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Monday, July 20, 2009
What are the best space exploration movies?
With today being the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I think it’s an ideal time to list the best space exploration movies.
Please note that’s space exploration movies, NOT movies set in space. So Star Wars and Star Trek and its ilk do NOT count, nor do other movies about battling aliens. I’m talking about movies that are about either going from Earth to space, or exploring the deep reaches of space from earth to find out what’s out there.
Those who are interested in space exploration would be well advised to see Moon, which I caught yesterday at the Little Art Theatre. I’m still absorbing the movie, but it’s an engrossing little puzzler starring Sam Rockwell as a lone moon explorer who has a strange close encounter when he finds - himself. See it to find out what I mean.
Here are five of my favorites, in mostly alphabetical order. The list does not include documentaries.
Apollo 13: Everyone who knows their history knows how this ends, and yet it’s still incredibly suspenseful. Ron Howard’s best film to date.
Contact: Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of Carl Sagan’s novel posed some fascinating questions about belief and did so with extraordinary visual panache. Generally underrated, this was one of the best films of 1997.
Solaris: I can already hear people groaning about this one, but I flatly disagree with them. I thought this film starring George Clooney was an absolutely fascinating mind-bender about love and loss and what’s real and what’s not. Unlike a lot of folks, I like movies that don’t feed you all the answers and ask you to try to puzzle things out yourself. (For the record, I have not yet seen the 1972 original Russian film.)
2001: Well, since this is one of my 10 favorite films, I kind of have to put it on here. And it’s another great mind-bender too.
October Sky: OK, this one’s a bit of a cheat, since it’s not actually about space exploration, but it’s an entertaining and moving story about Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal), a rocket scientist without whom the space program would not have been possible.
You may be asking “Where’s The Right Stuff?” While I like that film a lot, I don’t like it quite as much as the ones I list here.
And here’s a question: How come a theatrical movie hasn’t been made about Apollo 11 yet? is the story too good?
Your turn - tell me your favorite space exploration movies.
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