Pearl Harbor is an Oscar-winning war film released in the summer of 2001 by Touchstone Pictures. It stars Ben Affleck, Josh Harnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Voight and Alec Baldwin. 
It was a dramatic re-imagining of the attack on Pearl Harbor, produced by the team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, who had previously directed summer mega-blockbusters such as Armageddon and The Rock.
The final section of the movie relates the Doolittle Raid, the first American attack on the Japanese home islands in World War II.
The movie begins on a Tennessee farm as two kids, Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) play in a pretend fighter plane they made, pretending to be shooting down German planes. As they are playing, Rafe's dad is out dusting the fields in his old cropduster.
When he lands and goes into his tractor, the two boys sneak into his plane and keep the pretend fight going. They accidentally start the plane and "fly" it down the runway, almost crashing it until it finally stops.
Danny's father (William Fichtner) comes out and starts screaming at them and smacking Danny. Rafe grabs a board and whacks the dad to stop the beating, protecting his best friend and calls him "dirty German".
Danny's father counters and explains to Rafe that he fought the Germans in World War I and wishes that he may never want to witness the horrors of war again, especially to Danny.
Just as Danny's father walk away, Danny thank Rafe for stoping him but ran towards his (miserable) father and accompanies him back home.
Later, Doolittle tells Rafe that he has been accepted to go to Britain and join Eagle Squadron, a squadron of volunteer American pilots serving with the Royal Air Force in the fight against the Germans.
It is strictly a volunteer assignment, and Doolittle tells him it's his duty to talk him out of it. Rafe asks Doolittle what he would do, and Doolittle says he would go, so Rafe agrees to go as well.
Prior to Rafe leaving, there is a big dance in New York, and many nurses are coming to the event.
Some of the nurses are traveling there by train, and one of them, Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale), is telling the other nurses how she first met Rafe while assessing his fitness to fly, and there she first agreed to go out with Rafe.
They have been going out now for four weeks and two days. At the dance, Rafe tells Evelyn that in the morning he is headed off to Europe. They have a tearful good-bye, and Rafe tells her not to come to the train station to see him off.
He goes to Europe, and Evelyn and Danny get transferred to Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese attack catches the U.S. fleet largely unaware, despite Admiral Kimmel having been informed of a Japanese midget submarine destroyed near the entrance to the harbor.
Much of the surprise came not from a lack of awareness of the planes, but a radar station dismissing the large number of contacts as a flight of B-17s.
A bomb dropped from a Kate bomber ruptures the forward part of the USS Arizona's ammunition magazine, literally splitting the ship in half and sending it to the bottom.
Evelyn (voiced by Kate Beckinsale) narrates the unforgettable events that America could not escape the war, as she claims that World War II for them began at Pearl Harbor. Soon, their nation grew stronger after the war than ever before.
The wreck of the USS Arizona on Pearl Harbor became the symbol of hardship and determination of America's victory in the war.
A few years later, Rafe, Evelyn and their son Danny, who is named in honor of Rafe's best friend, are playing in the backyard.
Then Rafe asks Danny if he would like to go flying, and an excited Danny points to the crop duster plane and, together, Rafe and little Danny fly off into the sunset.
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