Watch Spotting: Sylvester Stallone Wearing A Panerai Luminor 5218-201/a In 'Daylight' (1996) (2024)

Welcome to '90s Week, where we're revisiting the raddest (and most underrated) watches of the decade, plus the trends and innovations that defined the end of the 20th century. Plug in your dial-up modem and grab a Crystal Pepsi.We'll be here all week.

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Sly Stallone is a former Emergency Medical Services chief who was forced out when a colleague died on his watch. Now he's driving a taxi and wearing a Panerai Luminor 5218-201/a, 44 millimeters of glowing green testosterone strapped to the wrist with good old-fashioned leather and a good old-fashioned tang buckle. Meanwhile, a truck filled with toxic waste has exploded in a Manhattan tunnel, killing many and stranding others. Among the stranded are Amy Brennerman, who used to be on Judging Amy, Claire Bloom, who is Philip Roth's ex-wife, and Viggo Mortensen, who is hot. Sly and the Panerai must save them all.

Courtesy of Alamy Images

It's a v. '90s movie plot. Daylight shared the decade with other disaster movies, like Dante's Peak, Deep Blue Sea, Speed, and Speed 2. It was a simpler time, a time when an exploding truck, a volcano, or a runaway bus/boat were more dangerous than the earth itself. The Panerai Luminor 5218-201/a was a watch for these times. It was sturdy and handsome and thick, like its owner. It projected confidence in its ability to crush sh*t.

Stallone has said that he chose the watch for the film itself – that he bought it in Italy and "strapped it on my wrist the first day of filming and didn't take it off until the end of filming ... This watch is a star." Dissenting opinions say that the watches were product placement and that far from never taking the watch off, Stallone actually had several of them and rotated them throughout filming. Regardless, Phillips auctioned it off in 2020 for $214,200, accompanied by a letter from Stallone sticking to his story. I will not say who I believe, but I will say I do like this watch.

The HODINKEE Shop features a variety of pre-owned Panerai watches; explore the collection here. For more information about Panerai, visit their website.

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Luminor

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Daylight

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