Trailer
Plot summary
Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, friends since boyhood in Tennessee, once pretended to fly combat missions in Rafe's father's biplane. By 1941 the two are first lieutenants in the Army Air Force, serving under Jimmy Doolittle while the United States remains out of the war in Europe. Nurse Evelyn Johnson approves Rafe's medical exam despite his dyslexia, and the two begin seeing each other. Four weeks on, after a night of dancing and a borrowed police boat in New York Harbor, Rafe tells Evelyn he has joined the Eagle Squadron, an RAF unit of American volunteers, and will ship out for Britain the next day.
In these lists: Coming to Netflix in October 2026 (US)
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pearl Harbor (2001)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The two male leads' roles in the attack are analogous to the deeds of Army Air Forces Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies in P-40 Warhawks and together claimed six Japanese aircraft; Taylor called the film "a piece of trash... over-sensationalized and distorted."
- Disney premiered the film at Pearl Harbor itself, aboard an active nuclear aircraft carrier that made a six-day trip from San Diego to serve as "the world's largest and most expensive outdoor theater"; more than 2,000 people attended the premiere on the Stennis, and the party was estimated to have cost Disney $5 million.
- Michael Fassbender read for the part of Rafe and was sent a "really nice note" by Disney telling him he did not get it; Matt Damon was initially planned for Danny Walker but went with Ocean's Eleven, and Charlize Theron turned down Evelyn to star in Sweet November.
- Pearl Harbor was nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, and this marked the first occurrence of a Worst Picture-nominated film winning an Academy Award; it is also the only film directed by Bay to win one.
- Even at the reduced budget, Disney got many of the crew to defer some of their pay until the film grossed in the region of $140 million, including the director of photography, the editor, production designer and lighting director, along with Panavision, Technicolor and Industrial Light & Magic.
- Bay wanted to make an R-rated movie that graphically portrayed the horrors of war, but did not argue when Disney ordered a PG-13 film, feeling young children should be able to see it; as a compromise he was allowed an R-rated Director's Cut on DVD in 2002.
- In the film Jimmy Doolittle and the raiders launch from USS Hornet 624 miles off the Japanese coast after being spotted by a few Japanese patrol boats; in actuality they had to launch 650 miles off the coast, and after being spotted by only one patrol boat.
