FAQ for
Flightplan (2005) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Flight Plan can be found here.

No. Flightplan is based on a screenplay by screenwriters Peter Dowling and Billy Ray.

It is not acknowledged as such, but the similarities are undeniable. In The Lady Vanishes (1938), an elderly passenger vanishes from the train while the heroine is sleeping and all other passengers later deny that they even saw her. In Flightplan, the daughter disappears from the plane while the mother sleeps, and again all the passengers and crew deny she was ever there. But even more identical in both is the plot device by which the heroine realises she is right and that something sinister is happening. In both movies, the elderly lady and the daughter write something on a steamy window, and it is later seen by the respective heroines and thereby sets them on their path to solve the mystery once and for all.

No. Although similar looking, the men in the window were not the men on the plane. The director's commentary on the DVD confirms this.

Kyle (Jodie Foster) and Julia (Marlene Lawston) went to the back of the airplane so that they could stretch out and sleep in the empty seats. When Kyle fell asleep, Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) and Stephanie (Kate Beahan) loaded Julia in a food cart and rolled her away without anyone noticing.

Toward the end of the movie, Carson admits that Kyle's husband was pushed off the building.

It was a direct flight between Germany and the United States, but when Carson made the captain (Sean Bean) believe that Kyle was a terrorist, they made an emergency landing in Newfoundland, Canada.

Another movie that features a mother looking for her missing daughter who no one seems to remember is Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), in which a mother arrives to pick up her daughter after her first day at school but there is no record of her. (There is a remake of Bunny Lake Is Missing due for release in 2012.) Two movies about sisters searching for brothers who vanished after they checked into posh hotels include So Long at the Fair (1950) and Midnight Warning (1932). If it's terror in the air that you like, you might enjoy watching Red Eye (2005), in which a woman discovers that she's been kidnapped by her seatmate, and Snakes on a Plane (2006), in which poisonous snakes escape their cages and roam about the airplane cabin.