High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Aviator is a 2004 American biographical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by John Logan, produced by Graham King and Michael Mann and featuring an ensemble cast starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, John C. Reilly and Alec Baldwin. It is the true story of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, drawn largely upon numerous sources including a biography by Charles Higham. The film centers on Hughes` life from the late 1920s to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.