Jet Pilot is a 1957 American Cold War romance film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring John Wayne and Janet Leigh. It was written and produced by Jules Furthman, and presented by Howard Hughes. Filming lasted more than eighteen months, beginning in 1949. The last day of shooting was in May 1953, but the Technicolor film was kept out of release by Hughes due to his tinkering until October 1957, by which time Hughes had sold RKO. Universal-International ended up distributing Jet Pilot. This was Hughes's last film work before his death of kidney failure on April 5, 1976.

The film went through several directorial changes, after Sternberg's work between October 1949 and February 1950. After that, Philip Cochran (supervisor of aerial sequences), Furthman, Edward Killy (unit production manager), Byron Haskin (for the model work), and Don Siegel also directed scenes (although Siegel's were not used), as did Howard Hughes himself. All were uncredited as directors or second unit directors.

Although Jet Pilot was publicized as showcasing the U.S. Air Force's latest jets, by the time it was finally shown, most of the aircraft in the film were obsolescent or obsolete, supplanted by more modern aircraft. In one aerial scene, the two lead characters fly a Lockheed F-94 Starfire to test a radar approach to intercept a propeller driven Convair B-36 bomber.

Jet Pilot was reportedly Howard Hughes's favorite film, one he watched repeatedly in his later years.

A Soviet Air Force jet lands on a U.S. Air Force air base in Alaska. The Air Force base commander, Colonel Jim Shannon is surprised to see that the pilot is a woman, Lieutenant Anna Marladovna, who asks for asylum, but refuses to disclose military information. Col. Shannon is assigned to seduce her to persuade her to talk, but falls in love with her in the process. Worried about the possibility of Anna's deportation, he marries her without permission.

When they return from their unauthorized honeymoon, Major General Black takes Jim aside and informs him that they have discovered that his new wife is a spy, sent to relay information back to the USSR. The Americans decide to play along, but to turn the situation to their advantage.

Jim goes home to tell Anna that she is to be imprisoned for years, and then deported when she is finally released. To save her, they hatch an escape plan, steal an aircraft, and fly to Soviet airspace. Their arrival is not shown, but Anna is criticized for having allowed Shannon to crash the more advanced American aircraft when Russian fighters closed in, rather than fighting back. She says that she considered shooting him, but decided that he would be more valuable for his knowledge than the plane would have been.

While they are there, Jim discovers that Anna is pregnant. He is then assigned to help test new aircraft, but it is a pretext for drugging him and pumping him for information about American aircraft. He learns much about Soviet capabilities from the questions he is asked, while only giving up outdated information in return. When Anna discovers this, and that he is secretly making notes, she pistol whips him about the head. She initially plans to turn him in, but she then learns he is to be exchanged for Soviet prisoners held by the US after being drugged to destroy his memory, which would include those of her. She disposes of the agent sent to keep an eye on her, and steals an aircraft, and the two of them escape back to the US.