Factual error: The radar guided SAMs are consistently evaded/triggered by the pilots' flares, which in reality only work against heat seeking missiles. Radar guided missiles would be defended against using chaff, basically clouds of aluminium foil strips. It was mentioned in some interviews they didn't want use chaff as it wouldn't really be visible for the audience - hence why they only deploy flares.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller
The team destroy the processing plant, but Maverick is shot down when he puts his plane in the path of a SAM destined for Rooster. Believing him killed, the team are ordered back to the carrier. Having ejected, Maverick is approached by a helicopter which fires on him, but just as the killing shot is lined up the chopper explodes, shot down by Rooster who returned against orders, who is himself then shot down and ejects to safety. They approach the nearby destroyed airbase and discover an intact F-14, manage to get it airborne amid the chaos, albeit destroying their front landing gear in the process, and start to fly back to the carrier.
Two enemy fighters approach them, not initially realising who the pilots are. Maverick uses the element of surprise to destroy one, and after a protracted low-level dogfight shoots down the other. En route to the carrier a third fighter appears - Maverick evades as best he can but with no flares and no ammunition left, and with the ejection handles not working, they both seem doomed until Hangman arrives in the nick of time and shoots down the fighter. They land/crash on the carrier, and celebrate their victory, with Maverick and Rooster clearing the air. We later see them both working on Maverick's P51 together before Penny appears, and she and Maverick fly off into the sunset together.
More mistakes in Top Gun: Maverick
Rear Admiral: The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is headed for extinction.
Maverick: Maybe so, sir. But not today.
Trivia: Despite long being one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, this was the first Tom Cruise film to earn more than $100 million at the domestic box office on its opening weekend. It also went on to become his highest grossing film, as well as his first film to gross $1 billion worldwide.
Question: If these were the best of the best, going on a mission crucial to world peace, why were they in aircraft that were outdated and outgunned? It mentioned several times they would never stand a chance against the dreaded "5th generation" enemy fighters. Why not use the F-35?
Answer: Just my observation, but I got the sense that the F-35 was too fast to make the adjustment to do the steep climb out, and as much as the plane needed to be fast, but it was more important it be capable to throttle lower enough to maneuver through the course, and make the climb...and that the F-35 could do one or the other...just my guess, but that's how I understood it from Maverick's initial analysis, from when he was called in to "Teach".
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Answer: The real-world answer is that F-35s only come in single-seat configuration, so there was no way to put the actors in one seat for filming while pilots flew the plane. It would also make for less of an "underdog" feel of going up against overwhelming odds. The in-universe answer is that F-18s are better suited for the kind of mission it is.