International flights are like marriage. First time, there is that thrill and excitement. Newness, freshness. New experience. As you keep flying more often, excitement wears off. With marriage, other commitments, and life changing events kick-in that keeps the marital relationship interesting. But with long duration flights, where it takes 20+ hours, it becomes an ordeal. As a person who has been taking international long-haul flights regularly, post few initial flights, it became an endurance test. Something you don’t look forward to.

If you are a person who don’t sleep through the flight, like me, 20+ years back, you are at the mercy of what they show in the pop-out aisle screens. Funniest home videos, or just laugh kind of videos. Hard to kill the time reading a book for 20+ hours. Then came the PTVs (Personal Televisions). Better than the pop-out screens. Content very limited and no on-demand. If you fly out of Chennai, you have few Tamil and Hindi movies and some Hollywood. Since they are not on-demand, you need to decide the movie list based on their start and end times. If you are regular movie watcher, most of the times you will not find a content that interests you.

Then things started changing for better, thanks to few airlines like Singapore and Emirates, they really upped the ante when it came to in-flight entertainment. Not only you get on-demand videos and songs, airlines like Singapore and Emirates do provide a huge collection of movies from across the globe. It is so heartening to see them leaving the decision to viewer providing all kinds of content, uncut. As a guy who loves movies, I go after critically acclaimed movies, Spanish, and Korean movies, which don’t get released in India or you missed them. With no one to interrupt, I see them as opportunities to catch up on movies not just from my Watchlist, but also look for new gems. You hit upon enthralling psychological thriller like Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I live in, which will never see the light of day in India or Oscar nominated Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri or J.Q.Lee’s take on how many lives we lead in Intimate Strangers or Coen brothers’ thoroughly entertaining The Big Lebowski. Or Nelson Venkatesan’s view of marriage in Oru Naal Koothu. Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody that gives goosebumps or the uplifting Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex. If you get tired of watching serious movies, you can always switch to safe bet of watching old classics like Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf, Casablanca, The Bridge on River Kwai, or latest blockbusters. You can easily catch up with 8-10 movies in a roundtrip and still get a good sleep!!

I still don’t look forward to long-haul flights but on-demand IFE has helped to reduce the agony.

Official Trailer: Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Official Trailer: The Skin I live in

Official Trailer: Oru Naal Koothu