although I fly, I really hate flying.
So I watch any movie they show, simply to keep my mind off the fact that I am in an airplane.
On a flight to Hawaii, you were able to rent a small laptop thingie (not exactly a laptop, but sortakinda) with three films, and I watched all three of them.
I flew to Israel over the summer (10 hour flight) on Continental. They had a library of about 350 movies to choose from, totally free, from many different genres, classic films through recent releases, none of which were edited. One of the films I watched was “Brotherhood of the Wolf.” They also had hundreds of TV shows to choose from as well, so I watched a few episodes of “Dexter” & “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Again not a single word or scene was cut.
People still have to pay for in flight movies?! I was on Cathay Pacific to and from Hong Kong very recently (as in, I got back two days ago) and on the flight to, it was an older plane so the quality was pretty crappy. The movies started at a standardized time and if I missed the beginning, there was no choice to rewind. And there were tv shows available but played in a specific order. If I wanted to watch Family Guy, I’d have to sit through How I Met Your Mother. No commercials in between movies or tv shows though. I ended up just watching a cheesy 1980s Chinese movie because the one I wanted to see wasn’t playing on the channel according to the guide. On the flight back, it was awesome because they fancied up this plane and I could pick and control whichever movie and when to start it. I ended up watching Wall-E, Pleasantville, and several episodes of the Simpsons, Family Guy, Scrubs, and Sex and the City. There were commercials, but I could fast forward through them. I wanted to watch Journey to the Center of the Earth, but there was a warning that I wouldn’t be able to finish the movie before the system shuts down for landing, so I opt not to. I hate missing the endings.
My flight to and from Las Vegas on Air Canada a couple of months ago was the same experience. On the flight back though, there were no options to skip the commercials nor descriptions on which particular episode of the show I was going to watch so I had to sit through the commercials and watch the beginning to see if it was one I’d already seen, and if it was, decide if I wanted to watch it again or sit through more commercials to see if the other shows had episodes I hadn’t seen.
On my flight to and from Calgary, there were no movies or tv shows at all, but it’s only an hour flight, so I’m not surprised.
I’m just surprised that people are still expected to pay for movies. Are these discount airlines you are flying on?
ETA: there was no editing as far as I could tell, on my flights. The Sex and the City episode I watched was full of bare breasts. 
The last movie I watched in flight was free…and a little creepy. We left Illinois at 80 degrees and sunny, watched ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and came down into six inches of snow and blizzard conditions in Alaska. I was ready to find a library and burn books till it all blew over.
The past several times I’ve flown, it has always been with Air Canada, and all (most, anyways) of their planes have pretty good seat-back systems with choices of music, movies, TV shows, news, etc. which you can turn on and off as you wish (no waiting for other movies to end!). Also, no paying! I have no idea how much the movies are edited, though.
This weekend we are flying with American Airlines. From what I can tell, seat-back entertainment systems seem to only be available in business/first class, which sucks! I’ve become so used to having entertainment on board, and this will be a 5+ hour flight… I might just bring my laptop and some downloaded movies on my USB (no DVD drive in an EeePC!) I’m sure the battery can last the flight!
I haven’t heard much good about American Airlines. It’s going to be a LONG flight!
I typically don’t watch the in-flight movie, partly because the editing makes the good movies pointless, but mostly because they rarely show anything worth watching. On a flight to Italy last year, I watched Transformers (to check it off the mental list, more than anything) but I passed on Mr Bean’s Vacation and License to Wed.
Instead, I bring a DVD player with me. I was in Mazatlan last week, and on the flights, I watched the end of 30 Rock’s first season, and some of Battlestar Galactica.
I always check to see what’s playing. If it’s something I haven’t seen and looks interesting I tune in. Otherwise, it’s just me and my iPod for the trip.
Usually I try, but I often have trouble hearing and it is very annoying.
I don’t think you’ve ever had to pay on international flights. You used to on domestic flights (and still do for some airlines.)
Well, most of the time on domestic flights, you can look at the screen for free, but the headphones cost money. And the way airlines are charging for every little thing these days, I halfway expect to be asked during checkin whether or not I’d like to pay extra to sit in the half of the passenger cabin that is not filled with angry bees.
That’s why I bring my own noise cancelling ones with that two-pronged plug.
Either that or I just won’t fly domestic and always fly international.
Damned if I’m gonna pay for headphones! 
Q
When United Airlines still charged five bucks for headset rental, the inflight announcement said that the charge was for either renting the headset or using your own, although I don’t know if they enforced that. I always thought it was a ridiculous thing, as it meant the flight attendants had to spend time collecting money and making change.
Yeah, I knew about that, but you’re right: those ladies and gents are too busy doing other things to stop and charge me for using their plug-ins.
Q