When Tanya encourages her mother to quit her job as school principal and begin a new life with a husband, Nadezhda responds with a cold lecture on the importance of self-sacrifice and duty to the state, values she had when she had served in the military.

Nadezdha's brief, tantalizing memories of flight, in her Yakovlev Yak-9 fighter aircraft, tumbling through clouds, are interspersed with reality and the moments of dull monotony, such as her daily commute on the bus.

A visit to a local museum, where Nadezhda sees a photograph of a fellow pilot Mitya (Leonid Dyachkov), who later also became her lover during World War II, brings back memories of his final flight.

[1] Film critic Paul Schrader, as well as director Ben Wheatley, chose Wings as one of their top 10 favorite Criterion releases.

[6] Similarly, Senses of Cinema praised the film's "rich layers of meaning,"[7] DVD Verdict wrote that the "most astonishing thing about Wings is how young Shepitko was when she directed it.

On a whole, the film doesn't stand out in terms of its storytelling or cinematography, but as a sensitive human portrait, it truly is remarkable,"[8] and critic Dennis Schwartz called it a "brilliantly conceived work of art.

"[9] In Sight & Sound's 2012 surveys of the greatest films ever made, two critics (Sergio Grmek Germani and Erica Gregor) and two directors (Carol Morley and Vlado Škafar) voted for Wings.