Amelia is a 2009 biographical film about the aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. The film stars Hilary Swank as Earhart, and co-stars Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Joe Anderson. The film was directed by Mira Nair and based on The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell. The film received predominantly negative reviews, with critics polarized over the performances and criticizing the film's story. It was also a box-office bomb, grossing $19.6 million against a budget of $40 million.

Plot

On June 1, 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, start their attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Moving in vignettes from her early years when Earhart was captivated by an aircraft flying overhead on the Kansas prairie where she grew up, her life over the preceding decade gradually unfolds via flashbacks. In 1928, Earhart is recruited by charismatic publishing tycoon and adoring business partner George Putnam to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean, albeit as a passenger. Taking command of the flight results in success and she is thrust into the limelight as the most famous woman pilot of her time. Putnam helps Earhart write a book chronicling the flight, much like his earlier triumph with Charles Lindbergh's We. Earhart and Putnam eventually marry, although she enacts a "cruel" pledge as her wedding contract.