May 15, 2026 5:14pm PT

‘Propeller One-Way Night Coach’ Review: John Travolta’s Slim and Winning Boyhood Reverie of Air Travel in the Lost-Paradise Age of TWA

The actor-turned-director adapts and narrates his 1997 childhood memoir novel, staging it with a ripe nostalgia for the "Mad Men"/space-age era.

Owen Gleiberman

Plus Icon

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

@OwenGleiberman

Latest

‘Propeller One-Way Night Coach’ Review: John Travolta’s Slim and Winning Boyhood Reverie of Air Travel in the Lost-Paradise Age of TWA

32 minutes ago

‘John Lennon: The Last Interview’ Review: Steven Soderbergh’s Documentary Captures John Lennon at His Happiest…and Most Messianic

5 hours ago

‘Fatherland’ Review: Thomas Mann and His Daughter Travel Across Germany in 1949 in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Meticulous Time Machine of a Drama

1 day ago

See All

At the Cannes premiere of “Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” the first movie written and directed by John Travolta (it’s only an hour long, and drops on Apple on May 29), Travolta was introduced with a 10-minute montage of his film work — the sort of thing that sounds very standard, though this had to be one of the greatest movie-star montages I’ve ever seen. It had the benefit of amazing music (“Stayin’ Alive,” “You’re the One That I Want”), but watching Travolta in his ’70s heyday, and in his ’90s second heyday, you realized, quite simply, that he’s one of the most electric stars of the last half century. The montage cued you to a dozen movies you were suddenly dying to see again.

'Propeller One-Way Night Coach' Review: John Travolta's Slim and Winning Boyhood Reverie of Air Travel in the Lost-Paradise Age of TWA